by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/i><\/p>\n
The Strange Thing About Nemesis\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2026is that the deity picks its victims on the basis of irony and arrogance. For every media-frenzy about ethical lapses of columnist Armstrong Williams taking Bush administration money for hawking No Child Left Behind, there is a\u00a0Jonathan Gruber<\/a>\u00a0[1], the MIT go-to pundit on healthcare, who raked in $400,000 from the Obama administration for \u2026 hawking ObamaCare.<\/p>\n For every racially insensitive Trent Lott, Senate party leader, there is a racially insensitive\u00a0Harry Reid<\/a>\u00a0[2], Senate party leader. For every illegitimacy story about Levi Johnston and Sarah Palin\u2019s daughter, there is a John Edwards\u2019 love child. For every supposed Bush fabrication, there is Barack Obama on YouTube swearing he will air all the healthcare debate on\u00a0C-SPAN<\/a>\u00a0[3] (sort of like his old public campaign financing promises, or closing Gitmo within a year, or getting out of Iraq by March, 2008, or \u2026).<\/p>\n OK\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n But, of course, by now you readers protest! \u2014 why haven\u2019t we heard of Gruber, why did the media go easy for so long on Edwards (and his complicit wife), why is Harry Reid still majority leader?<\/p>\n The answer is that those on the left are moralists, smarter people who pass up their own personal agendas to help the community. They think of society, not self, and so when they err, they do it under stress, in accidental fashion, and with no lasting significance \u2014 not like their selfish Neanderthal cousin conservatives, for whom transgression is a valuable window into their flawed souls. Bushisms became a media pastime, but no one suggests that a president who says Cinco de Quatro, or 57 states, or references the \u201cAustrian\u201d language is a Dan Quayle wrestling with potato.<\/p>\n That Enigmatic Joblessness?<\/strong><\/p>\n We are still at double-digit unemployment in December. But I am relieved that it was not 15% thanks to Obama\u2019s various stimuli programs, bailouts and healthcare initiatives that saved us.<\/p>\n Is this Ivy League brilliance? For three years as candidate and now as president, Obama targeted the productive small business and entrepreneur class. They should be \u201cpatriotic,\u201d \u201cpay their fair share,\u201d and \u201cspread the wealth\u201d to the more deserving. If they made over $250, 200, or was it 150K(???), they should pay higher state, federal, payroll, inheritance and now healthcare taxes. From time to time, Obamians, like Anita Dunn and Van Jones, referenced the great redistributist and killer Mao, or the greed of \u201cwhite people.\u201d<\/p>\n I could go way on, but you get the picture. Somehow in such a landscape, the family dentist, small trucking operator, and insurance agency owner were supposed to go out and hire more people, buy equipment, and work a little harder, when they a) don\u2019t know how high their taxes will climb, and b) accept that they are targeted by this president and so expect that any new healthcare, energy, or education initiative will come at their expense.<\/p>\n Jobs, you see, are largely instead made by the federal government, which borrows about $100,000 per employed in some grand new \u201cmillions of green jobs\u201d or \u201cremaking America\u201d plan that puts more of us on the unfireable, always promoted federal payroll.<\/p>\n Why instead would not the proverbial small business person pull in his horns and wait out the statist experiment, as our present 10% unemployment rate suggests is actually now happening \u2014 despite printing an extra $2 trillion through deficits this year alone?<\/p>\n Psychology Matters<\/strong><\/p>\n In short, what we are witnessing millions of times over are the following conclusions of the small entrepreneur: \u201cThis guy hates me and what I stand for, and wants to appropriate lots of what I make and give it to others he likes better. Therefore I am not going to take any risks, since he\u2019s either going to take lots of what I already made or even more of what I hope to make.\u201d<\/p>\n So far Obama has uttered not one word such as: \u201cAnd then we must thank all those Americans who put aside money for their own healthcare, who pay their taxes on time and in full, and who treat their employees well.\u201d Maybe one less Cairo speech or\u00a0Al Arabiya<\/em>\u00a0interview, and one reach out to the small business community?<\/p>\n Modest Suggestions for Obama\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n 1) Each time you invoke Bush and proceed to trash him, just substitute al Qaeda. Try it today or tomorrow. Or better yet, close your eyes, take a deep breath and envision Sarah Palin, and as your blood pressure rises, say \u201cBin Laden.\u201d Then go out to address the country on anti-terrorism. Your credentials as a mean SOB anti-terrorist fighter would soar.<\/p>\n 2) In the long promised spirit of bipartisanship, each time you think of a new strange way of praising the Islamic world, just substitute Bush. Your \u201cthere is no purple state America\u201d credentials would be reestablished.<\/p>\n 3) Instead of talking about all the uninsured and exploited, try suggesting that millions of Americans should buy catastrophic health care plans and pass on big-screen TVs, I-phones, and DVD players. And why not tax at 10% (since we now are in the age of taxes) all remittances sent back to Latin America ($50 billion last year). Not all of that sum is sent by impoverished illegal immigrants, but much of it is, and ensures that workers here will have less disposable money to pay for their own health care.\u00a0 We could set up plans with the $5 billion in revenue and send a message to cover one\u2019s own expenses before sending money to family back home.<\/p>\n 4) Do not hire any more cabinet officials or government agency heads with Ivy League degrees. Enough already. Nothing has destroyed the reputation of Yale-Harvard-Princeton more than the present administration. Geithner did not learn how to pay his taxes. Summers sleeps through meetings and has contradicted almost all that he used to believe in; Holder wants to accommodate the architect of 9\/11 with a show trial in New York, but try the CIA agents who interrogated him. The old Yalie Van Jones thinks Bush was in on 9\/11. And Barack Obama of Harvard Law Review believes the Muslims gave us everything from the printing press to the Renaissance and Enlightenment. One contractor, surgeon, engineer, or pilot is worth five lawyers and academics. The Ivy League seminar explains a lot of the problems with the now imploding Obama administration \u2014 so much self-referential talk of elite standards, so little actual proof of any at all.