{"id":6960,"date":"2014-01-30T10:44:14","date_gmt":"2014-01-30T18:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=6960"},"modified":"2014-01-30T10:44:14","modified_gmt":"2014-01-30T18:44:14","slug":"hope-and-change-take-vi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/hope-and-change-take-vi\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope and Change: Take VI"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The anemic retread speech was mostly another yearly pep-talk version of the original \u201csummer of recovery\u201d\/\u201cmillions of new green jobs\u201d\u00a0boilerplate,\u00a0\u201cbig bank accounts\u201d\u00a0bad -ich-guy stuff, and\u00a0\u201cwe\u2019re out of Iraq\u201d\/close Guantanamo again.\u201d\u00a0Been there, done that.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is always the usual tics of any Obama speech: taking credit for something either he tried to stop (e.g., more natural-gas and oil production by cutting back federal leases and stopping Keystone), or warning us about some bad thing that he has accelerated (drones, unwarranted surveillance, incivility, etc.), and the flat-out untruths (Iran to reduce its enriched-uranium stockpiles, more college graduates to get those great college-only jobs, etc.), and the linguistic gymnastics (Iran is not installing\u00a0advanced<\/em>\u00a0centrifuges;\u00a0a slight 0.3 percentage point dip from the now serial 7 percent\u00a0unemployment is putting Americans back to work, as the number of able-bodied Americans not working hits a record 90 million\u2013plus, etc.;\u00a0inequality and stagnant wages he deplores have soared to record levels under his programs).<\/p>\n

Other than a half-hearted effort to praise Obamacare by navigating around its disasters, and claiming that setbacks abroad were victories, that was about it\u00a0\u2014 an Obama hope-and-change campaign stump speech aimed at the failures of the Obama presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/\u00a0NRO’s The Corner\u00a0 The anemic retread speech was mostly another yearly pep-talk version of the original \u201csummer of recovery\u201d\/\u201cmillions of new green jobs\u201d\u00a0boilerplate,\u00a0\u201cbig bank accounts\u201d\u00a0bad -ich-guy stuff, and\u00a0\u201cwe\u2019re out of Iraq\u201d\/close Guantanamo again.\u201d\u00a0Been there, done that.\u00a0<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[536],"tags":[12,726,462],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Og","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2250,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/bitter-harvests-to-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":6960,"position":0},"title":"Bitter Harvests to Come","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Reflections on the Speech to Congress If one were to sum up the Obama speech to the joint session of Congress, it is the same old, same old formula: \"I am a uniquely post-American fresh start; the era of Bush and our dreadful past\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":1853,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-usual-straw-men\/","url_meta":{"origin":6960,"position":1},"title":"The Usual Straw Men","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Cap-and-trade, statist healthcare, and an end to \u201cdon\u2019t ask, don\u2019t tell\u201d for thee. And for thou, Obama the tax cutter, Obama the gas-and-oil driller, Obama the budget freezer, Obama the anti-lobbyist reformer, Obama the bipartisan healer? This half-hearted pivoting was quite transparent: Obama made\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "February 2010"","block_context":{"text":"February 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/february-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8598,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-tougher-on-congress-than-on-khamenei-read-more-at-httpwww-nationalreview-comarticle422339obamas-unpresidential-iran-speechtargetauthortid900280\/","url_meta":{"origin":6960,"position":2},"title":"Obama: Tougher on Congress than on Khamenei","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Obama's Unpresidential Iran Speech:\u00a0The speech was mean-spirited and dishonest \u2500 and may have been counterproductive. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online President Obama\u2019s speech last week advocating congressional approval of the Iran deal was mostly made-up history mixed with invective. Indeed, he talked far more roughly about his\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":"(Pool Image\/Getty)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/pic_giant_010615_SM_Barack-Obama-G-500x292.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2060,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-are-we-tiring-of-obama\/","url_meta":{"origin":6960,"position":3},"title":"Why Are We Tiring of Obama?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media The China Presidency I have an heirloom china pitcher on my mantle that has dozens of glued cracks \u2014 so much so that it is now purely ornamental and will not hold water. When I was a boy I\u2019d ask my mother when, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "December 2009"","block_context":{"text":"December 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/december-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7521,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/our-future-is-1979\/","url_meta":{"origin":6960,"position":4},"title":"Our Future Is 1979","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Obama\u2019s foreign-policy weakness encourages our enemies and disheartens our allies.\u00a0 by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online The final acts of the Obama foreign policy will play out in the next two years. Unfortunately, bad things happen when the world concludes that the American president has become weakened, distracted,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The World"","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Photo of Jimmy Carter holding cabinet meeting 1977 photo by US National Archives","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/375px-Jimmy_Carter_convenes_a_cabinet_meeting_-_NARA_-_175123.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7582,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/lots-of-recent-man-caused-disasters\/","url_meta":{"origin":6960,"position":5},"title":"Lots of Recent Man-Caused Disasters","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online Even the administration is now considering some sort of overseas contingency operation to cope with an outbreak of workplace violence worldwide. Each morning it seems we read that Islamic killers of Boko Haram have kidnapped or slaughtered more children. Israel alleges Hamas\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The World"","block_context":{"text":"The World","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6960"}],"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=6960"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6960\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6961,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6960\/revisions\/6961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}