by Jarad Perry
In a great cascade of promises and platitudes, President Obama pontificated his plans to improve the State of the Union. However, in a Herculean effort of mental gymnastic the President offered plans for new energy sources yet seeks a cap-and-trade scheme to shackle growth. He talked of job’s creation saying “…..the true engine of job creation in this country will always be America’s businesses” yet continues to insist that government is the engine by which jobs will be created.
Spending freezes, cuts, and all other manner of gimmicks were tossed about as ways in which to save the country from the abysmal deficit yet, by the magic of rhetoric, he listed a cavalcade of new spending.
Amidst the call for job creation and spending reductions, the President pulled the populism card once again decrying the bankers on Wall Street even though he curses them for reckless spending while seemingly unaware of the inherent hypocrisy of such statements. He lambasted the recent Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance with the justices sitting directly in front of him, stoned face, as Justice Alito shook his head mouthing ‘not true’ to the ignorance of the constitutional lawyer lecturing him from the pulpit.
The President’s speech will soon be forgotten and the lofty rhetoric will be nothing more than notes in a history book. All the while, this President has shown time and time again that what he says and what he does are often mutually exclusive. Lost in the ideology of those who seek to ‘equalize’ the playing field not by supporting excellence but by forcing mediocrity. Fairness is used as a cudgel to beat upon the engines of growth and the invisible hand is restrained at every opportunity.
Yet, it is not leadership to continue to blame the ills of the country on a multitude of scapegoats but to stand up and lead, something he lectured the Republicans on without having the moral authority himself to do so. The act of governing is not the act of speaking of governing, but doing.
Time will be the great equalizer of fact and fiction, and history may lay the laurel of failure upon this President cementing his legacy as one who knew only the campaign not the art of governance.
One Comment
Nice post– but a note on logic is needed. The term “mutually exclusive” is not one that should ever be modified as “nearly” or “almost.” The definition of mutually exclusive is quite clear. Two events are mutually exclusive if and only if there is no overlap in the two events. Put more formally: let A and B be sets, an event is said to be mutually exclusive if and only if A union B is the empty set; that is, A and B share no elements. Being a little mutually exclusive is like being a little pregnant.
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