The Man Behind The Curtain
Well, that's going to leave a mark. Just as gravity stakes its claim on a balloon, once the hot air runs out, so too has reality staked its claim on the mythology of Barack Obama. The man who received a Nobel Peace Prize by virtue of having his very own pulse, whose relationship with the truth is platonic at best, and whose every utterance is received by the press with the unquestioned adoration previously reserved for stone tablets from Mt. Sinai, came face to face with an alien presence Wednesday night; …an authentic critique made not from straw, but from the very heart and sinews of American intellect, experience and exceptionalism. The result was a man who seemed to shrink before our very eyes. Not even Jimmy Carter, when facing Ronald Reagan, appeared so utterly defeated and resigned as the sullen and diminishing figure we saw Wednesday night. Here was a man who couldn't even look his challenger in the eye.
How far the pompous have fallen. The gigantic crowds in Berlin, the fake columns in the stadium, the throngs of humanity chanting hypnotically or, alternately, passing out altogether, …they became distant echoes as the once towering persona was made, finally, to face the human consequences of his demagoguery:
* 23 million Americans unemployed
* 368,000 Americans dropping out of the labor force in August
* 8 million Americans dropping from the labor force since his inauguration
* 48 million Americans on food stamps
* Unemployment rates over 8 percent for the longest sustained period since the Depression
* 14% black unemployment rate
* $16 trillion in national debt
* First ever downgrade of America's credit rating
* Rising healthcare costs under a program that promised to reduce costs.
* The hollowing out of our military
* American embassies under siege and our diplomats murdered as mindless mobs scream now as they did over 30 years ago, "Death to America."
Excuses are being made by people whose job it is to make excuses. Al Gore suggests it was the altitude in Denver. James Carville held that Obama was prepared to have a civil conversation, except that Governor Romney brought a chainsaw to the discussion. David Axlerod suggests that Governor Romney deserves an Oscar, but little else.
Meanwhile, the President's cheerleaders in the media have their collective pom poms in a knot. "I don't think he explained himself very well on the economy," lamented Ed Shultz, ignoring the fact that Obama used all the references to corporate jet owners and "fat cats" that previously sent his media groupies into multiple Obasms. It's just that the platitudes can't withstand scrutiny from an economically literate opponent. "Where was Obama tonight?" pouted Chris Matthews. The answer of course, is that Obama was standing right there, sans teleprompter, with no fawning media, no ability to duck tough questions by dismissing them as "talking points," and ultimately nowhere to hide.
On the one hand, the debate was the inevitable result of what happens when someone who is never challenged in any meaningful way, finally encounters real opposition. It was like watching an obscure college football conference champion face a top notch Southeastern Conference team. The results are never pretty for the obscure conference. For that, the President may thank the American news media, whose objectivity and rigor has been dwarfed by Univision.
On the other hand, what we saw on the stage in Denver is precisely what happens when the platitudes, assumptions, and prescriptions of the liberal (or the collectivist, or the statist, or the utopian, or the progressive, or whatever they will call themselves the day after tomorrow) are exposed to such concepts as free people and free markets. It happened to George III, it happened to Jimmy Carter, and it is happening to Barack Obama. But to his eternal credit, Governor Romney didn't face President Obama alone. He brought along the accumulated wisdom of human experience as expressed in our Founding documents, which tell us that free people are far superior to any government plan. For ultimately, the bright light of freedom pulls back the curtain and the previously omnipotent central planner, full of bombast, accompanied by his acolytes, is revealed to be a man who can barely string his own thoughts together, yet who presumes to be able to order almost every aspect of your life. He is, in the final analysis, a plain and simple fraud.
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Comments:
Jul '10
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
I would like to know what foreign leaders thought of the President's performance.
Peter? ... Peter? ...
May '10
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
Excellent.
Apr '11
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
"My how the pompus have fallen." "Obasms" Priceless
You do have a way with words.
It makes me think that those Greek columns might well be in ruins. Goodness knows that sand sculpture has probably blown its way to the Outer Banks by now.
Great assessment as usual.
Jun '10
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
Dave Carter, you're a mean and nasty man! And I can cause every one of your sordid criticisms to be washed far away:
B-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-u-ush!!!!
...........Wait, your post is still up there..........Rats - - - now what.
