The Obama Dilemma

The more I ascertain about Democrat-superstar Barack Obama, the more I’m convinced of the danger he would pose to the United States, were he to be elected to the nation’s highest office. A rather brusque evaluation no doubt, but, as I intend to demonstrate in course of this brief overview, it is well merited. My concerns regarding Obama run deeper than his neophyte status as a Washington DC, Johnny-come-lately and his refusal to take seriously a host of post 9-11 realities. (Those who observed his performance in the last debate noticed the manner in which he responded to questions about national security, not with a well thought-out plan or aggressive strategy, but rather with slick talking-points, gleaned right from his campaign trail and web-site.) This factor alone should cause Democrats to demur over his claim to their Party’s nomination. But at another level, I am thoroughly convinced that, beneath the élan of the Kennedy-esque glamour and silver-tongued bromides espousing hope and unity, there lies a leftist radical, the likes of which we have not seen in American political history.

Over the years, I’ve become somewhat inured to the Socialist-lite patois of the Democratic Party. As vexing as their infatuation with tried-and-failed redistributionist policies may be, up until now, they have struggled mightily to summon forth a candidate who could fully conceal the ugly consequences of these policies, if implemented, let alone convince a majority of Americans that such policies would actually be worth a try in the first place. As a result, those Democrats who have succeed in the past, Bill Clinton immediately comes to mind, have been forced to attenuate the intensity of their devotion to their particular philosophy of governance. Hillary Clinton’s ignominious pratfall with healthcare reform in the early nineties was roundly rejected as impractical and wrongheaded and as president, Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law and memorably declared, “The era of big government is over.” Chastened Democrats have learned the hard way that a careful balancing act is obligatory if they are to stand any chance at winning back power.

Enter Barack Obama. His talent lies, not merely in his ability to distract people from the nebulous particulars of his vision with shimmering rhetoric, but further, to rely on these glossy platitudes to raise people’s expectations to such a level that they don’t really care about the means or ends. In a twist of irony, he presents himself as the paragon of a political messiah who transcends politics; a man who has come to redeem a troubled nation in dire need of salvation from the blunders of both parties. A former law-school colleague of Obama paints an accurate picture of his modus operandi and the potent impact he could have in America if elected president: “When I first heard Obama’s folksy brand of redistributionist liberalism, I knew he was someone who could make the most radical policy prescription seem reasonable…Obama’s vague message of hope speaks to the frustration and cynicism of today’s electorate, much of which will all too easily embrace him without really knowing or caring what he intends to do with the power he seeks.” We do know enough however, to know not to endorse him. Looking at his voting record and past statements, Obama’s status as an unabashed, far-left liberal is unquestionable. He may be able to dazzle with words but he can’t completely cloak his leftist sympathies from public scrutiny.

Obama operates almost exclusively in a rarified realm of carefully selected, soothing motifs that evade the inconvenience of being pigeonholed or cornered for further elaboration or dissection. His genius, or cunning, can be found in his capacity to hover safely above the messier world of particulars by abstracting vague generalities from those concrete realities. Responding to the Virginia Tech massacre, Obama briefly commented on the shootings as the work of “a madman at some level.” But instead of further elaboration on the event, Obama, as if on cue, took off and cautioned Americans to be on the look out for “other forms of violence” like the “verbal violence” on the Don Imus show. That “verbal violence” is an extremely expansive nomenclature, capable of being subject to any number of interpretations and applied to many varying circumstances, goes without saying. But it was more than a little shrewd for Obama to ever so delicately link the terrible massacre of so many students with the foolish talk of an irrelevant radio bombast like Imus.

Further, Obama has forcefully called for universal health-care, a palliative, even counter-productive measure, characteristic of the socialist-induced nations of Europe and, of course, Canada. What would be the inevitable consequences of this misguided policy if sanctioned in the United States? Quality would surely plummet, resulting from the elimination of private-sector competition, patients would be forced to wait months for life-saving exams and treatments, medical innovation and progress would be severely stunted, due to price and profit controls, and, since costly medical equipment doesn’t grow on trees, taxes would rise continuously to fund the interminable demands of the medical field, and so on. Such consequences are not hypotheticals or esoteric speculations, they are hard facts of life. We see the endless stream of Canadians, for instance, who flock to the US for treatment because of endless waiting lists back home. Quite often, receiving prompt medical attention literally means the difference between life and death. Canada’s patients aren’t the only ones heading south. As a result of its system of socialized health-care, Canada has suffered from an exodus of talented doctors as well, who, realizing the potential for better profits in the states, pack their bags. And who can blame them? Good intentions do not a sound policy make. It would be an amusing spectacle to see Obama pressed hard to explain exactly how he would pay for this costly program. I’m not holding my breath for this moment, but I can dream. We are swooned by his words and rendered helpless, so Obama gets a pass on providing the particulars. He gains ample mileage by strumming away on the cords of good intentions and the public’s emotions, mistakenly believing that the resulting noise will necessarily translate into good music.

During a recent speech on the campaign trail, Obama lambasted the current administration for spending billions on two wars and, comparatively speaking, a mere pittance on fighting the nation’s poverty. “Why is it that we can find the money in a second for a war that doesn't make any sense, but we can't find the money to take out the bullet of poverty in this country and stitch up our community so every child has a chance at a decent life?” Again, he took the easy route, falling back on his knack for utilizing colorful language to beguile his audience, yet coming up short in the arena of providing specifics. By advancing the novel concept that protecting the nation from militant fanatics, hell-bent on our destruction, ought to play second fiddle to misplaced notions of social justice and egalitarianism, Obama revealed the audacity of his mixed-up understanding of executive branch responsibilities. In the course of his raving cant against the Bush Administration’s alleged moral shortcomings, he failed to mention that, over the course of decades, the United States government has outspent its military ventures by far in its quest to end poverty. He conveniently overlooked the fact that the government has spent billions upon billions to redress the poverty problem. From the Great Society to the War on Poverty, Democrat have poured buckets of taxpayer dollars into faulty programs that have abrogated the responsibilities of the individual to the state, thus perpetuating and magnifying the problems faced by the poor and, in the process, creating a permanent victim class in American society, wholly dependant on government beneficence.

America needs to start asking Sen. Obama some tough questions. And this review has only skimmed the surface. It is unlikely that the coquette between the media and the charming Illinois senator will ever end and consequently, it is even more unlikely that they will ever instigate the serious questioning. Americans can take matters into their own hands by confronting Obama with relentless demands for specifics. We’ve had enough of the slogans. His status as an intriguing pop-cultural figure has run its course. He has thus far only been presented as a fresh alternative to the dry status quo of Washington politics. But in truth, his philosophy for government and vision for the future is nothing but a botoxed, repackaged version of the same failed, liberal policies of the past. There’s nothing new under the sun with Barack Obama’s message of hope.