Most everyone with a pulse knows that politicians are prone to hyperbole, especially in today’s political environment, where sound bites count as policy statements and most mainstream reporters sop them up as gospel without so much as a second glance.
But just every so often a politician utters something so ridiculous and hypocritical that it makes even the most seasoned cynic recoil.
This week’s winner is none other than President Barack Obama.
Last week he you may recall he waxed indignant after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 partisan ruling, overturned a century-old law which placed limits on what corporations and labor unions can spend on the endorsement of political candidates. The court ruled that the financial limits amounted to limits on the First Amendment’s free speech clause.
He railed against the ruling on its face, saying he couldn't "think of anything more devastating to the public interest."
“This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy,” he further complained during his weekly Saturday radio address, adding: “The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections.”
Forget for a moment that Obama, last August, managed to win the “support” – read, paid political advocacy – of the special interests of Big Pharmacy, the AARP, the American Medical Association and the large Services Employees International Union, all of which ponied up a combined $150 million to produce ads supporting his health care plan – a plan the majority of Americans now oppose.
Obama went on to say he has instructed his administration to work with Congress to "fight for the American people" and develop a "forceful bipartisan response" to the high court’s decision. "It will be a priority for us until we repair the damage that has been done.”
Let’s talk about Supreme Court-induced “damage” for a moment.
If the president wanted a serious dialogue on the subject of “damage” done to our society by a Supreme Court decision, he needn’t look any further than the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.
Since the high court, in its wisdom, issued that ruling – overturning abortion bans in all 50 states at the time – some 50 million children have lost the opportunity to have a full, productive life, according to Centers for Disease Control statistics.
Fifty million, Mr. President. I’d say the untimely deaths of so many American children has caused incalculable damage to our society. Then again, as a state senator in Illinois, the would-be president also voted against even partial birth abortion legislation.
So maybe his idea of what is and is not truly "damaging" to our society shouldn't surprise us. Still, let's consider the implications of what abortion has cost us in real, human terms so far.
We don't know, for example, if we’ve already killed the person who could have solved our long-term energy needs.
We don’t know if we’ve killed the person who would have invented an AIDS cure.
We don’t know if we’ve killed the person who could have cured cancer or diabetes.
We don’t know if we’ve killed the person who would have had the leadership qualities to end conflict as we know it.
We don’t know if we’ve already killed the person who could have finally healed the divisive race issues in our country.
We don’t know. And we’ll never know. But the odds are that we have likely killed a number of individuals who could have made substantial positive contributions to our society and to our world.
Talk about a Supreme Court decision that caused real “damage” to our country.
It’s too bad our president doesn’t see it that way. But then, what does he have to worry about?
His mother chose life.
And he became the first black president in the history of our country.
Imagine if she hadn’t.
-30-
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Wanted in Washington: Leadership
What is Washingtonspeak for "putting off a problem"?
Appointing a task force.
The Obama administration has just played this well-worn political hand, allegedly to "solve our long term fiscal challenge" and get the spiraling budget deficit under some semblance of control.
The American people can be forgiven if they are not doing cartwheels and declaring an end to budget deficits in our time, for they have seen this show before.
They know, for instance, that no "panel" or "task force" is needed to understand one of the most basic of accounting principles - that in order to maintain financial solvency, you can't spend more than you take in.
They also suspect, correctly, that the strategy for fixing the nation's budget crisis is as simple as it is impossible.
Simple, because only a combination of equally shared taxes and dramatic spending cuts are going to be necessary in order to bring the budget back under control.
Impossible, because they also understand that the largest slices of the federal budget consist of "fourth rail" entitlements that amount to political suicide for any politician who dares suggest curtailing program benefits or, egads, replacing the government entitlement with a free-market solution.
The people are convinced that their congressional representives are addicted to power instead of focused on genuine problem-solving, so they don't expect any serious effort to be made to curb the out-of-control growth of the federal budget, the president's new "task force" proposal notwithstanding.
Worse, Americans see an administration and congressional majority that, in the midst of our second-worst financial crisis ever, wants to spend even more debt-ridden money by creating a huge new healthcare entitlement bureaucracy, in spite of majority opposition among the people.
They view the president's "new commitment" to "fiscal responsibility" as nothing more than a stereotypical political delaying tactic meant only to carry his party through the next election cycle without shedding too much of its own blood.
And they see nothing in Congress' behavior over the past generation to convince them otherwise.
Americans believe they are about to be treated to another round of political theater, which would play out something like this: Sometime next year after the fall elections, this task force will indeed produce a set of "recommendations" to reduce the federal budget, but none of them - or, at least, none that make the most sense or would produce tangible, positive results - will be enacted. Rather, the entire process will degenerate into political finger-pointing, with one party blaming the other as being"obstructionist," while the other blames the former for being "too partisan."
And in the end, of course, the federal budget and the taxpayers will be the biggest losers.
If the rampant rise of Tea Parties and the defeat of President Obama's agenda in the gubernatorial races of New Jersey and Virginia - both states he won in November 2008 - don't prove that the American public generally seems less and less tolerant of political posturing and political posers these days, maybe the historic election of Republican Scott Brown in all-blue-state Massachusetts - the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat, no less - does.
Others who sell themselves more as problem-solvers than political hacks are liable to do as well in the months and years ahead, regardless of - or even in spite of - political party and affiliation.
