Way to fucking go, impatient Metrocast service van driver #87, who just blew past us at 15 over, on a double yellow, in the rain, approaching a blind curve on a twisty, hilly two-lane road through the woods with lousy sightlines. Care to take a guess at WHY that entire stretch of road is double yellow?
November 17th, 2010
Walter Russell Mead, writing for The American Interest, has a column about Obama's fall from grace, and the embarrassing failure of such realities as the economic crash to obediently succumb to his rhetoric and demagoguery. It's not a bad column, if you ignore the bit where, after he lambasts the Left up at the start of his article for "mistaking hopes and fantasies for reality" and going all starry-eyed over promises of hope and change, he then falls into the exact same trap himself in the last few paragraphs of the column. (As pointed out several times in the comments. Don't miss the comments.)
To be fair, no, I don't want the President of the United States to fail, either. But that's because I want the President to be competent and effective, a statesman and a representative of this nation. But Barack Obama is an arrogant, narcissistic, incompetent bumbler with no executive skills (and apparently few if any diplomatic ones, either), and if he fails while in the office of the Presidency, well, that's very sad for the Presidency, but if he fails, he fails; and honestly, the blame for failure lies squarely at his own feet and the feet of those who elected a man to the Presidency essentially on the basis of idol-worship and empty campaign promises.
Mead says Obama has "had some painful and public lessons", and is "beyond a doubt [...] smarter, tougher, and more experienced now than he was two years ago." No, I don't believe he is. On the contrary, I think he's still firmly convinced of his own infallibility, and baffled at reality's failure to meekly conform to his master plan.
"We must all hope he succeeds", says Mead.
No. We must all hope that this time, the vast, complacent American public wakes up and stops blindly believing campaign promises of milk and honey in the Promised Land.
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