{"id":7805,"date":"2014-08-26T07:37:05","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T14:37:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=7805"},"modified":"2014-08-26T07:37:05","modified_gmt":"2014-08-26T14:37:05","slug":"the-madness-of-2008","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-madness-of-2008\/","title":{"rendered":"The Madness of 2008"},"content":{"rendered":"

A nation became unhinged by trivialities like \u201chope and change.\u201d It has now awakened. \u00a0<\/em><\/h3>\n

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online<\/a><\/p>\n

\"On
On the campaign trail, October 2008 (Joe Raedle\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A<\/span>merica is suddenly angry at the laxity, incompetence, and polarizing politics of the Obama administration, the bad optics of the president putting about in his bright golf clothes while the world burns. Certainly, no recent president has failed on so many fronts \u2014 honesty, transparency, truthfulness, the economy, foreign policy, the duties of the commander-in-chief, executive responsibilities, and spiritual leadership.<\/p>\n

For those who are \u201cshocked\u201d at the present meltdown, of a magnitude not seen since the annus horribilis of 1979, in their defense: Obama certainly did not campaign on a new health-care plan that would force Americans to give up the doctors they liked and their existing coverage, while raising premiums and deductibles, while giving exemptions for insiders and cronies, and while raising the deficit.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Nor did we hear on the campaign trail that Obama would push gay marriage, open borders, near-permanent zero interest rates, six consecutive $1 trillion deficits, and record food-stamp and Social Security disability payouts. He criticized Bush for relatively minor executive orders, suggesting that he would never rule by fiat \u2014 as he since has done in matters of Obamacare, immigration law, and environmental regulations. Remember the promise of ending the revolving door and stopping aides from cashing in \u2014 and then follow the post-administration careers of Obama\u2019s closest advisers.<\/p>\n

Obama promised to halve the deficit \u2014 not run up more red ink than almost all prior presidents combined. Indeed, he once as a senator voted against raising the debt limit and blasted Bush for borrowing from China. He once sermonized to us that the presidency is serious stuff, that it entails inordinate personal sacrifice and even a virtual absence of downtime and vacation \u2014 and then he became just the sort of president he was critiquing. But those deceptions were simply politics as usual, and it was logical for the hard leftist Barack Obama to try to appear to be a moderate, given that no Northern liberal had won the presidency in the half-century since John F. Kennedy.<\/p>\n

The antidote to the great madness of 2008 would have been, instead of focusing on what Obama claimed or hedged, simply to recall what he had done before he ran for president and to notice what he did during the campaign. Had America done that, there would never have been a President Obama to surprise us now.<\/p>\n

The racial animosity characterized by Obama\u2019s editorializing about Skip Gates, Trayvon Martin, and, now, the Ferguson, Mo., hysteria, or his call to Latinos to \u201cpunish our enemies,\u201d or the tenure of Eric Holder is simply a continuation of 2008\u2019s \u201ctypical white person,\u201d the clingers speech, Michelle Obama\u2019s America as \u201cjust downright mean,\u201d \u201cThey raise the bar,\u201d and \u201cFor the first time . . . I\u2019m really proud of my country\u201d commentaries, and of Obama\u2019s earlier boast that he never missed services at the Trinity Church of the hate-mongering and anti-Semitic Reverend Jeremiah Wright. If Obama had\u00a0not<\/em>\u00a0proved to be a racial divider, we should have been surprised \u2014 given what we learned of his past in 2008. After all, it\u2019s from Jeremiah Wright that Barack Obama got the title for his campaign brief, \u201cThe Audacity of Hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are now shocked at the current spate of alphabetic scandals \u2014 IRS, AP, NSA, VA. But why are we surprised, given that Obama never told the truth about his relationships with the old terrorist Bill Ayers and former PLO ad hoc spokesman Rashid Khalidi, or about the creepy land deal with the crook Tony Rezko? If the Obama White House demonized the Tea Party as tea-baggers, or compared the Republican House opposition to terrorists and arsonists, why should we be astonished, given how he was elected to the U.S. Senate? Quite mysteriously, his primary opponent, Blair Hull, and his general-election opponent, Jack Ryan, both of whom were favored to win, had their confidential divorce records leaked. Their campaigns subsequently imploded.<\/p>\n

