PrintApril 6, 2010
Tend to Your Seeds, Mr. President
The Washington Post's Robert Samuelson criticized ObamaCare in "Planting the Seeds of Disaster":
Should the United States someday suffer a budget crisis, it will be hard not to conclude that Obama and his allies sowed the seeds, because they ignored conspicuous warnings.
The President seemed to respond directly to Samuelson last Friday, ridiculing him in front of supporters in Portland, Maine:
Can you imagine if some of these reporters were working on a farm? You planted some seeds, and they came out the next day, and they looked, and nothing's happened! There's no crop! We're going to starve! Oh, no! It's a disaster!
Earlier in Iowa Obama made similarly sarcastic remarks, but this time he jeered at the straw men who thought that Obamacare would lead to immediate Armageddon:
After I signed the bill, I looked around to see if there were any asteroids falling, some cracks opening up in the earth. It turned out to be a nice day and birds were chirping, folks were strolling down the mall.
There are two essential questions here.
One: is ObamaCare good or bad? In terms of the seed metaphor, is it a seed of destruction or a seed that will bring forth nourishing crops?
Secondly, will the effects of ObamaCare be felt immediately, or gradually over the next decade?
None -- zero percent -- of Obamcare's critics think that all of its disastrous effects will appear instanteously. It's a preposterous idea that need not be part of the debate. Thus the seed metaphor: a seed takes time to germinate and grow.
Both of Obama's jibes however address only the second question. He mocks his critics for expecting both good seeds and seeds of destruction to grow overnight.
The spectacle of a sarcastic President is not a pretty sight. Unsubstantiated sarcasm is downright repugnant, transforming the leader of the free world into a mean-spirited twerp.
