Hanson on Obama and Carter
Victor Davis Hanson compares presidents Obama and Carter, and finds both wanting.
Check out the last paragraph:
There is one consolation in that the progressive Western Europeans, the United Nations, and the Nobel Peace Prize Committee sometimes appreciate American indecision and self-confession. As a result, this time around our sermonizer-in-chief was given the Nobel Peace Prize without lobbying for it ”” and during, rather than after, his presidency.
As a result, this time around our sermonizer-in-chief was given the Nobel Peace Prize without lobbying for it – and during, rather than after, his presidency.
I’m not sure that’s a consolation. I wouldn’t put it past the Nobel Committee to give President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize repeatedly.
After all, think of what little he did to win the prize in 2009. Hasn’t he done more than that since? (Hmm, on second thought, maybe not. He won it in 2009 for not being GWB. By many accounts — Guantanamo, troop withdrawals, wiretapping, and so forth — his not-Bush-ness has gone down since then.)
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
I used to have a Win button. I should have saved it. But I never, ever in my wildest imaginings thought that the need for them would come back in my lifetime.
Normally, when one’s leaders are insane and determined to destroy everything one values, the solution is to follow the sage’s advice in Candide and work in one’s own garden.
But this crew is too smart for us. Every day they pass new rules to prevent our doing that. They are winning and their prized is silence.
When we went from Carter to Reagan, in my opinion, we went front the worst to the best president in my lifetime. Let’s hope lightning can strike twice!
I want to get a WTF button and save it.
I hold VDH in the highest esteem. He’s a well respected historian by trade and a former farm boy. A good combination as far as I am concerned. I think he would make a great governor or president, but he would never consider a career in politics.
Here is my partial review of what Obama has wrought: We have an ongoing, entrenched recession with 20+% unemployment-under employment. We have a monetary policy that will soon bloom and create inflation such as we saw under Carter, or worse. We have several bubbles ready to pop (stocks & the real estate market they are vainly attempting to re-inflate). And if that was not enough, we have demons arising all around the globe.
Meanwhile Obama gives GE an exemption from the ‘global warming’ policies his EPA is set to impose on American businesses. He gives over 700 corporations and unions an exemption from Obamacare as he ignores a federal judge who has found Obamacare in total unconstitutional and therefore null and void. He has squandered trillions of new debt in a mere 2 years and during his recent SOTU address calls for even more non-essential spending. His policies have created a bear market on 30 year T-notes. Entitlements are set to implode. Plus, there is a host of other pressing issues and problems this president is either willfully ignoring or actually creating (perhaps purposefully).
I’m pessimistic to say the least (and I prefer to be an optimist). IMO we’re going to be up excrement creek without a paddle if we don’t turn this around in the 2012 elections.
Parker,
The exemptions given to corporations are especially offensive. Something about it just seems to be wrong and inequitable. One of the things that makes a Third World country Third World is that the laws are used by politicians to pick winners and losers. That is not supposed to happen here – BUT that is just what the exemption process is: The favored few do not have to be burdened by the same laws that apply to the rest of us. There should be no exemptions whatsoever. The law must be applied equally to everyone.
Ben,
Agreed, the exemptions are a slap in the face and a blatant picking of the pocket of all the rest of us who are forced to comply with these egregious mandates. I don’t like to come across as melodramatic, but 2012 is going to be either our Waterloo or a turning of the tide. It is then that the individual’s right to the pursuit of happiness will slowly begin to flourish again or be squelched for a generation (or more).
I have 3 children and 4 grandchildren, so I got a dog in this hunt as I would guess others here do too. 2012 must see Obama discarded to the dust heap of history and the demonrats driven into minority status for 20 years or our descendants are in for a life of misery as they are taxed and regulated into poverty. It appears to be an either or situation to me.