Obama has played fast and loose with ethical rules, from promoting crony capitalists to attending near-constant fundraisers among the pay-to-play 0.0001 percent. Again, why should we be surprised, given that he was the first presidential candidate who refused in a general election to accept federal campaign financing, with its accompanying rules curbing mega-fundraising? Obama was the largest recipient of Goldman Sachs donations in the company\u2019s history, and raised more cash in 2008 and 2012 than any other presidential candidate in history.<\/p>\n

We are terrified of the chaos that is spreading across the world: Egypt, Gaza, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Putin\u2019s Russia, and the Chinese\u2013Japanese tensions. But was there any evidence in 2008 that rookie senator Obama had any foreign-policy experience or even knowledge of the world beyond Chicago, other than as a boy in Indonesia or a teen on a jaunt with buddies to Pakistan? We knew in 2008 that his opportunistic trashing of Guant\u00e1namo, renditions, tribunals, drones, and preventive detention was permitted only by the fact that the Bush\u2013Cheney protocols he was criticizing had prevented another 9\/11-like attack \u2014 and thus gave him the leeway of easy second-guessing. If we are now worried about Obama\u2019s equivocation, there was plenty of evidence, as Hillary Clinton pointed out in 2008, that Obama as a state legislator had voted \u201cPresent\u201d as a matter of habit.<\/p>\n

Polarization? Partisanship? The\u00a0National Journal<\/em>\u00a0warned us in 2008 that Obama was the most partisan of the 100 U.S. senators. Did we assume that he would revert to something that he never had been?<\/p>\n

Critics are angry that Obama seems disengaged, or that as a man of the people he is inordinately obsessed with golf, a sport that the Left used to despise as a fixation of the rich in their lime-green pants and bright pink polo shirts. But again, can we point to any landmark legislation that Obama accomplished as a state legislator or U.S. senator? Was not Obama golfing during the 2008\u00a0 campaign?<\/p>\n

Then there is the matter of the presidential untruths. The problem is not just that Barack Obama says things that are untrue but that he lies about what Barack Obama has said. He brags that he set red lines, but then he says it was the U.N. had\u00a0set red lines. He boasts of pulling out every U.S. soldier from Iraq\u00a0but then alleges that President Bush, the Iraqis, or Maliki did that. He claims that ISIS are Jayvees\u00a0but then claims they are serious. But his prevarication too is habitual and was known in 2008 when it was discovered that he had simply misled the nation about his relationships with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers. He had no desire, in the transparent manner of John Kerry, Al Gore, John McCain, or George W. Bush, to release his medical records or college transcripts. If Americans find their president ill-informed, there was no record that he was informed in 2008. His gaffes were far more frequent than those of Sarah Palin, who knew there were 50 states.<\/p>\n

Historians will look back at 2008 as a time when the country became more or less collectively unhinged. There was an accompanying perfect storm of sorts: He was the first serious African-American candidate, whom condescending liberals like Harry Reid and Joe Biden heralded for being clean, light-skinned, and without a black patois; he was running in an orphaned election without an incumbent vice president or president on the other side\u2019s ticket, a situation not seen since 1952; we had an unpopular lame-duck president and the Iraq war; the sudden financial meltdown in September 2008 caused a then-behind Obama to immediately surge ahead; the McCain campaign was lackluster; and the media became an advocate of the Obama effort.<\/p>\n

Pundits vied for superlatives. On little evidence, Christopher Buckley assured us that Obama possessed \u201ca first-class temperament and a first-class intellect.\u201d For some, proof of Obama\u2019s godhead became almost physical \u2014 a \u201cperfectly creased pant\u201d for David Brooks, a tingling leg for Chris Matthews. For Evan Thomas he was a \u201csort of God\u201d; for one blue-chip historian he was the smartest man with the highest IQ ever running for the presidency. And on and on, as huge crowds acted as if they were watching Paul McCartney on tour in 1966. After the election, there was real apprehension that the country might not make it for the two and a half months until an elected Obama could take power.<\/p>\n

