Obama, Irony and the Coup – UPDATED

Well, the deed is done. In a scant four weeks we’ve moved from an exceptional nation to one like all the rest.

I just want to point out that I said it early and often: I heard a lot of people in the media pretend contrition at “not asking enough questions in the many-months-long, UN-visits-included ‘rush to war.’” Well where are their questions in this “rush to more”?

Yes, the ironies abound, as Victor Davis Hanson so ably demonstrates here:

…from the fall of the Taliban in December 2001 to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration deliberately and in public fashion sought debate in the Congress for over a year, received bipartisan authorization, and tried for months to win sanction from the United Nations.

In contrast, Barack Obama immediately upon entering office demanded the largest government expansion in the history of the nation. The staggering debt program will require nearly a trillion dollars in borrowing to fund all sorts of entitlements and redistributive efforts, and in revolutionary fashion redefine the role of government itself. Obama pronounced the current economic crisis the moral equivalent of war, and he wanted a national mobilization to meet it — pronto.

But unlike the Bush administration, which took 15 months to prepare the country for a real war in Iraq, the Obama administration gave the public only a few hours to read the final draft of the legislation before it was made into law. Where the polarizing partisan George Bush managed to obtain the vote of majorities in both parties to remove Saddam Hussein, the healing bipartisan Barack Obama lacked the support of even a single Republican in the House and won over a mere three Republicans in the Senate.

Liberals who once screamed that congressional opponents of the Iraq war were being unfairly tagged as unpatriotic by the Bush administration now yelled louder that the opponents of the Obama debt program were, in fact, unpatriotic.

Bush was pilloried for supposedly hyping al-Qaeda in order to create a security state. Obama trumped that by proclaiming that the present recession is a catastrophe, a disaster, a Great Depression. He ceased his scare-mongering only when he had exhausted the vocabulary of doom. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” bragged Rahm Emanuel, reminding us that the envisioned Obama socialism could take root only if a climate of fear was created.

Do read it all. More ironies are bound to abound, via our iconic ironic president.

And watch carefully as the group that screamed for 8 years that Bush was “dismantling the constitution” and “shredding our civil liberties” begins to chip away at free speech, private ownership, freedom of worship, the rights to free association and assembly.

Wow, Anchoress, that sounds way harsh.

Yeah, I know. But I’ll run on my record, which is more than Obama ever did. After all, I told you about misdirection, the prestige and the painless coup ‘way back in 2005.

Over the past 40 years these hyperactive First Children have been pulling off small scale coups with varying levels of success. They managed to deconstruct the academies, so that education is less a broadening of knowledge than a narrowing of perspective. They have deconstructed the liturgy to insist that a pantomime in clownface is a vast improvement over 2000 year-old sacrament and liturgy. They have deconstructed government by constructing something so huge and unweildly that nothing coming out of it is reliable or dependable, and almost no one is accountable, either. They have deconstructed the press to the point where the truth of a story is less important than how it may be framed and spun. They have deconstructed the idea of fascism to mean “those democracies in Israel and America” rather than the freedom-suppressing regimes which surround them.

I predicted it; I just hadn’t written out this script, which you should go read.

Lent is coming. I’ve been telling you that prayer is a subversive weapon, but it takes time & practice – everyday – to hone it. Have you ever tried to pray for 5 minutes without your mind wandering? Practice prayer.

UPDATE I: Bizzy Blog looks at what has happened to our economy since June of 2008. It ain’t pretty:

As faithful readers know, sometime in June 2008 is when The POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy (now officially “The POR Recession” as normal people define “recession” since the 4th quarter GDP report came out a few weeks ago) kicked in.

The real benchmarks for accountability as of today’s close, comparing June 1, 2008 to today, are as follows:

He says a steady stream of lies is not helping. You’ll want to go and read it.

UPDATE II: Sundries Shack wonders if Pelosi is facing a coup, too. If so, it would only be with Obama’s blessing.

Quick related round-up:
The Imperial Presidency: Obama seems to be enjoying it, after all
Censorship Doctrine: For the internet, too
They’re Burning Books – including vintage books, all to to protect the children!. A very bad law.
Althouse: Why Geithner’s Bailout Rollout Sucked So Bad
Has Obama’s “Civilian National Defense Force” been quietly established?
Siggy: The Obama vision of a conforming America
Detentions Deschmentions: if Obama does it it’s all good
VDH: The Coming Storm
Ace: Obama’s misleading spendulus web site
Does Defending Western Values constitute “hate speech”?
“Hate speech” vs “speaking truth to power”
They love us: dropping more sanctions
Goldberg: Humorless Ironists
Steyn: Windmills of mindlessness
Briggs: The White House Should Not Control the Census. Yes, but we have no press; the “guardians” are busy throwing daisies.
Obama Pressers: They’ll be using small prompting screens to perfect the illusion.
Coming soon: but not too soon, I hope
Kiss your Free speech goodbye. The expiration date…
Finally: Remembering A Holocaust Hero