The days of party line obstructionism are gone. The American public no longer has the stomach for it. They want results. They want a return on their political investment. They want responsiveness from their elected leaders. They want accountability. And they want it now. For they know our problems have become too daunting to ignore and too pressing to be subjected to the circular, self-serving nonsense that now passes for political process in the nation's capital.
They know we need leaders to step up and guide us towards the future - one that is less certain today than just 1o years ago.
The current financial crisis, our mounting debt, the ongoing global threat posed by terrorism and the politics of stalemate in Washington have all combined to make political parties in this day and age if not obsolete then at least unimportant.
Americans can sense danger and they know we are in dire need of leaders who are constitutionally astute, singularly focused and who have the vision, wisdom and passion to care more about solving problems than carrying water for their party.
They see the dripping irony that is Washington, D.C., a city built to house our leaders that is itself so devoid of leadership. And they wonder: Have we no true statesmen left?
-30-
Appointing a task force.
The Obama administration has just played this well-worn political hand, allegedly to "solve our long term fiscal challenge" and get the spiraling budget deficit under some semblance of control.
The American people can be forgiven if they are not doing cartwheels and declaring an end to budget deficits in our time, for they have seen this show before.
They know, for instance, that no "panel" or "task force" is needed to understand one of the most basic of accounting principles - that in order to maintain financial solvency, you can't spend more than you take in.
They also suspect, correctly, that the strategy for fixing the nation's budget crisis is as simple as it is impossible.
Simple, because only a combination of equally shared taxes and dramatic spending cuts are going to be necessary in order to bring the budget back under control.
Impossible, because they also understand that the largest slices of the federal budget consist of "fourth rail" entitlements that amount to political suicide for any politician who dares suggest curtailing program benefits or, egads, replacing the government entitlement with a free-market solution.
The people are convinced that their congressional representives are addicted to power instead of focused on genuine problem-solving, so they don't expect any serious effort to be made to curb the out-of-control growth of the federal budget, the president's new "task force" proposal notwithstanding.
Worse, Americans see an administration and congressional majority that, in the midst of our second-worst financial crisis ever, wants to spend even more debt-ridden money by creating a huge new healthcare entitlement bureaucracy, in spite of majority opposition among the people.
They view the president's "new commitment" to "fiscal responsibility" as nothing more than a stereotypical political delaying tactic meant only to carry his party through the next election cycle without shedding too much of its own blood.
And they see nothing in Congress' behavior over the past generation to convince them otherwise.
Americans believe they are about to be treated to another round of political theater, which would play out something like this: Sometime next year after the fall elections, this task force will indeed produce a set of "recommendations" to reduce the federal budget, but none of them - or, at least, none that make the most sense or would produce tangible, positive results - will be enacted. Rather, the entire process will degenerate into political finger-pointing, with one party blaming the other as being"obstructionist," while the other blames the former for being "too partisan."
And in the end, of course, the federal budget and the taxpayers will be the biggest losers.
If the rampant rise of Tea Parties and the defeat of President Obama's agenda in the gubernatorial races of New Jersey and Virginia - both states he won in November 2008 - don't prove that the American public generally seems less and less tolerant of political posturing and political posers these days, maybe the historic election of Republican Scott Brown in all-blue-state Massachusetts - the late Sen. Ted Kennedy's seat, no less - does.
Others who sell themselves more as problem-solvers than political hacks are liable to do as well in the months and years ahead, regardless of - or even in spite of - political party and affiliation.
The days of party line obstructionism are gone. The American public no longer has the stomach for it. They want results. They want a return on their political investment. They want responsiveness from their elected leaders. They want accountability. And they want it now. For they know our problems have become too daunting to ignore and too pressing to be subjected to the circular, self-serving nonsense that now passes for political process in the nation's capital.
They know we need leaders to step up and guide us towards the future - one that is less certain today than just 1o years ago.
The current financial crisis, our mounting debt, the ongoing global threat posed by terrorism and the politics of stalemate in Washington have all combined to make political parties in this day and age if not obsolete then at least unimportant.
Americans can sense danger and they know we are in dire need of leaders who are constitutionally astute, singularly focused and who have the vision, wisdom and passion to care more about solving problems than carrying water for their party.
They see the dripping irony that is Washington, D.C., a city built to house our leaders that is itself so devoid of leadership. And they wonder: Have we no true statesmen left?
-30-
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to my blog. The name I have chosen, "The Commoner," is a continuation of a column theme I developed while working for WorldNetDaily.com some years ago. As an American of Irish descent, I figured you can't get much more common than that.
The cornerstone of this column is that it takes a look at politics and the day's most pressing issues from, I hope, the perspective of the everyday man and woman who is an occasional politico and who is basically most interested Thomas Paine's philosophy about government: He who governs least governs best, which means the least amount of interference and intrusion from state and federal governments into our lives, the better.
Thanks for visiting. I hope you enjoy the ride. And if you ever want to give me feedback, feel free: doughertyj@embarqmail.com. I may even post your email so send it with that in mind.
Jon E. Dougherty
The cornerstone of this column is that it takes a look at politics and the day's most pressing issues from, I hope, the perspective of the everyday man and woman who is an occasional politico and who is basically most interested Thomas Paine's philosophy about government: He who governs least governs best, which means the least amount of interference and intrusion from state and federal governments into our lives, the better.
Thanks for visiting. I hope you enjoy the ride. And if you ever want to give me feedback, feel free: doughertyj@embarqmail.com. I may even post your email so send it with that in mind.
Jon E. Dougherty
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
