Hammer o’ the Kraut to GOP: Don’t underestimate Obama
Is it possible that neo-con cheerleader and deficit hysteric Charles Krauthammer sees the last 18 months more clearly than some of our sky-is-falling manic-progressives? While Chicken Littles on the left are ready to dismiss Obama as an abject failure / corporate sell-out / reincarnation of George W. Bush, Krauthammer surveys the political landscape and warns fellow Republicans not to count the Kenyan Usurper out:
Consider what he has already achieved. Obamacare alone makes his presidency historic. It has irrevocably changed one-sixth of the economy, put the country inexorably on the road to national health care and, as acknowledged by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus but few others, begun one of the most massive wealth redistributions in U.S. history.
Second, there is major financial reform, which passed Congress on Thursday. Economists argue whether it will prevent meltdowns and bailouts as promised. But there is no argument that it will give the government unprecedented power in the financial marketplace. Its 2,300 pages will create at least 243 new regulations that will affect not only, as many assume, the big banks but just about everyone, including, as noted in one summary (the Wall Street Journal), “storefront check cashiers, city governments, small manufacturers, home buyers and credit bureaus.”
Third is the near $1 trillion stimulus, the largest spending bill in U.S. history. And that’s not even counting nationalizing the student loan program, regulating carbon emissions by Environmental Protection Agency fiat, and still-fitful attempts to pass cap-and-trade through Congress.
[snip]
The net effect of 18 months of Obamaism will be to undo much of Reaganism. Both presidencies were highly ideological, grandly ambitious and often underappreciated by their own side. In his early years, Reagan was bitterly attacked from his right. (Typical Washington Post headline: “For Reagan and the New Right, the Honeymoon Is Over”—and that was six months into his presidency!) Obama is attacked from his left for insufficient zeal on gay rights, immigration reform, closing Guantanamo—the list is long. The critics don’t understand the big picture.
Of course, Krauthammer views all of this as a BAD thing. And he assumes Obama is indifferent to the fate of the Congressional Dems because he’s marshalling his political energy for a fresh assault on mom, apple pie and freedom in a second presidential term.
I think Krauthammer’s wrong about that, but he got the Reagan-scale transformational presidency stuff about right, and it’s exactly what Obama said he hoped to do in widely misunderstood remarks he made during the 2008 primary.
Meanwhile, it’s entirely possible the GOP is setting itself up for a gigantic disappointment this fall. They will surely gain seats in Congress, but with all the premature triumphalism on the right, the handwringing on the left and continuous media drumbeat about the coming November bloodbath, the GOP must now at least retake the House just to meet expectations. And that’s a tall order.
Maybe they’ll pull it off. But if they don’t, I think we’ll see Chicken Littles hatching all over the right, and they’ll direct their beady little eyes at the teabaggers.
Posted by Betty Cracker on 07/16/10 at 07:20 AM • Permalink
Categories: Politics • Election '10 • Election '08 • Barack Obama • Bedwetters • Manic Progressives • Nutters • Teabaggery • Our Stupid Media •
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