When It Rains, It Pours

As President Obama discovered when he tried to deliver his Memorial Day speech near Chicago last weekend: “when it rains, it pours.”

The mile-deep gusher now polluting Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico is a metaphor for the Pandora’s Box of miseries that seem to be raining on the nation and the world: European financial instability; Third World nukes; South American narco-states; the re-emergence of piracy; America’s unprotected borders, our persistent 10% unemployment rate, exploding government debt; runaway entitlements and public pensions; aging infrastructure; a health care system headed for bureaucratic sclerosis; and on and on…

Standing between us and this onslaught is the leader of the free world himself, Barack H. Obama, who, it is becoming increasingly obvious, is in way over his head. If you were Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would you feel comfortable knowing this White House has got Israel’s back? If you were Governor Jan Brewer would you be confident in the President’s ability, even willingness, to halt the hordes of illegals pouring across the Arizona border? If you were Governor Bobby Jindal would you sleep easy knowing this Administration might eventually, some day, perhaps support your request to build protective sand barriers between the advancing oil slick and valuable Louisiana fishing and wildlife waters? Not on your life. You don’t have to be a governor or a foreign leader to feel nervous. A lot of people are starting to worry.

Joining those of us getting worried is Barack Obama. But he’s got a lot more on his mind than developing an effective American energy plan, or Israel getting blown off the map, or helping the private economy recover. Part of what keeps the President awake nights is the fact that jury selection has begun in the Rod “Blago” Blagojevich trial, and a federal judge just cleared the way for White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel to testify.

Don’t think for a moment that it was a coincidence that President Obama abandoned the BP oil-rig mess to take a family vacation to Chicago last weekend. He didn’t travel back to the Windy City because it is a fair-weather paradise in the springtime, or because he missed the old Hyde Park home and his next-door neighbor Anton “Tony” Rezko. Besides, Rezko hasn’t lived next door for quite a while. He’s in a witness protection program, with Federal bodyguards keeping him safe.

Even in Chicago, where wiring legal outcomes is a political art form, this trial has to be making a lot of people nervous; among them the President of the United States, along with the Mayor, the current Illinois Governor, several US Senators and some members of Congress. Blago has made it clear that he doesn’t plan to go to prison quietly. He wants to be put under oath and tell his side of the story. Without a doubt, his side of the story will boil down to exactly this: Blago only did what everyone else was doing. Handing out jobs and selling Senate seats is what Chicago politicians do all the time.

Given the current flap over the Administration’s offer of a job to Pennsylvania’s Joe Sestak in exchange for his staying out the Senate race, and stories of a similar job offer to a Colorado politician we can understand the concern. Scratch the recently passed Health Care Reform Bill and you’ll find dozens more cases of job offers in exchange for votes. As this trial drags on who knows how many cans of worms will get kicked over.

As it turned out, it was Obama’s “vacation” to Chicago that resulted in the rain-soaked Memorial Day speech. This in turn led to the news footage that provided the picture worth a thousand words. There he was on our television screens; President Obama, grimly clutching his umbrella after the temperature suddenly dropped 15 degrees and the skies opened up in a mid-west gully-washer. It was all he could do to read the teleprompter and make himself heard over the rolling thunder.

The audience, hundreds of loyal Democrats, stood dutifully shivering in the rain. Many of them had, perhaps, seen Obama speak before, in better times, when he was full of dreamy promises about lowering the sea level, healing the earth and fundamentally changing America. We can only assume it began to dawn on some in the crowd, the smarter ones, just what kind of President we are stuck with for most of the next three years.

When it rains, it pours.


This essay was originally published on
June 4th, 2010 in American Thinker

This Is What Change Looks Like

I should listen to my wife more often.

After Sunday night’s health care vote we turned off the television and took our dog for a walk.

I was pretty grumbly and probably not very good company. I griped and complained and expressed astonishment that a bill that mandates this much federal oversight of private industry, that is stuffed, end to end with pork – literally built on a cornerstone of graft – could ever be written in the capitol of the United States.

And then I said, “I wonder how long it will be before some Democrat sums all of this up as 'just a step in the right direction’.”

“Oh! Good point,” Karen said. “When we get home you should fire up Sparky and blog that.”

As it turns out I would have had to blog it that very instant, because while we were out, President Barack Obama addressed the nation and said the same thing almost word for word.

“This legislation will not fix everything that ails our health care system. But it moves us decisively in the right direction.”

Astounding, isn’t it? It’s like I’m some kind of a mind-reader.

Of course, the President's intent, after all the hype this last year, was to begin lowering expectations and yet still declare that the bill was “close enough for government work.” And, make no mistake; government work is precisely what medicine will become.

Looking at the bright side, Congress and the federal bureaucracy got exactly what they want: a platform they can build on and tinker with ad infinitum. More government jobs, more "process", more opportunities, as they say in Chicago, for a few extra potatoes on the side. At the same time, Democrats believe they’ve put another bullet in their campaign clip, and that for decades to come whenever they get into elective-trouble they can always talk about expanding coverage, adding or cutting benefits, means testing, increasing fees, tighter mandates, etc., etc. For Democrats, what’s not to like? This kind of thing is their bread and butter.

Then, President Obama, in his very next sentence, put a cherry on top of the sundae:

“This is what change looks like.”

He got it exactly right. With those six words spoke more truth than he intended.