Mar '11
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
I wonder if we are seeing the start of an anti-Obama preference cascade (thanks, Instapundit). It has to be very tiring to keep up the belief that Obama is great, so people might like getting permission to believe that he really isn't.
Jun '10
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
Essgee:
It makes me think that those Greek columns might well be in ruins.
A local Denver reporter went out to the stadium after The Immaculation.
Just a human interest after-story.
Thinking they were stage props, he expected to find workers disassembling a stage set. What he found was workers smashing the few-day-old site-built Styrofoam assemblage to bits, hauling it all off to the dump.
It ends up Teh One is a true Al Gore level environmentalist.
Sep '10
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
Beautiful, Dave. Yours is the best after-action analysis I've read anywhere. Until last night's debate I could still entertain the notion that the President was reasonably smart--though far from being as intelligent as his fawning admirers claimed--but now I've realized that he's been faking it all along.
Edited on October 5, 2012 at 6:04amApr '11
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
Eeyore
Essgee:
It makes me think that those Greek columns might well be in ruins.
A local Denver reporter went out to the stadium after The Immaculation.
Just a human interest after-story.
Thinking they were stage props, he expected to find workers disassembling a stage set. What he found was workers smashing the few-day-old site-built Styrofoam assemblage to bits, hauling it all off to the dump.
It ends up Teh One is a true Al Gore level environmentalist. · 5 minutes ago
Actually it makes sense. Use it once and then toss it away. If it is other people's money, what does it matter?
Explains the last 4 years. (Thanks for the story, quite interesting!)
Dec '10
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
What we saw - the "smirk" - was, I believe, the result of Kerry coaching Obama not to show flashes of anger under any circumstances. Generally that is good advice, especially for a man like Obama who is prone to pettiness and petulance when he feels affronted or insulted. But Obama didn't learn the next part of the lesson: after swallowing one's anger, one has to counterpunch in a pleasant but effective manner. What Obama did was to turn moments of anger into a mask of pleasant indifference -- and then let the anger simmer so that he couldn't reply without letting it show. That's why so many of Romney's biting attacks went unanswered. And as the night progressed, the effort to keep the mask on wore on him, so that he couldn't look at Romney or even hold his head up.
Dec '10
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
I'd also offer as an alternative metaphor the miller's daughter. Everyone believed that Obama had the power to spin straw into gold, so they had big expectations when they shoved him onto the stage with a spinning wheel and bales of straw. Unfortunately, there was no way for Obama to have any of his army of Rumplestiltskins come up there to do the job for him - so everyone saw that he didn't have the knowledge and skills they thought he had.
May '12
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
Dave-
Excellent as usual! But that last paragraph was just outstanding.
I have always been somewhat patriotic -- which was enhanced by my time in the service (Jet-engine mechanic E-5 in the Navy, stationed at DaNang Air Base). But am also a firm believer that the USA was (and is) chosen as a special place by God and our founding fathers.
And YES, I do absolutely love this country!
Apr '11
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
Who, among our vast and voluminous punditry class, can drive a truck nearly as well as Mr. Carter can produce an essay?
You have captured the Obama phenomenon perfectly.
Apr '11
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
Dave, you've distilled out of the chaos of this poseur's presence in American history - the Truth about this watershed moment in our republic's history.
Yes, the 'bright light of freedom'. It hasn't been quenched.
To your fine limning of the essential American armament that Romney brought to the debate, let me add another - and I think the essential quality that undergirds his effectiveness in wielding the tools of American Exceptionalism.
His decency.
Obama may be a 'good' man, but his battle armor and truncheons are made of distortions and lies. You see it on his face - the strain of concealing the motives that drive him. He knows he is a fraud.
That is what was so apparent Wednesday night. Shadowy obfuscations in the cause of maintaining power, versus decency, which by its nature, throws light.
I can't help but to picture Romney on a white charger - his armor glinting in the sun.
Is it too much to dream of his inauguration - maybe a white convertible glinting on a crisp, hopeful January day?
Edited on October 5, 2012 at 4:15pmJun '10
Re: The Man Behind The Curtain
There's a saying from the boxing world: "You have to outbox the fighter, and outfight the boxer." The good news for our side is that Obama is capable of neither. He's punching outside his weight class. It's going to make the excuse mongering from the left look all the more silly if Obama gets decked again. Which he probably will.