Home
Matt Patterson is the senior editor at the
Capital Research Center and a Senior Fellow at
CEI's Center for Economic Freedom, specializing
in labor policy. He is a columnist that has
written articles for the Washington Post, New
York Post, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Baltimore Sun and
Newsweek.
___________________________
I Too Have Become Disillusioned.
By Matt Patterson
Years from now, historians may regard the 2008
election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and
disturbing phenomenon, the result of a baffling
breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch
craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder,
did a man so devoid of professional
accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he
could manage the world's largest economy, direct
the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential
job?
Imagine a future historian examining Obama's
pre-presidential life: ushered into and through
the Ivy League, despite unremarkable grades and
test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a
"community organizer;" a brief career as a state
legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and
in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often
did he vote "present"); and finally an
unaccomplished single term in the United States
Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions.
He left no academic legacy in academia, authored
no signature legislation as a legislator. And
then there is the matter of his troubling
associations: the white-hating, America-loathing
preacher who for decades served as Obama's
"spiritual mentor"; a real-life, actual terrorist
who served as Obama's colleague and political
sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian
looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?
Not content to wait for history, the incomparable
Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently
in the Wall Street Journal: To be sure, no white
candidate who had close associations with an
outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright
and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers,
would have lasted a single day. But because Mr.
Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the
eyes of liberal Dom to have hung out with
protesters against various American injustices,
even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a
pass. Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass -
held to a lower standard - because of the color of his skin.
Podhoretz continues: And in any case, what did
such ancient history matter when he was also so
articulate and elegant and (as he himself had
said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a
fighting chance to become the first black
president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?
Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the
animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon -
affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of
course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment
behind all affirmative action laws and
regulations, which are designed primarily to make
white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.
Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that
whites can pat themselves on the back. Liberals
routinely admit minorities to schools for which
they are not qualified, yet take no
responsibility for the inevitable poor
performance and high drop-out rates which follow.
Liberals don't care if these minority students
fail; liberals aren't around to witness the
emotional devastation and deflated self-esteem
resulting from the racist policy that is
affirmative action. Yes, racist. Holding someone
to a separate standard merely because of the
color of his skin - that's affirmative action in
a nutshell, and if that isn't racism, then nothing is.
And that is what America did to Obama. True,
Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of
achievements, but why would he be? As many have
noted, Obama was told he was good enough for
Columbia despite undistinguished grades at
Occidental; he was told he was good enough for
the US Senate despite a mediocre record in
Illinois; he was told he was good enough to be
president despite no record at all in the
Senate.. All his life, every step of the way,
Obama was told he was good enough for the next
step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary.
What could this breed if not the sort of empty
narcissism on display every time Obama speaks? In
2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive
qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama's
oratory skills, intellect, and cool character.
Those people – conservatives included - ought now to be deeply embarrassed.
The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of
clichés, and that's when he has his Teleprompters
in front of him; when the prompter is absent he
can barely think or speak at all. Not one
original idea has ever issued from his mouth -
it's all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has
failed over and over again for 100 years.(An
example is his 2012 campaign speeches which are
almost word for word his 2008 speeches)
And what about his character? Obama is constantly
blaming anything and everything else for his
troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I
inherited this mess. Remember, he wanted the job,
campaigned for the task. It is embarrassing to
see a president so willing to advertise his own
powerlessness, so comfortable with his own
incompetence. (The other day he actually came out
and said no one could have done anything to get
our economy and country back on track.) But
really, what were we to expect? The man has never
been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?
In short: our president is a small-minded man,
with neither the temperament nor the intellect to
handle his job. When you understand that, and
only when you understand that, will the current
erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It
could not have gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office.
