Throwing Obama under the bus

It’s started.

Those occasional grumbles of discontent suddenly became an avalanche of criticism, to the bemusement of many on the right.

The ground may be shifting.  But in which direction?

Today’s Wall Street Journal carried an oped entitled “The United States of Throw the Bums Out.”  In it, former Clinton pollster Douglas Schoen and former Carter pollster Patrick Caddell wrote:

...the Obama administration has launched an estimated $125 million publicity campaign.  Their goal is to communicate that individual components of the [health care] bill are indeed popular...

If the Obama administration is unable to sell the health-care law... the president’s hopes of winning re-election... will deteriorate.

Note carefully what these two likely-liberals are saying:  Everything has now come down to how well the administration does its “sales job.”  (The possibility that the law might be made more attractive-- just a bit-- by fixing one or two bad ideas is not even considered.) It’s all about execution.

The progressives/leftists face electoral disaster.  Every day there’s more bad news.  The realities are catching up with the dream.  The natives are restless, and there’s danger of being swept out of control.  So what’s a good progressive to do?

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and in this case the desperate measure is called sacrifice.

There’s mounting evidence that the current mess is a direct consequence of your lousy ideas.  The opposition will try to say this.  They must be countered.  To defend the agenda, create a distraction:  Start a noisy fuss about “leadership,” and hope they’ll be sucked in.  Throw your leader under the bus.

Because while making the argument “all about Obama,” will not be pleasant, it does have a number of attractions.

It’s about personality.  The Agenda has been executed, with unfortunate results?  Well, that’s all because of bad management, or inexperience, or naïvité... right?  It’s possible the man’s not up to the job.  But he sure didn’t get any help!  (And make certain that the usual suspects continue screaming “racism,” too.)

It draws attention to a lousy president, away from a lousier Congress.  Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Arlen Specter, Barbara Boxer, Barney Frank?  2000 page bills that nobody reads?  Bailouts for buddies?  Congressmen that punch citizens?  Hey, they’re hard-working, innocent victims!  Why, if there had only been some direction from the White House, all would have been ethics, rainbows, unicorns, and 5% unemployment.  So don’t blame Congress, re-elect them!

It will help the DSM suppress any substantive discussion of the progressive agenda.  They don’t have to report on dull stuff like rising taxes, rising unemployment, danger at home and abroad, or a lousy economy when they can fill the space with the daily he-said-she-said and “I’m offended!”  Besides, superficiality is a good thing: The poor, unenlightened proles might learn something they don’t like.  And there’s nothing wrong with the progressive agenda that doing it again-- twice as hard-- wouldn’t fix.  (After all, nobody’s ever implemented Communism correctly, either -- oh, snap!)

So make a bunch of noise, and hope those stupid teabaggers (and stupider Republicans) follow your lead.  Let ’em have Obama.  He’s just one guy.  It’s far better that the public believe the present mess is his fault, rather than begin to realize that it’s the predictable outcome of the leftist/progressive agenda. Discrediting Obama can be endured.  Discrediting the Program would be fatal.

(Besides, the president has another two years. Maybe his “sales job” will have “taken” by then.)

But should Obama have to be brought down, always remember that the bedrock of the progressive agenda is the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the collective.  You’ve done it before; don‘t shrink from doing it now!

After all, that’s the progressive way.


UPDATES:

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 23:09:12 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 660 words, total size 8 kb.