The dangers that come with Obama’s unleashing the mob, plus a side trip into Obama’s narcissism
Charles Krauthammer has one of his best articles ever, regarding Obama’s class warfare. He notes, too, that it’s easier to unleash than to control the mob. Here’s a sample, but I think you should read the whole thing — and then send it to people you know:
After three years, Obama’s self-proclaimed transformative social policies have yielded a desperately weak economy. What to do? Take the low road: Plutocrats are bleeding the country, and I shall rescue you from them.
Problem is, this kind of populist demagoguery is more than intellectually dishonest. It’s dangerous. Obama is opening a Pandora’s box. Popular resentment, easily stoked, is less easily controlled, especially when the basest of instincts are granted legitimacy by the nation’s leader.
Exhibit A. On Tuesday, the Democrat-controlled Senate passed punitive legislation over China’s currency. If not stopped by House Speaker John Boehner, it might have led to a trade war — a 21st-century Smoot-Hawley. Obama knows this. He has shown no appetite for a reckless tariff war. But he set the tone. Once you start hunting for villains, they can be found anywhere, particularly if they are conveniently foreign.
Exhibit B. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin rails against Bank of America for announcing a $5 a month debit card fee. Obama echoes the opprobrium with fine denunciations of banks and their hidden fees — except that this $5 fee is not hidden. It’s perfectly transparent.
Yet here is a leading Democratic senator advocating a run on a major (and troubled) bank — after two presidents and two Congresses sunk billions of taxpayer dollars to save failing banks. Not because they were deserving or virtuous but because they are necessary. Without banks, there is no lending. Without lending, there is no business. Without business, there are no jobs.
Exhibit C. To the villainy-of-the-rich theme emanating from Washington, a child is born: Occupy Wall Street. Starbucks-sipping, Levi’s-clad, iPhone-clutching protesters denounce corporate America even as they weep for Steve Jobs, corporate titan, billionaire eight times over.
These indignant indolents saddled with their $50,000 student loans and English degrees have decided that their lack of gainful employment is rooted in the malice of the millionaires on whose homes they are now marching — to the applause of Democrats suffering acute Tea Party envy and now salivating at the energy these big-government anarchists will presumably give their cause.
Except that the real Tea Party actually had a program — less government, less regulation, less taxation, less debt. What’s the Occupy Wall Street program? Eat the rich.
Speaking of Obama, it will be interesting to see how he ultimately handles this Iran thing. Right now, he’s framing it as a low level insult to America, and he couldn’t care less. My bet is that, if he can be made to see that it is a direct attack on himself, he will come out frothing blood, because the only thing Obama will defend is his own ego. As to that, let me repost here the telling anecdote that Mike Devx found (emphasis mine):
In June 2002, during a budget crisis in Illinois, a state senator from Chicago’s West Side, Rickey Hendon, made a desperate plea for a child-welfare facility in his constituency to be spared the axe. A junior senator from Chicago’s South Side, Barack Obama, voted against him, insisting hard times call for hard choices.
Ten minutes later Obama rose, calling for a similar project in his own constituency to be spared, and for compassion and understanding. Hendon was livid and challenged Obama on his double standards from the senate floor. Obama became livid too. As Hendon has told it, Obama approached him, “stuck his jagged, strained face into my space“, and said: “You embarrassed me on the senate floor and if you ever do it again I will kick your ass.”
“What?” said an incredulous Hendon.
“You heard me,” Obama said. “And if you come back here by the telephones where the press can’t see it, I will kick your ass right now.”
The two men vacated the senate floor and, depending on whom you believe, either traded blows or came close to it.
Obama is a malignant narcissist. Malignant narcissists will fight for what they care about — but the only thing they care about is themselves.