PrintJanuary 4, 2009
The Obamabahn
During the recently completed presidential campaign, President-elect Barack Obama and his supporters have been flailing around trying to find the presidential identity to make the inexperienced Senator seem worthy of the Office.
The comparisons have ranged from Lincoln to FDR to JFK (Camelot). The latest comparison is to President Eisenhower.
The attempt is to compare President-elect Obama's proposed $1Trillion dollar "Green Infrastructure" stimulus package to Eisenhower's Federal Interstate Highway System.
This analogy ignores Eisenhower's previous job as "Supreme Allied Commander" during World War II. Ike had seen what a federal highway system could mean in military terms, the rapid deployment of men and materiel, as and where needed. That first federal highway system, the Autobahn, was built by Hitler and his National Socialist Government.
Ike modified Hitler's transportation strategy for the "Cold War" by designing into the American freeway system runways for heavy bombers. This is the use of actual experience to improve on an existing idea.
The long-term successes of President Eisenhower's Federal Interstate Highway System and the German National Socialist's creation of the Autobahn were successful in the long term because each facilitated and expedited trade, the movement of goods and services -- not because each project created short-term jobs.
President elect Obama's "Green Infrastructure" is not viable because most "Green Solutions" are not economically viable for one principle reason: energy density.
Energy density is the amount of energy stored in a given system or unit volume, or per unit mass, general expressed in BTU content. We are a fossil fuel economy because oil, gasoline, propane and natural gas are extremely energy dense and are easily distributed and converted to specific uses.
The laws of Physics and Thermodynamics are not repealable, even by messiahs.
The only "Renewable" Energy source that is viable in the technological near term is the "Breeder" Nuclear Reactor.
Given Obama's constituency, nuclear power will be the road not taken.
The road that will be traveled is the Obamabahn, the fast lane to Carterville.
The lesson that President-elect Obama should learn is actually from Clinton's Lewinsky Scandal:
A great economy will save your job, even if you didn't create that great economy.
