White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, center (Image by Getty Images via @daylife)
Read related » The Great Divider — or “Elections Have Consequences”
[This related article is recommended in its entirety.]
“Somehow [Obama] assumed that his own godhead could lead us, kicking and screaming, to a socialist nirvana. When that did not happen, he serially blamed the bogeymen, then our ingratitude, then our stupidity, then tried to scare and divide us into accepting his agenda. So why are people angry? I’ll end with a brief list of nineteen months of examples in no particular order. […] I’ll stop there since we have another 27 months to go. Again, to evoke any one or two of these can be written off as partisan nit-picking; in toto they paint a picture of ideological zealotry determined to remake the U.S. abroad into a UN neutral and at home into something like Belgium or Sweden.”
— Victor Davis Hanson, October 26, 2010 (pajamasmedia.com)
Yeah. What he said.
- Why People Are Angry (Prof. Hanson's "brief list … of examples in no particular order"):
- A vast new health care monstrosity that will send private insurance rates through the ceiling.
- The Machiavellian way in which it was slammed through.
- Failed stimulus.
- Wasteful pork-barrel spending of hundreds of billions in borrowed money.
- Persistent near 10% unemployment.
- $3 trillion in new debt in just two years.
- Record levels of federal spending.
- The vast increase in the size of government and its share of GDP.
- Eight years of projected $1 trillion annual budget deficits.
- Record high foreclosures.
- Record high usage of food stamps.
- The Keynesian zeal of Romer/Summers/Orzag followed by their sudden resignations in the wake of failure.
- Constant talk of higher taxes on “them” — the promised new health care surcharge taxes, the promised return to the Clinton income tax rates, talk of a VAT, talk of lifting the caps on income subject to FICA taxes, new capital gains taxes, new inheritance taxes on the horizon.
- The use of extra-cabinet czars to avoid confirmation and audit.
- The neglect of the law, from reversing the order of Chrysler creditors to announcing a BP $20 billion shakedown and punishments for health insurers who don’t toe the line.
- The ascendance of ACORN and SEIU.
- The months-long shutdown of gulf drilling.
- The failure to encourage coal, nuclear, and oil and gas new production.
- The Black Panther voting intimidation mess.
- The bowing abroad.
- The apologies.
- The outreach to enemies, and the snubbing of allies.
- The unnecessary humiliation of Great Britain and Israel.
- The Iran serial “deadline” charade.
- The unnecessary announcement of Afghan troop withdrawal deadlines.
- “Overseas contingency operations” and “man-made disasters”.
- The proposed civilian trial of KSM.
- The Ground Zero Mosque mess.
- The beer summit mess.
- NASA’s new main mission of Muslim outreach.
- Stopping the border fence.
- Suing Arizona and demonizing the state.
- The apologies to the Chinese over Arizona, which was trashed from the White House lawn by the president of Mexico, and sued by foreign governments to the apparent approval of the administration.
- The constant “Bush did it” refrain.
- The gratuitous slurs against limb-lopping doctors, the thrashing of the “rich” going to the Super Bowl and Las Vegas.
- The artificial divide of them/us based on $250,000 of annual income.
- The racial divisiveness from a sad cast of characters that gave us “cowards”, “stupidly”, “wise Latina”, and whites polluting the ghetto.
- Unhinged appointees like Van Jones and Anita Dunn.
- The occasional unguarded admissions like “never waste a crisis” and “at some point I do think you’ve made enough money”.
- The wacky behavior from the whining of “like a dog”, to the sudden junketing to Copenhagen to lobby for the Chicago Olympics.
- The Orwellian cheap damning of the Bush anti-terrorism protocols only to accept or expand tribunals, renditions, Guantanamo, Predators, Iraq, and intercepts and wiretaps.
- The golf obsession and Costa del Sol while trashing the indulgent rich.
Post 1,461 Let me count the ways …
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