Our New President

Spengler analyzes POTUS 44:

"Inauguration day brings to mind the reason I don't read science fiction. It's never weird enough. Today, America will place more power than any peacetime president ever has wielded into the hands of a man nobody knows. He has convinced more incompatible constituencies that he takes their side than any politician in American history. And through no fault or merit of his own, he has stumbled into more power than the White House has had since World War II."

"...I have never met the man, but I have interviewed a fair sampling of his supporters, and conclude that Obama learned the power to cloud men's minds, like the Shadow on the old radio show. Apart from ambition, there is no 'there' there. There are as many Obamas as there are interlocutors. He is a hollow man, I concluded, a Third World anthropologist studying us with engaged curiosity but complete emotional detachment. In this respect he is unpredictable."

And from Gerald Warner of the UK Telegraph:

"This will end in tears. The Obama hysteria is not merely embarrassing to witness, it is itself contributory to the scale of the disaster that is coming. What we are experiencing, in the deepening days of a global depression, is the desperate suspension of disbelief by people of intelligence - la trahison des clercs - in a pathetic effort to hypnotise themselves into the delusion that it will be all right on the night. It will not be all right."

"...It is frightening to think there is a real possibility that the entire world economy could go into complete meltdown and famine kill millions.....It is questionable whether the present political system can survive the coming crisis. Whatever the solution, teenage swooning sentimentality over a celebrity cult has no part in it. The most powerful nation on earth is confronting its worst economic crisis under the leadership of its most extremely liberal politician, who has virtually no experience of federal politics. That is not an opportunity but a catastrophe."

All is not doom and gloom for David Horowitz though, who appreciates the symbolism - if not the politics - of our new president:

"First we have to recognize and then understand that whatever happens in the Obama presidency, this Inauguration Day is a watershed moment in the history of America and a remarkable event in the history of nations, and thus a cause for all of us who love this country, conservative and liberal, Democrat and Republican, to celebrate."

"Second, in order to do this as conservative – as conservatives who have been through the culture wars -- we need to get past the mixed feelings we will inevitably have as the nation marks its progress in moving away from the racial divisions and divisiveness of the past. These feelings come not from resistance to the change, but from the knowledge that" this celebration should have taken place decades ago and that its delay was not least because our opponents saw political advantage in playing the race card against us and making us its slandered targets.

"If we celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday at a time of presidential inaugurals, this is thanks to Ronald Reagan who created the holiday, and not to the Democratic congress of the Carter years, which rejected it. If Americans now have accepted an African American to lead their country in war and peace that is in part because an hysterically maligned Republican made two African Americans his secretaries of state...."

"...Third, as conservatives who embrace the institutions our founders created we need to separate the two roles of the presidency -- symbolic and political. Today the symbolic role takes precedence and we need to appreciate the specific aspects of that symbolism in the new presidency of Barack Obama, and put aside our anticipations of the policies he may later put in place. There will be time enough for that."

Oh yes.

Comments

[Jill]

You should read Gagdad Bob who does a fantasy analysis of Obama's speech, especially in light of what Gil Bailie spoke of about the fatherlessness of our culture.

http://onecosmos.blogspot.com/2009/01/ugly-fantasies-and-beautiful-truth.html

[Harlekkin]

And what have you all to say about the previous leader, GWB, who did nothing but spend spend spend in the last 8 years? It's not like the man knew what he was doing...

Financial Crisis back and forth - Bush didn't do anything smart when it came to battling it.

[miss kelly]

Incorrect. Mr. Bush tried several times to get Congress to deal with the problem.

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=306632135350949

"Here's the lead of a New York Times story on Sept. 11, 2003: 'The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.' "

"Bush tried to act. Who stopped him? Congress, especially Democrats with their deep financial and patronage ties to the two government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie and Freddie."

Or here:
"This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration."

"It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans."

"...This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party."

http://www.blufftontoday.com/node/24895