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PrintMay 6, 2011
Our Master of Deconstruction
The bin Laden raid is but the latest example of Obama's governance by deconstruction. By deconstruction, I‘m suggesting that its meaning has been leached out, in the manner of the dead-end school of literary criticism of the same name. What in other hands would have been a solid message of American resolve, competence and power, has become downright Derridan, fraught with multiple interpretations and contradictions, and rendered ultimately purposeless. With the Obama Administration's post-raid burlesque, every plausible meaning can be assigned to the raid, and all of them may be undercut, so it is now meaningless, regardless of the dedication and exertions of those who actually executed it.
The GM takeover deconstructed the rule of law and property rights. EPA co2 regulations and the continuing legal battle over drilling permits in the Gulf deconstructed the constitutional balance of powers. Humanitarian intervention under the auspices of international organizations deconstructed the conventional understanding of national interest. Passage of the Stimuli and ObamaCare deconstructed the legislative process and, accordingly, seriously undermined the public trust in that process. The result-- we are adrift, cut loose from our traditional understanding of the American canon, and subject to the wind and tide of what happens next and how Obama and his tame media need to interpret it to suit his purposes. And the opposition-we are suckered continually into commentary on twaddle.
Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that Obama now has most of us where he wants us, in effect, believing we are without chart or motive power, drifting off a lee shore? A polity subject to governance by deconstruction is less likely to be rallied in defense of principle, and more likely to respond to fear. Throwing over Obama and his gang in 2012 requires a people confident in our ability to do better. How much has Obama's policy of universal deconstruction sapped that confidence?
I dread the growing elite consensus that what Republicans need in 2012 is just a good manager, because that will just not be enough. We need an Anti-Deconstructionist who can restore meaning and purpose to our canon of constitutional government and individual liberty by demonstrating convincingly why and how it is the key to confronting the looming challenges.
"Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently-solid ground is no rock, but thin air." J. Hillis Miller
