Obama does whatever he wants - who's gonna stop him?

important primer - see this excellent piece; Front Man - by Kevin Williams

When I restarted this blog I vowed not to get into personality politics. The aim was to comment on broader themes that spoke to the evolution  - or - devolution of the country and the culture. When one man has the power, or rather takes the power,  to remake the country then it's fair game here.

While we like to look back at simpler times and claim the mantle of the good old days we have to admit in many ways life is getting better. That's unfortunately only part of the picture. Obviously in other ways the train is wobbling on the tracks and every one knows it.

If you think about the country like a bucket of water that's teetering back and forth, the water sloshing about with some violently flying out. The water hovering toward the bottom half of the bucket is happy as a lark, knowing not what's happening up near the top. For this layer of water everything is fine until the day the bucket tips over completely. When that happens there will still be a little water safe within the bucket. For sake of the analogy we'll liken this water to the very rich and the bureaucracy. The rest, the poor and the vast middle class spills out onto the ground to evaporate into the ether, forsaken.

The result conjures a picture of a third would cesspool for me. By then it will too late to examine how and why it happened.

What set the bucket teetering back and forth?

I think the answer is rather obvious. The very rich and the bureaucracy. Face it, the very rich don't really care about poor and middle class Americans any more than they care about poor and middle class Africans or Australians. Their concern is maximizing profit, as long as there is a growing middle class somewhere that's all that matters.

The bureaucracy needs helpless multitudes to herd about, and the more the better. The old mantra in business to grow or die is just as valid for the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is by far the largest growth industry there is in America. Thus the point of this article... The bureaucracy has its ultimate front man, his name is President Obama.

In his piece on the National Review website Kevin D. Williams details the actions and attributes of Barack Obama better than anyone I've read before. I think he actually sums it up neatly by implying Obama is the ultimate front man for the liberal bureaucratic train that's been barreling down the track at us since the turn of the last century. Far from having any grand vision or even a few big ideas Obama's politics are utterly conventional managerial liberalism. What makes him the perfect man for the job is his decent oratory skills and a blanket of protection afforded by his half black skin. Oppose him and you're a racist.

Nothing is worse for your career than being labeled a racist. When he has the full force of the New York Times and the major television networks ready to defend him at all costs wielding the sledge hammer of racism how can he lose? He can't.

Therefore, he does whatever he wants - who's gonna stop him? The Congress? Ha. The people? They can't unelect him. The media? And admit their worship was misguided? Not gonna happen.

American democracy, such as it is, will face death by a thousand cuts, not felled by one grand action. The national will, the hard working, the patriotic, the exceptional will be sliced and diced by the liberal bureaucracy until it no longer resembles the constitutional republic we learned about in school.

Mr. Williams lays it all out there. With the healthcare law alone the administration was given a rough framework in which his "team" got to fill in the blanks. With that the bureaucracy had years to prepare. Because it's a problem ill suited for a bureaucratic solution it threatened to derail a nascent economic recovery so the President chose to delay parts of the law (unlawfully so) and grant exceptions to his supporters (unions, per se).

When Congress failed to enact the DREAM Act which was intended to give the minor children of illegal immigrants legal status he simply enacted it by decree - again unlawfully.

When the citizens of Egypt staged a coup d’état all military aid was to be cut-off as required by American law. The Obama administration refused to obey the law.

The President cannot legally have American citizens assassinated, yet he does. The President is not allowed to use agents of the government against his political opponents, yet the IRS was used during a critical phase of the 2012 election to suppress political action groups allied against him. He blatantly makes recess appointments when Congress is not in recess. His cabinet secretary for Health and Human Services blatantly ignores the Religious Freedom Restoration Act - the law of the land - and forces institutions and individuals to act against their consciences by requiring them to cover abortifacients and birth control pills in their health insurance plans. I could go on... Really.

Congress has plenty of blame for this state of affairs. With Harry Reid acting as the gatekeeper for any real action by the Congress, regardless of what the Republican led House does, the President acts with near impunity. The media whose job it is to hold powerful feet to the fire has abdicated all credibility when it comes to Obama. The loyal opposition is perhaps the sorriest joke of all. Other than a few - Ted Cruise, Rand Paul - no one in the Republican party is saying anything about this executive branch power grab. The headless Tea Party movement made some inroads before they were crushed by major media's character assassination.

In a sense we are stuck with a defacto one party system, in practice there's not a dimes bit of difference between the parties. It's the bureaucracy stupid.





Ugh