Riddle me this: How can anyone take Obama seriously when he says he will focus on the deficit in the next two years, seeing as his economic and social philosophies dictate that he continue to spend our money like a drunken floozy?
With Obama so intent on punishing "the wealthy," producers, and small businesses even at the expense of hurting everyone else (for example, with his insistence on increasing capital gains tax rates despite acknowledging it would decrease revenues), nationalizing health care despite its now-proven severe fiscal shortfalls, handing out $50 billion more in stimulus money though the first $868 billion was a bust, and continuing his planned trillion-dollar-plus deficits as far as the eye can see, how can anyone believe he's interested in reducing the deficit and national debt?
Yet The Associated Press began a recent story with this lead: "Preparing for political life after a bruising election, President Barack Obama will put greater emphasis on fiscal discipline."
Duh! How could he put less emphasis on it than he already has? But we must read on to find out why the AP believes he will give "fiscal discipline" more emphasis. Answer: It will be "a nod to a nation sick of spending and to a Congress poised to become more Republican, conservative and determined to stop him."
In other words, because he will be forced to, not because he wants to or believes in it. Isn't this a tacit admission that even Obama's deficit commission is a sham designed to give him political cover? The commission's report will be coming out soon, and it will give him an opportunity to seize the deficit issue, as if he's been agonizing over it the whole time and approaching the issue deliberately by seeking the counsel of a "bipartisan" group of experts.
We mustn't be fooled by any of this. We've already heard Obama's defiant words on the subject in clearly refusing to accept responsibility for the deficits, the debt and the miserable state of the economy, for which Dubya will always be to blame, even if things are 10 times worse than when Dubya turned over the gavel to "O."
In fact, he barely acknowledges there's a problem, other than the public's failure to possess the sophistication and presence of mind to appreciate his superior prescriptions. Obama's take is that despite tough economic times, let alone the exploding debt, things would have been much worse if he hadn't implemented his bankrupting agenda.
And he's sticking to his story -- just as he's sticking to his lies about Obamacare's being deficit-neutral and not interfering with people's choice of doctors and insurers as evidence floods in contradicting both of these whoppers and many others.
So, if Obama does appear to pivot abruptly following the elections, are we going to be foolish enough to believe he has had an epiphany about the failures and recklessness of his Keynesian exploits when he just got through saying the problem is not with the economy, but in our perception?
Let's not forget that Obama possesses a political perspective that utterly rejects the reality that command-control economic experiments fail to produce wealth but instead spread misery every time they are tried. Be honest; can you imagine Obama or his fellow travelers nodding their heads in agreement to this gem of wisdom from Sir Winston Churchill, whose bust Obama drop-kicked back to Britain: "Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery"?
If Democrats were truly planning on changing course, why would they be conspiratorially alleging -- falsely -- that if Republicans win big in the congressional elections, it will be because they "bought their way to power with a flood of spending by outside groups," as suggested by Politico?
Politico says that what began as Obama's strategy to rally his base with allegations about foreign donations through the Chamber of Commerce and the like has now "morphed" into "a main talking point to explain -- and fend off the recriminations over -- what many Washington Democrats assume will be a brutal election night."
That doesn't sound as if they've learned their (economic) lesson. It's all about politics and how they can spin their inevitable losses.
It's not hard to anticipate Obama's mindset following next week's rout. We don't know exactly how he'll play it politically, but what we do know is that he won't change his extreme leftist ideology.
Republicans would be well-advised to keep that in mind if Obama pretends to hit the reset button on "bipartisanship." They mustn't fall for it and must not be deterred from reinstating the people's will.