OPINION

Tea Cup Poodles for Obama

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Last week amid the sound and fury of the Wisconsin recall there was an item that went relatively unheralded except for a new few mentions on the web: namely the GOP criticism of the sitting president’s chummy relationship with America’s glitterati. The RNC has a video on YouTube entitled “Meanwhile” which lists the nation’s unemployment numbers beneath images from the now famous Obama campaign video in which one can win dinner with the president. 

The intent of the video is clear: the president is out of touch with the country when it comes to the plight of average Americans, and prefers sit at the cool kid’s table in the national lunchroom.  It is my hope that the Democrats shrug this video off in the same fashion that they have pooh-poohed the Walker victory. I for one, think it is fantastic that the president eschews the common man for the upper echelon of society, and I hope he continues to do it. The loner he continues to do that, the more the average American will see that the president does not know, nor does he care to know who the average American is.

Most Americans will never lead the lifestyle highlighted by Vogue, and pretty as the teacup poodles that make up the celebrity scene may be, they have no clue what the average American is coping with, and further, they actually believe that the average American cares what they have to say on any given issue. And while the party in power rightly assumes that posing with celebs makes a good photo op it wrongly assumes that said posing will carry water with the American people.

The farther out this administration gets, the easier it is for Americans to see just what kind of Faustian bargain they made for themselves in 2008. And dinner with the president is not going to mollify them.

Most Americans are sick of the overspending and overreach of government in general, that has become the hallmark of this administration and 21st Century America. The Walker election is one example of government fatigue.

Another is the recent Rasmussen Poll that shows one quarter of Americans feel that the states have a right to secede from the Union. While the majority of Americans do not think that right exists, the poll indicates that Americans are becoming aware of something I mentioned many columns ago. Government intervention is not an issue, as long as it is intervening in someone else’s life. Ditto higher taxes so long as it someone richer than you getting the bill. But sooner or later, it is your life that the government seeks to regulate, and your money that the government wants to grab. And as the precedent set by the federal government begins to trickle down to the state and municipal level, people finally starting to see which way the compass is pointed.

To wit: Los Angeles recently decided to ban plastic bags. Now, plastic straws are apparently next on the hit list. (Funny, isn’t it how all of these people who claim to love the earth so much can’t be bothered to go out and recycle all of this plastic themselves, they just want to encroach on the lives of others.) Miami has announced that in just over a year, fines will be imposed on residents who fail to recycle. Fines mind you, of up to $2500. Some municipalities are even resorting to placing electronic chips in recycling bins to ensnare people who are not recycling enough. In fact in Cleveland a trash inspector will come to the home of someone who does not bring their recycling bin to the curb for three weeks to rummage through the offender’s garbage to see if it is being sorted correctly.

Mix that with the Attorney General telling Congress with a straight face that emails labeled “Fast and Furious” had nothing to do with the operation of the same name, and trying to convince us all that anyone who favors voter ID is a fan of Jim Crow laws; add a dash of unemployment figures for which the administration blames everyone but itself, most recently Congress; fold in a pinch of high gas prices and mix generously with subsidies to a failing green energy and bake under a compact light bulb and you get an decidedly unsavory casserole. Oddly that is one dish that will probably be endorsed by HHS. Serve with a side of healthcare reform that the majority of Americans don’t want, but may be forced to swallow anyway, and garnish with ever increasing EPA regulations.

The Rasmussen Poll is interesting mostly because it indicates that the number of people who believe that a state’s right to secede is growing. And at the two biggest issues at the core of those people’s concern are that the government is spending too much and reaching too far. The failed Walker recall is only one symptom of a much bigger issue. It is an issue that the Left refuses to acknowledge.

Is it any wonder that the President Obama positions himself among the media elite? Hollywood, the center of make-believe is getting to be the only place where this administration has any credibility.