Great stuff from Mark Steyn on Barack Obama who, like UK Labour Party leader Ed Milliband and Francois Hollande, the new socialist president of France, prefers to operate from outer space where he feels he can safely ignore the laws of gravity and economics…
Soaring rhetoric at a time of earthbound problems — jobs, debt — risks making the president sound ridiculous. Granted, there’s a lot of it about this time of year — commencement speakers assuring kids who can’t manage middle-school math that you can be anything you want to be as long as you dream your dreams. But Obama offers an even more absurd evolution of this grim trope: “I can be anything I want to be as long as you chumps dream your dreams.”
Unfortunately , as the French elections have taught us, there is no shortage in the west of misty eyed optimists always ready to be seduced by the snake oil salesmen who readily tell you what you want to hear. But eventually even the biggest sucker eventually gets to realise that there is no such thing as a free lunch..
Self-pity is never an attractive quality, and in an elected head of state even less so. Obama whines that his opponents say it’s all his fault. One can argue about whose fault it is, but not, as my colleagues at National Review pointed out, whose responsibility it is: It’s his. He’s the only president we have. And he made things worse. He increased the national debt by some 70 percent, and what do we have to show for it? No dams, no railroads, no moon shots. Just government, and bureaucracy, and regulation, unto national bankruptcy.
“Fly me to the moon / Let me play among the stars . . . ” Who needs another moon shot? Obama’s already up there, soaring ever more unmoored from reality. Pity us mere mortals back on Planet Earth, living in the land he made.
The good news is that while out walking the other day I came across just the bunch of fellows who can help Obama (and Milliband and Hollande) keep their feet firmly on the ground…
BTW Actually Earthbound Services is a great example of a successful local business creating jobs….there are thousands of these small businesses in the UK driving the engine of growth (and no, I have don’t have any connection with the company, just liked their lorry and found out more about them later…)
