President Obama is excessively fond of defining "who we are as a nation," which is interesting coming from someone whose campaign was based on bringing sweeping and profound changes to the country. He has resorted to this formulation when urging government-controlled, universal health care. He has used it to explain his (reasonable) decision not to release photos of the dead bin Laden. He used it when supposedly rebutting the argument that we should "tear apart families" by deporting 12 million illegal aliens (a straw man since no leading American has proposed such a thing). He has invoked "who we are as a nation" to justify vast new stimulus spending and higher taxes on the rich. It's pretty well guaranteed that when this president invokes WWAAAN he has once again mounted his high horse, chin tilted up.
Speaking at the Human Rights Campaign meeting, the president was at it again, defining the upcoming election as a "fundamental debate about who we are as a nation."
Apparently, there are forces loose in the land who want "a small America, where we let our roads crumble, we let our schools fall apart, where we stand by while teachers are laid off and science labs are shut down, and kids are dropping out."
The president doesn't want a small America.
"We don't believe in a small America, where we meet our fiscal responsibilities by abdicating every other responsibility we have, and where we just divvy up the government as tax breaks for those who need them the least, where we abandon the commitment we've made to seniors though Medicare and Social Security, and we say to somebody looking for work, or a student who needs a college loan, or a middle-class family with a child who's disabled, that 'You're on your own.' That's not who we are," remarked the president.
Well, that's not who anybody is. But what this cartoonish slur on Republicans and conservatives does reflect is what President Obama has become -- a liberal demagogue.
The president is opposed to meeting our "fiscal responsibilities" by "abdicating every other responsibility we have." But what is his plan to meet those responsibilities? The president doesn't say. He never has. Not when he submitted his budget in February. Not when the Simpson-Bowles commission submitted its report. Not when he promised a deficit speech in April (but actually delivered a slashing political attack on Rep. Paul Ryan's budget). He acknowledges that the deficits the government has amassed "threaten our future." And what is his response to this crisis -- the most profound we have faced in generations? Another unserious call to make "the wealthiest Americans -- including the biggest corporations" pay their "fair share."
This is complete drivel, and the president knows it. As the Wall Street Journal calculated, even if the IRS were to confiscate the wealth of every "millionaire and billionaire" in America, the yield would be $938 billion -- only 85 percent of the budget deficit projected for the year 2012 alone. And of course, even Robin Hussein Hood himself is only suggesting increasing the tax rate for the "wealthy," not confiscating everything (though admittedly he does define "rich" as including those who make $200,000).
The president is perfectly aware that reducing government spending is the principal way to escape national insolvency. But he will not say so because that would be courageous, statesmanlike and honest. And that's not, if you will, who he is.
No, he is the cheap manipulator of his audience's emotions. "We don't believe," he told the Human Rights Campaign, "in the kind of smallness that says it's OK for a stage full of political leaders -- one of whom could end up being the President of the United States -- being silent when an American soldier is booed."
Watch the tape. There were a reported 6,000 people in that audience and two, possibly three louts booed repeal of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy (not the soldier). It was, as several of the candidates said later, an unfortunate and boorish moment. But to suggest that the audience booed the gay soldier is to libel the audience. And to assert that the candidates, by failing to condemn the hecklers, were somehow complicit is simply a smear tactic.
Whenever the president is in one of his preachy moods, which is often, he tells us that "who we are as a nation" is generous and tolerant, and inclusive and fair. If only he would consider adopting some of those traits himself.
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