Monday, January 12, 2009

When adults take over

I heard a commentator a couple of months ago state "the most important thing to a politician is his next election".

So needless to say, Obama wins the White House and now seems to be back tracking on all those anti Bush sentiments.

I guess Obama, the campaigning teenager, became Obama, the adult boss.
For many liberals, that Obamagasmic "tingle going up their legs" from the campaign season -- to paraphrase MSNBC's Chris Matthews -- may have crept upward into stomach-churning queasiness as Inauguration Day nears. Consider this counterfactual: If John McCain had won the 2008 presidential election (just a scant half million votes needed to swing the other way in Colorado, Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and Virginia ... I know, I know), it's easy to imagine him picking Bono-approved, "new age" evangelist Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation, leaving Robert Gates as defense secretary and proposing an economic stimulus package that included $300 billion in tax breaks for individuals and businesses.

Yet that's just the sort of "big change" Barack Obama has provided in the two months since winning a near-landslide victory over the man Democrats derided as "McBush." (Let's see will.i.am make a YouTube video about this right-turn of events.) Even worse for the Left, Obama advisers are now signaling, says the New York Times, "that they may put off renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, overhauling immigration laws, restricting carbon emissions, raising taxes on the wealthy and allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military." You know, like, pretty much the very heart and soul of the liberal policy agenda. Even healthcare reform might only be getting what aides call a “down payment” as a "sign of dedication to the broader goals." Let the wretching begin, Daily Kossacks. (Fun Fact: Obama gave his big economic speech at George Mason University, a bastion of free-market scholarship.)


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