PrintFebruary 24, 2010
What Do You Expect with Obama?
It's funny how the media almost always use the word "unexpectedly" whenever they report this country's state of affairs under the Obama administration. The now-familiar caption tends to run like this: Applications for job insurance claims rose "unexpectedly" on the month of such-and-such. Or: Stocks dropped "unexpectedly" amidst news of unemployment increase. As if people still think that the rise in unemployment, the lack of consumer confidence, the erratic market plunges, and virtually every other problem we are facing as a country have nothing to do with the novel socioeconomic policies that President Obama has adopted, and even if they do, then the people are stunned at the unanticipated consequences the latter have yielded.
The truth is that there's nothing unexpected about the continued deterioration of the U.S. economy, the decline of our global standing as a country, and the impending defeat and demoralization of our armed forces fighting overseas, to name a few, as long as Obama and a democratic majority in Congress remain in power.
It is to be expected that if you raise taxes on small businesses, increase the federal deficit to the tune of trillions of dollars, surreptitiously incite class warfare by using the wealthy as a scapegoat for an economy that is in shambles, and continue to propose stimulus packages glutted with pork initiatives, then the economy will continue to spiral downward. It is to be expected that if you are not an effective Commander in Chief, then every war this country is engaged in will likely end in a painful and protracted surrender. It is to be expected that if as a leader you do not feel the slightest sense of patriotism and continue to naïvely cater to foreign despots, then you will eventually contribute to the weakening of your country's moral standing around the globe and invite the scorn and hatred of those who want to destroy it.
Thus one should expect the recession to get worse, the war in Afghanistan to remain a drawn-out conflict that will eventually end in utter failure, and Congress to lead us further into debt and continue to push for more pork-laden stimulus packages to (as a high-ranking member of the Obama administration recently put it) spend our way out of this recession. And above all, we can also expect Obama to continue to blame the previous administration for his unceasing blunders.
If there is one thing that those who warned that an Obama presidency would spell disaster always knew, it is that every one of the consequences we are now experiencing were fully expected. The only thing that many of them did not expect was that a sizable majority of the American public would be charmed enough by his now-fading charisma to actually put him in power. This is mainly because most people had free access to his previous track record, and they should have known that if he ever came into power, we would inevitably be faced with the predicament we now find ourselves in.
The news captions should actually read: Ill-advised Obama policies bring about fully expected results. And the only time the news media should be using the word "unexpectedly" is when Obama suddenly starts to operate in a manner contrary to his deeply ingrained socialist principles.
Should Obama suddenly decide to grant significant tax relief to small businesses, then the media can rightly claim that the move was wholly unexpected. If, unconstrained, he decides to reveal that his personal conviction has always been that the unborn child inside a woman's womb is actually a human being, then it would be quite appropriate for the media to act very surprised. If he publicly declares that he has never seriously believed that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and that most of his religious talk was mere posturing for deluded evangelicals who actually thought he was telling the truth, then the shock from the media at such a startling revelation should be very pronounced. The same response would be appropriate if Obama announced that the term Islamic fascist is a fitting label for terrorists currently waging a global war against the United States, or if he chose to expose his unprincipled dalliances with the legion of disreputable organizations and nefarious characters who supported him in his run for the presidency.
Who can deny that any such developments would for once represent a highly "unexpected" bit of good news?
For now the media should stop acting like they're married to John Edwards and quit playing games about how surprised they all are at what Obama is doing, and what is happening to the country as a consequence.
As for the rest of us, the time has long passed to act upon what we knew would be the outcome of making the wrong choices. Now all that is left is to try our best to make sure that we are still a viable republic when the next election cycle comes around. After surveying the irreparable damage this president and his congressional majority have inflicted upon our country in only four years, I hope that as true patriots, we will all do what should be expected of us.
