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Monday, September 17, 2012

On delusion, cynicism and madness

Have you had enough mendacity yet?


Barack Obama holds first cabinet meeting 4-20-09
Barack Obama holds first cabinet meeting 4-20-09 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Related source » Works and Days » Obama’s Middle East Delusions: 'via Blog this'
[This related source is recommended in its entirety.]

“Globalization certainly did not bring the premodern world of the Middle East closer together with the postmodern West — despite Barack Obama’s 2007 narcissistic vows that his own intellect and background could bridge such a gap. If anything, the more we know about each other, the more we sense we are back to Lepanto and the siege of Vienna. Since the 9/11 anniversary attacks, the Obama administration has seemed bewildered, petulant, and more or less shocked in Casablanca-style fashion about the hatred shown the United States — whether overt among the Arab Street, or implicit among Arab governments’ wink-and-nod inability to protect U.S. embassies. It apparently forgot some basic rules about how to deal with radical Islam, and instead regressed back to the old familiar appeasement that led to 9/11/2001. […] With the implosion of the Middle East comes the end of the mythic foreign policy of Barack Obama. Just as Russia was not reset and our enemies did not become friends, so, too, the fantasy that Barack Obama’s name, race, and lineage, when coupled with leftist politics, would win over our Middle East never arrived. All that failed — failed not just for America, but for the Nobel laureate himself. In that regard, Obama’s entire four-year project has failed: $5 trillion of borrowed stimulus did not jump-start the economy; only more federal debt and bankruptcy followed “solar and wind and millions of green jobs,” as vast new finds of oil and gas on public lands were ignored, while gas hit $4 a gallon. The problem for supporters of Obamacare is not to implement, but how to junk, this boondoggle without loss of face. Government Motors and the Volt went nowhere, and appointees like Eric Holder, Kathleen Sebelius, Timothy Geithner, and Janet Napolitano proved embarrassments. Now we are left with the Federal Reserve desperately printing money before the election. There was human frenzy in 2008 that entranced millions, and now we will be paying for the wages of that madness for quite some time.”
— Victor Davis Hanson, September 17, 2012 (pjmedia.com)


Another classic essay from one of the last few remaining sane Californians. Unless you are a committed (thus certified) Obama-bot, I urge you to read the entire essay.

One question about Hanson's essay does trouble me: Could it be that Hanson's implicit premise, that Obama and his minions are discomfited by recent developments in the Middle East, is wrong?! Perverse as that idea may seem, is it really beyond comprehension that Obama is actually pleased? Don't forget, he did promise to "fundamentally change the United States, as we know it". Is that not his goal, still?

Too cynical, you say? Well, perhaps it is; one would hope it is. And yet, in today's world, can there ever be too much cynicism? Can there even be enough of it?

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