I had this awful feeling, a few months into Obama\u2019s presidency, that he had no wish to lead the nation, but to rule<\/em> it<\/a>. One of his minions (I can\u2019t remember who, sorry) had actually used the phrase \u201cwhen Obama rules\u201d prior to his inauguration, but I\u2019d excused it as a misspeak. Now, I am not so sure.<\/p>\n In five years of blogging, I have never called a president by anything but his name or his title. I have booted people who have tried to call past or current presidents by foul nicknames. President Obama is President Obama. But I am starting to wonder if he should not also, quite accurately, be called President Opposite<\/a>. Increasingly one gets the sense that everything he does is accompanied by the hypnotic words\u2026\u201cwhat you see me doing, is not what I am doing\u2026who do you trust, me or your lying eyes?\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n The press calls it striking a delicate balance<\/a>:<\/p>\n The Obama administration struck a delicate balance on executive pay Thursday, blaming flawed compensation packages for encouraging disastrous risk-taking but insisting it doesn\u2019t want to dictate how corporations reward their top people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Translation:<\/strong> Do you see me dictating how corporations will compensate their top people? Now, I\u2019m not doing that\u2026but here is what I decree these corporations will do\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n Gene Sperling, a top counselor to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, conceded to a congressional committee that imposing compensation caps on companies could lead to a flight of talent. \u201cI can say with certainty that nobody in the Obama administration is proposing such a thing,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Translation:<\/strong> Yes, this is exactly what the Obama administration is proposing.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2026he and officials with the Federal Reserve and the Securities and Exchange Commission laid out a case for how payment structures rewarded short-term gains at the expense of long-term performance and contributed to the nation\u2019s financial crisis.<\/p>\n The administration plans to seek legislation that would try to rein in compensation<\/em> at publicly traded companies through nonbinding shareholder votes and by decreasing management influence on pay decisions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Remember when President Obama said he didn\u2019t want to run corporations?<\/strong> He didn\u2019t think it was the role of the government to run corporations? He just wanted to see the economy set right?<\/p>\n Can this brilliant, Harvard Law grad explain how-with unprecedented spending, an unprecedented and unsustainable deficit and inevitable tax increases looming before every person in the country-he is going to \u201cfix\u201d the economy by overseeing reductions in pay, thus decreasing the very tax base he needs to exploit<\/em>, in order to sustain his spending?<\/p>\n My father dropped out of High School during the depression<\/strong>, to help his widowed mother; even though he did not have an Ivy-League education, he understood that you collect more tax revenue when people are employed and earning good money than when they are unemployed, or limited in their earnings. Good heavens, in 2006, even the NY Times had to admit that stoopit Bush and his stoopit tax cuts<\/a> had resulted in high employment and such a record-level collection of tax-revenues that the deficit was being paid down a head of schedule!<\/p>\n Obama wants to punish the high-risk takers? Geez, that\u2019s every parent in the nation. That\u2019s every creative thinker who goes out on a limb, or dares to think outside the box. That\u2019s every starry-eyed kid who dares to dream a \u201cfoolish\u201d dream<\/a>. That\u2019s everyone who has ever looked at a problem and devised a solution. Risk has come with every great bridge, every skyscraper, every airplane, every cesspool!<\/p>\n Obama wants to discourage risk?<\/strong> That means he wants to discourage America, itself! The nation was founded on a great risk! It has flourished on great risk! It has lifted up and sustained other countries thanks to its willingness to take great risks!<\/p>\n Does Obama know anything about history?<\/a> Does he understand that a Berlin Airlift cannot happen unless a nation has a mindset that welcomes risk and challenge? The Marshall Plan could not have evolved without risk. We would not have reached the moon without a mindset that saw risk and shrugged. We would not have toilets if a capitalist had not taken a chance, held his breath and flushed<\/em>.<\/p>\n What sort of American president is this, who tells Americans to \u201cstop acting like Americans?<\/strong> Go to sleep; stop dreaming glorious dreams<\/a>!\u201d<\/p>\n America has been the country millions of inventive, creative-mad people have wanted to come to because it was the country that would allow them to run with their madness, give them the freedom to take their risks, and see what they could make of their lives and their visions. Liberty demands that human people \u2013 imbued with the Divine Spark of creativity \u2013 be allowed to use their gifts, to take them as far as they can.