<\/p>\n 5) Get ready and brace yourself. 2009 was spent sowing the seeds of foreign adventurism through apology, kowtowing, trashing the prior administration, reaching out to thugs, neglecting allies, and talking up the corrupt U.N. 2010 will be spent reacting to the harvests of that bitter investment. Right now we are down at the OK Corral, with a lot of seedy gunmen looking sideways to see who fires the first shot in expectation that he can get what he wants with a little flashy holster work. If he gets away with his threats and braggadocio, down the road a real shoot-out will follow.<\/p>\n URLs in this post: \u00a92010 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The Strange Thing About Nemesis\u2026 \u2026is that the deity picks its victims on the basis of irony and arrogance. For every media-frenzy about ethical lapses of columnist Armstrong Williams taking Bush administration money for hawking No Child Left Behind, there is a\u00a0Jonathan Gruber\u00a0[1], the MIT go-to pundit on healthcare, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[610],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-uE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1893,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/conservative-felonies-liberal-misdemeanors\/","url_meta":{"origin":1900,"position":0},"title":"Conservative Felonies, Liberal Misdemeanors","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Why in matters of stupid behavior do liberals and Democrats often get second and third chances from the media and general public not accorded to their conservative and Republican counterparts? We're seeing it now in the national reaction to Senate Majority Leader Harry\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "January 2010"","block_context":{"text":"January 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/january-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2194,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/americas-obama-obsession\/","url_meta":{"origin":1900,"position":1},"title":"America’s Obama Obsession","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Anatomy of a passing hysteria. by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online For 30 months the nation has been in the grip of a certain Obama obsession, immune to countervailing facts, unwilling to face reality, and loath to break the spell. But like all trances, the fit is passing, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2009"","block_context":{"text":"October 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/october-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1809,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-too-little-too-late\/","url_meta":{"origin":1900,"position":2},"title":"Obama–Too Little, Too Late","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services The United States may very well owe a crushing $20 trillion by 2020. And thus President Obama last week named a bipartisan commission to find ways to address our national debt. Such a Periclean response might sound sincere and worthwhile. But it comes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "March 2010"","block_context":{"text":"March 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/march-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2246,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obsolescence-of-a-slur\/","url_meta":{"origin":1900,"position":3},"title":"The Obsolescence of a Slur","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 4, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Criticisms of Obama are increasingly met by cries of \"Racist!\" Are his critics racists? by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The charge of racism has been leveled against critics of President Obama\u2019s healthcare reform by everyone from\u00a0New York Times\u00a0columnists, racial activists, and Democratic legislators to senior statesmen like Jimmy\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "October 2009"","block_context":{"text":"October 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/october-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1460,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-unbound\/","url_meta":{"origin":1900,"position":4},"title":"Obama Unbound","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Richard Nixon went to Red China with political impunity. Had a Democrat tried that, he would have been branded a Commie appeaser. To this day, liberals cannot conceive that during the two world wars, progressives like Woodrow Wilson, Earl Warren, and Franklin Delano\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Foreign Policy"","block_context":{"text":"Foreign Policy","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/foreign-policy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":687,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-they-did-it-campaign\/","url_meta":{"origin":1900,"position":5},"title":"Obama’s ‘They’-Did-It Campaign","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The next five months should be interesting \u2014 given that Barack Obama is now experiencing something entirely unique in his heretofore stellar career: widespread criticism of his performance and increasing weariness with his boilerplate and his teleprompted eloquence. Starting with his Occidental days,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1900"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1901,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1900\/revisions\/1901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n[1] Jonathan Gruber:\u00a0http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\/2010\/01\/08\/economist-contract-health-department-touting-reform\/<\/a>
\n[2] Harry Reid:\u00a0http:\/\/pajamasmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2010\/01\/11\/faintest-signs-of-double-standard-detected-in-media-overculture\/<\/a>
\n[3] C-SPAN:\u00a0http:\/\/pajamasmedia.com\/rogerkimball\/2010\/01\/10\/a-c-spaner-in-the-works-or-read-my-lips-for-obama\/<\/a><\/p>\n