Bookworm Room

I can’t resist fisking Helen Thomas’ post-election ruminations.  The woman is a dummy, and yet she’s had enormous access to the halls of power for decades, and has always been a thorn in the Republicans’ collective flesh.  And, of course, as her widely published post, below, demonstrates, the old media still gives her enormous access to the American people, the better to spread her idiocy far and wide:

President Obama is a much wiser man as he starts his second year in office.  Chastened, perhaps, but he hasn’t given evidence that he’s much wiser.  He’s been forced to hew more closely to Bush’s policies on national security, but he’s otherwise been exceptionally wrong about so many things and, to date, gives no evidence that he’s analyzed and learned from his myriad failures.  If he had, Coakley might have won last night.

When he arrived at the White House, Obama inherited an insurmountable legacy of a deep recession and two wars in the Middle East. These are issues hardly adaptable to instant solutions for an impatient public.  Insurmountable?  Really?  Does that mean that the U.S. is incapable of every again becoming economically viable or of prevailing in its battle against radical Islam?  And if that’s the case, why did Obama even bother to run, knowing what he was getting into?  I guess that, coming from Helen’s world view, the answer is yes.  Her political ideology hates capitalism and believes that all wars are inherently evil and unwinnable.  I guess those are insurmountable problems.

He was flying high as a presidential candidate offering “change” from the heavy hand of conservatives empowered from the days of Ronald Reagan, who had turned the country to the right.  I guess that whole little interlude with Bill Clinton never happened.  And we can ignore completely the two years the Democrats controlled the house during the Bush administration.

Since those halcyon inaugural days the president surely has learned that there is no such thing as bipartisanship. The Republicans in Congress have formed a solid wall of opposition to all of his first-year initiatives, especially universal health care.  Yeah, those icky Republicans who faced a Democratic super-majority in each house of Congress.  All that they could do — oh, evil ones! — was holler out Cassandra-like warnings.  It was the Democrats’ own Blue Dogs who were the real party of no, ’cause really, there’s no bipartisanship when you have diametrically opposed policies, and one side has a super-majority.  Oh, and that’s that little thing about the President telling Republicans from the beginning that he didn’t have to deal with them because, “I won.”  Oh, and telling them to “get out of the way.”  And stuff like that.  You know….

The plan to provide affordable medical security for millions is now in great jeopardy with the surprising victory of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown in the special election for the seat of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy.  I’m not surprised.  The polls showing increasing discontent across the political spectrum with the unseemly spectacle in Congress pretty much paved the way for this outcome.  Add to that an unappealing Coakley and an extremely appealing Brown and, hey, I saw it coming.  And let’s not even touch Thomas’ assumption that destroying the economy and adding government bureaucracy to American medical care was going to “provide affordable medical security” to all.

Brown has vowed to vote against the health care bill when he takes his Senate seat. His election also means that Senate Republicans now will have 41 votes, enough to block any effort to end filibusters.  Wait a minute there, pardner.  Wasn’t it just a few paragraphs ago that Thomas said that we’d already been blocking health care?  And yet she know concedes that it’s only with Brown’s election that the Republicans can actually do so.  But we never expect logic from liberals, do we?

Obama also has learned that party loyalty is not a high priority among some Senate Democrats, including Evan Bayh of Indiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska.  Helen, dear Helen, did you really spend your entire career in D.C., and not figure out that survival is the highest priority?

Congressional Democrats are worried about the November mid-term elections in the aftermath of Brown’s victory and Republican wins in gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey.  Okay, this is weird.  Helen actually made sense here.

The trend portends bad news for other reforms that Obama hopes to make in the financial world. Other progressive plans for energy, education and global warming may be blocked by supporters of the status quo.  Again, Helen’s grasped the obvious, and we are devoutly grateful for the roadblock Brown provides.  He’s the single stop-gap we have until November (or, really, January 2011, when the huge incoming crop of Republicans is sworn in).

But not to worry, the president will have all the Republican backing he needs to pursue a hard-line foreign policy and possible military interventions in Pakistan, Yemen and Iran.  Interestingly, Helen tacitly concedes here that Obama will take a tough line in the war against . . . what are they called again? . . . bomb carrying personnel of the human, anti-American persuasion?  I think I got that right.  If Obama is a God, why would he throw his lot in with the evil, minority-party on this one?  Something’s wrong in Helen-world.

As for his first-year performance, Obama gives himself a B-plus. That seems about right to me.  Helen, you’re too old to wear your heart on your sleeve that way, girl.  Be a little coy.  Make him work for it.

On the plus side, Obama has introduced the world to a more caring U.S. image, compared to his predecessor who violated international law against torture.  Um, does Helen mean caring, or is she confusing the word with “lamb to the slaughter,” or “country with a giant target on its back,” or “laughing-stock in the world of dictators?”  I’m really not sure, ’cause the sentence as written makes no sense.

Obama also gave a hand to the beleaguered auto industry in hard-hit Detroit and other parts of the Midwest.  Yeah, but he sort of blew that one when he insulted Brown for driving a . . . GM.  And there’s the little problem of GM doing horribly in the past fiscal year.  But other than that, it’s all good.

He pushed through Congress the child health program that the Bush administration had rejected.  There was something about making working class families fund the health care for middle class families and illegal aliens that just didn’t sit well with lots of people.  Thank God we’re past those petty concerns, though.

He also was successful with some of his social agenda, including unemployment benefits.  Talk about damned with faint praise.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama has “an awful lot to be proud of.”  And Robert Gibbs sets a high standard.  Just this morning I was reading (and I’m damned if I can remember where) a scathing critique of Gibbs for thinking that, with his sneering refusal to answer, he’s really the TV sitcom life of the party.

The chief executive also rose to the occasion with an immediate humanitarian response to the earthquake catastrophe in Haiti.  As every single president in my lifetime would have.  That’s a dog bites man if ever there was one.

Gibbs acknowledges some missteps by the White House and said “nobody believes you can pitch a perfect game.”  There’s a sound grasp of the obvious, although those missteps had this look about them:

Obama has disappointed members of the liberal wing of his party. And he has yet to fulfill the promise of more openness in government.  That’s a pleasant understatement for the only president ever attacked by C-SPAN.

Gibbs said the president’s top priority during the year is “to get the economy back on track” and “creating jobs will be a top priority.”  I think Scott Brown articulated the American people’s top priorities:  “Raising taxes, taking over our health care, and giving new rights to terrorists is the wrong agenda for our country.”  Obama’s priorities all involving raising taxes — and, as Brown’s victory confirms, Americans have concluded that raising taxes is the wrong thing to do.

My suggestion as he starts his second year in the White House: Get tough. Learn to fight back against political foes.  This is the meanest President we’ve ever had.  Vindictive, insulting, deceitful — and that was one he had a one party system at his beck and call.  What the heck is he supposed to look like when he really fights back?  Mommy!  I’m scared.

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Related posts:

1. Good election analysis from Richard Baehr
2. That’s the problem with post-election punditry
3. Best analysis I’ve seen of Obama’s myriad failures re Iraq

Tags: Democrats, Helen Thomas

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