<\/p>\n If we\u2019re not supposed to take risks, if underachievers are to be penalized when their attempts fall short, then America will cease to be America, vibrant America, alive America. She will go to sleep, like most of Europe. She will offer to the world all the inventiveness, joy and wonder we see offered by Cuba, the old USSR, sad old England, and worn-out France. But it will be a terrible sleep, without the dreams.<\/p>\n A while back I wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n America\u2019s honor is no illusion. Imperfect as it may be this is still the land to which \u2013 in large or small ways \u2013 every free nation owes its current liberty. This is the nation that has routinely sent its idealistic young men off to foreign lands, to die there, not for empire, not for real-estate, but for the protection and advancement of that unseen thing that is freedom, the strengthener of the human spirit, the burnisher of human potential. First Children and their motley co-horts aside, this is still the nation to which millions of creative or industrious people wish to come, it is the nation to which the oppressed call out for rescue and relief.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Obama said he wanted to bring \u201chope\u201d to America.<\/strong> He kept using that word; I don\u2019t think he understood what it means. What President Opposite is offering is the opposite of hope<\/a>:<\/p>\n When folks feel good about what they are doing, when they feel like they have some control over the direction their lives take \u2013 they have hope. And hope is not simply a feeling. Hope says, \u201cawake, O Sleeper, arise from death!\u201d Hope is the builder of bridges, the tamer of winds, the harnesser of ideas and possibilities. A poor man with hope is immeasurably richer than a wealthy man without it, because he carries within him the spark that can alight a thousand tomorrows.<\/p>\n By the curb, toward the edge of the flagging, Hope sparkles from the wheel, and all possibility is contained therein. And the man who can sharpen his own knife, and teach his children that craft, will never be helpless or hungry or cast aside as worthless. He will, therefore, be at peace, and so will his house, and columnists will write about it in wonder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I never, ever thought I\u2019d live to see the day<\/a><\/strong> an American president told America to stop, just stop, being itself. The opposite<\/em> of hopeful. No risks. Tight controls. The opposite<\/em> of America. Weep, folks. Put your dreams away, and weep.<\/p>\n Mr. President \u2013 if you want to pursue a policy of \u201copposites\u201d<\/strong> then may I respectfully suggest that you adapt the George Costanza theory. Think of whatever it is you want to do, and then\u2026DO THE OPPOSITE<\/em>. Please. It might save the nation. And your foundering<\/a> and panicking<\/a> and slowly awakening<\/a> party, if you care.<\/p>\n Related:<\/strong> Repost:<\/strong> I had this awful feeling, a few months into Obama\u2019s presidency, that he had no wish to lead the nation, but to rule it. One of his minions (I can\u2019t remember who, sorry) had actually used the phrase \u201cwhen Obama rules\u201d prior to his inauguration, but I\u2019d excused it as a misspeak. Now, I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,13,14,58,59,60,63,70,72,74,83,91,188,232,240,253,257],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-remaking-america","category-america","category-american-genius","category-crisis-opportunity","category-critical-thinking","category-crooks-and-liars","category-culture-of-treason","category-dont-try-me-too-high","category-dumb-democrat-moves","category-economic-woe","category-election-2008","category-erosion-of-rights","category-obama-bad","category-send-in-the-clowns","category-socialism-doesnt-work","category-the-perpetual-adolescents","category-touch-of-evil"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n A knife-grinder works at his wheel, sharpening a great knife;
\n Bending over, he carefully holds it to the stone\u2014by foot and knee,
\n With measur\u2019d tread, he turns rapidly\u2014As he presses with light but firm hand,
\n Forth issue, then, in copious golden jets,
\n Sparkles from the wheel.<\/em>
\n \u2013 Walt Whitman \u201cSparkles from the Wheel\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nEasing Into Exec Pay Limits<\/a>
\nIs Obama\u2019s Economic Maneuvering Room Already Exhausted<\/a>?
\nThe Mythological \u201ccreated or saved\u201d<\/a>
\nThe High Risk President<\/a>.
\nAMA rejecting Obamacare<\/a> (H\/T<\/a>)
\nAbout that Kennedy-Dodd bill\u2026<\/a>
\n\u201cSmart Diplomacy\u201d<\/a>
\nObama\u2019s Gestures<\/a>
\nThe Health Care Trojan Horse<\/a>
\nObama misleads on Health Care<\/a>
\nOil Prices<\/a>
\nIs the left scared<\/a>?<\/p>\n
\nThe Art of the Painless Coup<\/a>
\nWhy The Recession is Over<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"