Given that there was no evidence from Obama\u2019s legislative career to justify such superlatives, we can only assume that our intellectual elites got caught up in the faux\u00a0Greek columns, the Obama tutorials for fainting crowds about proper first aid, the teleprompted emphatics of \u201cLet me be perfectly clear\u201d and \u201cMake no mistake about it,\u201d the Latinate motto \u201cVero possumus\u201d on the faux presidential seal on his campaign podiums, the boast that Obama & Co. were \u201cthe ones we\u2019ve been waiting for,\u201d the messianic promise to cool the planet and lower the seas, the Lincoln self-comparisons, and the other embarrassing childish banalities.<\/p>\n

Obama, it is true, ran a brilliant campaign in 2008, hinting to the Other that as a non-white he shared both their racial bona fides and their frustrations, hinting to white elites that his own unique heritage would end racial hostilities and thus allow them to square the circle of living largely separate elite lives and not having to feel guilty about it. He dropped his\u00a0g<\/em>\u2019s and went into Southern cadences among African\u00a0Americans, and then back again into wonkish academese to mainstream whites. It was well known that in impromptu talks he stuttered and stumbled with uh\u2019s in deer-in-the-headlights fashion, and used the pronouns I, me, my, and mine ad nauseam, but such unease was ignored given his teleprompted eloquence and the considerable elite investment in his symbolism.<\/p>\n

In sum, in 2008 Obama gave America more than enough evidence to doubt that he was ready for the presidency, but when a nation becomes unhinged by trivialities like \u201chope and change,\u201d there is not much one can do \u2014 until the patient wakes up from his trance and in embarrassment asks, \u201cWhat exactly was all that nuttiness in 2008 about?\u201d<\/p>\n

We will be fathoming that strange madness of 2008 for decades to come.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A nation became unhinged by trivialities like \u201chope and change.\u201d It has now awakened. \u00a0 by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online America is suddenly angry at the laxity, incompetence, and polarizing politics of the Obama administration, the bad optics of the president putting about in his bright golf clothes while the world burns. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[46,362,619,96,271,136,104],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-21T","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":720,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obamas-hypocritic-oath\/","url_meta":{"origin":7805,"position":0},"title":"Obama’s Hypocritic Oath","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 17, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online Barack Obama has a habit of identifying a supposed crisis in collective morality, damning straw men \u201cthem\u201d who engage in such ethical lapses, soaring with rhetorical bromides \u2014 and then, to national quiet, doing more or less the exact things he once swore\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Second Term Policies"","block_context":{"text":"Second Term Policies","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/second-term-policies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1211,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-obama-rope-a-dope\/","url_meta":{"origin":7805,"position":1},"title":"The Obama Rope-a-dope","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services After 2010, will he be Carter or Clinton? 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The campaign is now long over, and yet President Obama still seems haunted by the ghost of his predecessor. Last week, for example, he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "First Term Policies"","block_context":{"text":"First Term Policies","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/first-term-policies\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7627,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/how-obama-lost-the-middle-east\/","url_meta":{"origin":7805,"position":3},"title":"How Obama Lost the Middle East","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The president put politics and ideology ahead of preserving hard-won gains in the region.\u00a0 by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Online In his first term, Barack Obama all but declared victory in America\u2019s Middle East struggles. As he precipitously pulled out all U.S. peacekeepers from Iraq, the president had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9665,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/assessing-the-obama-legacy-against-his-own-mileposts\/","url_meta":{"origin":7805,"position":4},"title":"Assessing the Obama Legacy\u2014Against His Own Mileposts","author":"Megan Ring","date":"December 9, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The president\u2019s stated priorities have not turned out well. In his 2016 State of the Union address, President Obama summarized his achievements. That same night, the White House issued a press release touting Obama\u2019s accomplishments. Now that he will be leaving, how well\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "International Relations"","block_context":{"text":"International Relations","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/geopolitics\/international-relations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11026,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-real-russian-disaster\/","url_meta":{"origin":7805,"position":5},"title":"The Real Russian Disaster","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 27, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Donald Trump has said a lot of silly stuff about Russia, from joking about Vladimir Putin helping to find Hillary\u2019s deleted emails, to na\u00efve musings about the extent of Russian interference into Western democratic elections. But far more important than what he has said\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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805"}],"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=7805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7807,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7805\/revisions\/7807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}