by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
NRO’s\u00a0The Corner<\/em><\/p>\n I\u00a0don’t think it has occurred to the divine ones that the administration now is at odds with the sort of ideology and attitudes Obama himself espoused on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n They call for patience and for confidence in Iraq \u2014 and not, in prior Obama-like fashion, dismiss our chances while demanding a strict and rather rapid timetable to get out.<\/p>\n They ask for understanding about renditions, tribunals, Guantanamo, intercepts, wiretaps, and Predator missile attacks as complex issues \u2014 and not, in prior Obama-like fashion, dismiss these necessary tools as Constitution-shredding authoritarianism.<\/p>\n They ask for patience on jobs \u2014 and not, in prior Obama-like fashion, pontificate about a “jobless recovery” when jobs and growth were far better.<\/p>\n They reassure us that missile defense is insurance against North Korean lunacy \u2014 and not, in prior Obama-like fashion, dismiss such investment as needless militaristic provocation.<\/p>\n They ask for latitude about the definition of what is a tax, what defines unemployment, and how we calibrate deficits \u2014 and not, in prior Obama-like fashion, blast obfuscation while promising “transparency.”<\/p>\n They reassure that their planted questions, the favoritism shown some journalists, the refusal to release White House visit logs, and the arbitrary firing of inconvenient auditors are nothing new \u2014 and not, in prior Obama-like fashion, charge government intimidation and suppression of thought.<\/p>\n They ignore corruption in the Democratic-controlled Congress, cater to lobbyists, are not bothered by the tax improprieties of their major cabinet appointments \u2014 and do not, in prior Obama-like fashion, demand an end to executive malfeasance.<\/p>\n I\u00a0know this is old-story politics, but two things are different. One, never has the gap between pre-presidential and in-office behavior been so wide (heaven and earth really are quite distant), and, two, the past promises of utopia have so conditioned a mesmerized media that they don’t realize their own complacency in allowing an administration to use whatever means they chose for professedly exalted ends.<\/p>\n This is a strange time, when we are borrowing into oblivion, redefining 60 years of bilateral foreign policy, embarking on unproven \u2014 but costly \u2014 environmentalism, nationalizing industry and health care, and gleefully establishing a veritable state-sanctioned, pro-government media on the lines Americans used to be terrified about.<\/p>\n In response, as I read between the lines, conservatives are told by the Obamans something to the effect, “Forget our prior demagoguery, aren’t you at least happy we backtracked and are now adopting some of your war-on-terror positions we used to trash?”, while liberals are supposed to be happy with something like, “Just forget all that stuff about ethics, transparency, and anti-lobbying\/influence; we’re in power now and will do anything necessary to fulfill your agenda.”<\/p>\n There will be a backlash to all this, and one of unprecedented fury.<\/p>\n \u00a92009 Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s\u00a0The Corner I\u00a0don’t think it has occurred to the divine ones that the administration now is at odds with the sort of ideology and attitudes Obama himself espoused on the campaign trail.<\/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":[714],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-Gd","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7254,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/foreign-policy-from-bad-to-none\/","url_meta":{"origin":2617,"position":0},"title":"Foreign Policy: From Bad to None","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Our enemies are gloating, and our allies are grimly deciding where to go from here. by Victor Davis Hanson Barack Obama had a foreign policy for about five years, and now he has none. The first-term foreign policy\u2019s assumptions went something like this. Obama was to assure the world that\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":10883,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/president-nobama\/","url_meta":{"origin":2617,"position":1},"title":"President Nobama","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 16, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/National Review \u00a0 Trump is commonsensically undoing, piece by piece, the main components of Obama\u2019s legacy. \u00a0 Donald Trump continues to baffle. Never Trump Republicans still struggle to square the circle of quietly agreeing so far with most of his policies, as they loudly insist that his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Republicans"","block_context":{"text":"Republicans","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/republicans\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11848,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/trumps-high-wire-act-of-reestablishing-deterrence-without-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":2617,"position":2},"title":"Trump\u2019s High-Wire Act of Reestablishing Deterrence without War","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Donald Trump inherited a superficially stable world from Barack Obama that, in fact, was quite volatile. There had been no tense standoffs with North Korea, but also apparent intercontinental ballistic missiles with possible nuclear warheads now pointed at the United States. Obama more or\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Donald Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1969,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ten-lessons-from-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":2617,"position":3},"title":"Ten Lessons from Obama","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online The election of Barack Obama brought all sorts of contradictions. A man with about the least prior executive experience in presidential history was suddenly acclaimed a \u201cgod\u201d and the smartest man ever to assume the office. Most important, a number of critical changes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Commentary","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/commentary-obama-administration\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":969,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/iran-1-0-2-0-3-0-4-0\/","url_meta":{"origin":2617,"position":4},"title":"Iran 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 14, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services On the campaign trail, presidential candidate Barack Obama once called for a \u201creset\u201d policy with Iran. Supposedly, the unpopularity of the Texan provocateur George W. Bush and his administration\u2019s inability to finesse \u201csoft power\u201d had needlessly alienated the Iranian theocracy. After all, the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iran"","block_context":{"text":"Iran","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iran\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8895,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bitter-clingers-2-0\/","url_meta":{"origin":2617,"position":5},"title":"Bitter Clingers 2.0","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 28, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJMedia Clingers 1.0: \u201cYou go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/pic_relatedBW_033115_SM_Barack-Obama-G-e1451326467987.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2617"}],"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=2617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2618,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2617\/revisions\/2618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}