Tuesday, May 26, 2009

An Emerging Picture

There is a picture beginning to emerge about the Obama administration and it's trickling out in the main stream press. Take the Commentary in Forbes Magazine that asks "Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?" In this piece, a retired Indian Intelligence Officer muses that "Jimmy Carter took a little over three years to create the image of the U.S. as a confused and soft power. Obama is bidding fair to create that image even in his first year in office." As one who suffered through the Carter years I shudder at such conclusions.

Then a couple of pieces in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye. I have never been a fan of South Park, but I do remember a friend of mine relating the "Underpants Gnomes" storyline with great amusement - Bret Stephens picks up the theme and draws the parallel : "In Gnome-speak, then, Mr. Obama's energy policy goes something like this: Phase One: Inaugurate the era of "green" energy. Phase Two: Overturn the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Phase Three: Carbon neutrality!"

Bill McGurn follows up with "Dick Cheney's Second Act," in which the author observes : "Think about that. Back in those heady days after the 2008 election, anyone who suggested that Mr. Obama might find himself playing defense to Dick Cheney on Guantanamo would have been hauled off as barking mad. Yet that's exactly what Mr. Cheney has pulled off, leaving a desperate White House to try to drown him out by adding an Obama speech the same day Mr. Cheney was slated to address the American Enterprise Institute."

The common themes - confusion, weakness, incoherence. We can only pray that the scales will continue to fall from the eyes of the "observer class," as they were so complicit in getting this lightweight elected. But this is progress.

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