PrintOctober 29, 2010
Thank You, Lord Barack, for the Great Awakening
It is time to thank Barack Obama -- or Lord Barack, as our media elites might prefer, having declared him a "sort of God." He said memorably in April that the Tea Partiers "should be saying thank you" for the great job he's been doing. And now, as Election Day approaches, vast swathes of the country are ready to give him the acknowledgment he seeks. Thank you, Mr. President, for giving back our country.
Now, it certainly is not what he had in mind. His point, of course, was that the Tea Party, instead of protesting, should be grateful for the transformation he has been bringing about. He has been vocal about an ungrateful electorate that doesn't understand the magnitude of his accomplishments. Instead, we disappoint, suffering from what Charles Krauthammer calls "Obama Underappreciation Syndrome."
The ungrateful masses look at what Obama hath wrought and see a federal government taking over their lives, debt biblically extending to "our children's children," and a ruling class that lives large while taxpayers now spend a quarter of their lives working to pay for its excesses. Taxpayers are footing the bill for unprecedented self-indulgence, prompting one American Thinker blogger to comment on the arrangements for the Obama's post-election jaunt to India: "Suleiman the Magnificent would have been embarrassed by the luxury Mr. and Mrs. B.O. intend for themselves." The inimitable James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal called him "the America Nero," acting more like an "emperor" than a president.
Even the reliably obtuse traditional media, which are to insight what Bill Clinton is to feminism, can see the staggering "elitism and condescension" in which Washington is awash. Barack Obama has put his stamp upon Washington. Even Peggy Noonan, peeking out from behind Woody Allen's mansion on Manhattan's Upper West Side, has noticed that he has brought us a United States of "status quo, Washington, [and] leftism."
P.J. O'Rourke sees an Obama States of America as Detroit-writ-large, with the president extending the life previously reserved by Democrats for their core constituencies to the average American. The humorist says the president is creating a nation of "vile schools, lawless slums, economic stagnation, and social immobility." Thomas Lifson described this as "progressive feudalism," condemning the average American to a grim subsistence with "more and more of our lives ... regulated by government bureaucrats setting rules and regulations and licensing people."
However, gratitude is what the president wants, and gratitude is what he will get on Tuesday. Barack Obama, through a unique blend of excess and incompetence, has authored a new Great Awakening, that eighteenth-century religious revival that unified American Christians in a common understanding of religion and faith. In the Obama Great Awakening, Americans are rediscovering the truths that progressivism has labored to erase. So thank you, Barack Obama, for helping to unite a nation around truths that include:
1. Smart people ain't so smart. Obama has assembled a collection of bureaucrats who -- their walls papered with advanced degrees -- are hailed, in the words of New York Times Obamaphile David Brooks, as an "educated class" born to lead. But the nation is about to say thanks, for this collection of brainiacs has ruined everything it has touched. Yes, the head of the Obama energy department is a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who can theorize like nobody's business. But ask him to put boats on the Gulf to clean up the oil and he will appoint a panel of academics to study the carbon footprint of the marine diesel engine -- forget the boats, leave the oil, and cut me a piece of that green energy pie-in-the-sky. Meanwhile, even the president's own oil spill commission "blasted" what one progressive historian called "the smartest guy ever to become president" for his inept response to the spill.
Health care, anyone? Harvard policymakers created a blueprint for a medical future that is already delivering "high costs, red tape," and a dramatically expanded bureaucracy. Guided by Obama and a Democrat Congress, the best and brightest, envision the ideal big-city emergency room of the future as a service staffed by a doctor, a nurse, 180 administrators, and 499 physician assistants hired and trained by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
2. Dumb people ain't so dumb. Thank you, Barack Obama -- results matter. Teleprompters and professional politicians are out; real people with real lives are in. Sarah Palin is dumb, Sharron Angle is stupid, and Rand Paul isn't even smart enough to give a god a proper name (I mean, "Aqua Buddha"? C'mon -- makes you long for the good ol' days of Zeus, Apollo, and Ted, the last a progressive god who just made the journey down the River Styx). But Investor's Business Daily praised Palin for the Tea Party revolution, even the Washington Post says Angle in Nevada is poised to take down the most powerful Democrat in the U.S. Senate, and Aqua Buddha will soon join John Kerry in that Mount Olympus of privilege, the U.S. Senate. Tea Party dumb -- just what the country needs.
3. Mainstream media are out of touch and untrustworthy. Katie Couric of CBS News just embarked on a tour of what she terms "this great unwashed middle of the country" to "divine the mood" of the voters. Huh? Drudge sums up the coming Republican victory as "Gallup Sees Tidal Wave," American Thinker sees a "Republican Renaissance," Real Clear Politics says early voting suggests a "Republican wave," and the news anchor of a major broadcast network is trying to figure out the mood of the country by talking with smelly people outside of Manhattan? Small wonder trust in what Sarah Palin calls "Lamestream Media" continues to hit new lows.
4. The founders were smart. Educators tell us our colonial founders were a bunch of privileged white guys who oppressed natives, savaged the earth, and then parked their yachts in Rhode Island. Think 56 John Kerrrys in drag, all white wigs and ruffled sleeves and tights. But we have now rediscovered that the U.S. Constitution is the best guarantee we have for freedom and prosperity and, combined with the Declaration of Independence, a vital blueprint for individual and corporate success. Send legislators to Washington who "think the Constitution is wrong" -- as one Democrat opined -- and liberty and prosperity suffer.
5. Speaking of education: the rot is deep. It will take decades to turn this around. If the U.S. Department of Education were to vanish tomorrow, the immediate effect would be a major hit to the profits of trendy Beltway bars. But the education establishment would remain, the same one putting our money behind programs to train students for "global citizenship" rather than reading, writing, and math. And the same one that has come to Washington to create the programs which two-thirds of the country say have put us on the "wrong track," according to Rasmussen.
On Election Day, Barack Obama will get the gratitude he deserves.
Stuart Schwartz, formerly a media and retail executive, is Professor of Communication at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
