Explaining Obama

Sept. 6, 2012

By John Seiler

I’m looking forward to President Obama’s acceptance speech tonight. I’m not a fan of his policies. But for all I pay for our Brobdingnagian Government, the least I can get is the entertainment of a well-delivered political speech by one of my tax-stuffed “servants.” Bill Clinton certainly delivered the goods last night. I expect the current White House occupant will as well.

What explains President Obama? A glowing USA Today profile, based on an interview with him aboard the president’s magic carpet, Air Force One, explained a lot.

On Mitt Romney’s complaints about the harshness of Obama campaign ads, the president giggled, “I would say that it’s a little ironic for a candidate who won the primaries telling his opponents not to whine, who just had a convention that was primarily devoted to going after me in ways that every media outlet has said bend the truth, and whose entire campaign has been built around assertions that don’t jibe with the facts — that he would want to spend most of his time talking about how tough we have been on him.”

Touche. You might remember how Romney ripped up Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and other GOP rivals.

‘Fair shot’

The topic came up of Obama saying to businessmen, “You didn’t build that.” The article didn’t provide his direct answer of the Republican attack on his statement.

But he did say how his speech tonight will be about how the country needs to “continue on a path that will lead us to a strong, secure middle class, robust economic growth, and a sense that our government is working on behalf of ordinary people to make sure everybody gets a fair shot, everybody is doing their fair share, and everybody is playing by the same set of rules.”

The president, away from the Telepromptr, has a tendency to string together phrases that don’t stick together syntactically. But here’s the key: “a sense that our government is working on behalf of ordinary people to make sure everybody gets a fair shot, everybody is doing their fair share, and everybody is playing by the same set of rules.”

Translation: Government is going to totally run everybody’s lives, all in the name of a “fair shot” and “fair share” and “the same set of rules.” It’s the government, and the government alone, that determines what is “fair” and how the “rules” are interpreted.

And if you don’t agree with what the government determines is “fair” and its interpretation of the “rules”? Then too bad. Then the government will take care of your business, your job, your family, your life. If you resist, then you can end up like the Branch Davidians, or spend the rest of your life in an orange jump suit at Leavenworth U.S. Penitentiary.

That’s certainly not the Old, Free America, where government only impartially enforced long agreed upon rules (in theory, anyway).

Fortunately, there’s good news. The amount owed by the federal government isn’t the $16 trillion debt mark just passed, which Republicans bring up to attack Obama.

The amount of unfunded liabilities — Social Security, Medicare, military pensions, federal-worker pensions, etc. — is $222 trillion. That’s with a “t.” There’s no way that can be paid off.

It’s like having a personal income of $70,000 and owing $1 million on your credit cards.

The federal government is bankrupt and soon will be downsized massively.

No matter who is president.

I can’t wait.