Obama Doesn’t Keep His Word, Thankfully

Conservatives ought to hope that Barack Obama continues to break campaign promises.  We also should want him to refrain from ever focusing upon the economy.  He can go ahead and lie away if it means that his deep blue beliefs remain contained.  The nicest thing foes can say about the incumbent is that he hasn’t always been able to execute his excessively progressive ideals.  In other words, he hasn’t been able to gum up the works as thoroughly as possible.  It’s almost relieving.

For sport and amusement, some people have been tracking the president’s inability to realize his fantastical campaign claims. It’s an undeniably fun way to cope with the brutal policies foisted upon us by the White House.  But at the same time, a shattered guarantee beats a fulfilled bad idea.   The nation is better off when his fundamental beliefs remain as college textbook theories in lieu of becoming practical catastrophes.

Obama’s situation is so dire that he has resorted to pretending that he sympathizes with conservatives.  Specifically, he claims to favor prohibiting an imperceptible sliver of federal programs from getting any more funding during the next three years over their already unconscionably monstrous budgets. It would be shocking if he followed through and actually fired his economic freeze ray at even such a puny target.  But he at least recognizes that he has to pretend he’s something he’s not if he wants us to like him.  Regardless, we should hope he stops focusing on the economy once he reverts to his squandering ways about an hour from now.

Every day Obama doesn’t sock it to successful people or use our money to buy another corporation is a day that he’s disobeying one of his fundamental principles.  And that’s superb news: a feckless president is better than an effective one if same president wants to nationalize everything but defense.

On some issues, Obama has been mercifully exposed as a fibber.  Take the policies on killing or containing terrorists, many of which remain in place from the Bush era.  He could have ordered our forces to both shackle Predator drones and unlock Guantanamo’s gates.  As for Afghanistan, setting the withdrawal start for July 2011 was an obviously forced pronouncement, but at least he didn’t set a date by which it must be finished.  It’s not mere word-parsing: he actually gave into reality.  The commander-in-chief mercifully didn’t instantly enforce the King Arthur approach to fighting a sinister enemy.

To be sure, his administration has inflicted ample damage upon anti-terror efforts, such as treating the Naughty Bits Bomber as if he were a mugger or shoplifter while permitting Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s trial to be held in a courtroom presided over by Judge Harry T. Stone. They’re prime examples of announcements upon which Obama should backtrack posthaste.

Similarly, he likely spends every moment he’s not berating Robert Gibbs or the vice president daydreaming about how to close Gitmo.  But it continues to serve as a necessarily useful stockpile for the vilest men on Earth.  Plus, we can be partly grateful for his ineptitude at recalling all our forces home.  Next, we should hope he disavows his stated goal to engage the world’s Irans and North Koreas.

Further, when it comes to health care, conservatives should be pleased every day that Obama isn’t able to fulfill his overarching aspiration: he’s still not personally in charge of curing our ailments.  Certainly, we’d prefer if he kept one particular assurance, namely how we shouldn’t have to do time if we fail to buy coverage. But the right should be enthralled that he hasn’t kept his pledge to thrust Washington into the health system.

Of course, he’s now a day late and a Democrat short when it comes to shoving us toward being a single-payer nation; we can thank the fine people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for their invaluably necessary sabotage.  But Obama’s stubborn ineffectiveness prevented him from keeping true to his speeches even before then.  Such an outcome is worlds better than having him successfully follow through.

Many critics have also lambasted him for the attention he’s heaped upon health care in lieu of paying attention to the depressing recession.  But his misplaced priorities are actually a blessing.  While the thought of Obamacare has provoked innumerable cases of nausea, would you rather have him focusing primarily on the economy?  We’d end up building rafts so we could flee to a relatively prosperous nation like Cuba.  If Democraticare had passed, choosing between the health systems in each nation would be a wash.

It’s obviously fine to criticize a president who earns it nearly daily.  But it shouldn’t be based upon what tops his to-do list: it’s about what he considers to be appropriate responses to crises.  While putting out a fire is more urgent than picking up dry cleaning, taking care of the flames first remains a bad idea if one tries to extinguish them with gasoline.

For example, a normal, nervy president wouldn’t be freaked out by struggling businesses.  Failure is a tough but indifferent aspect of human economic interaction, and we have to be able to allow private concerns to thrive or crash at will.  Corporations that take excessive risks suffer automatically, and others in turn pick up the pieces.  Meanwhile, the Earth rotates while revolving.  Unfortunately, Obama keeps a rather extensive list of companies that are too big to fail.

When it comes to stopping the crisis at the root, our leader could stop bailing out banks after first telling them they no longer have to give mortgages to people who can’t afford mortgages.  Nonetheless, Obama will likely continue to disagree that this mythical “free market” should be allowed to function without federal meddling.  With that in mind, he’ll hopefully be stopped before he sticks to his guns and actualizes more government takeovers.

In the meantime, it seems weird to hope our leader employs a casual relationship between his words and actions.  But this feeling can be removed if we elect a president next time who makes bold guarantees that we want to come true.  He or she won’t vow to tax carbon-emitters back to hunting/gathering days or speak of health insurance as a fundamental human right.  Alternately, we will be excited by how the new boss advocates allowing us to buy our own stocks and health plans.

As noted, Scott Brown denies Obama the right to get what he wants at will.  The Senate’s new voting balance is obviously good news on its own.  Additionally, coming up one vote short every single time may pleasingly force him to break more campaign oaths.  Conservatives ought to encourage him to disavow his pervious remarks.  The alternative is that he achieves his goals, which is good for precisely nobody.

Pointing out that Obama is frequently all talk and zero walk is actually the closest thing to a compliment he deserves.  The best kind of liberal politician is one who doesn’t get things done.  While he’s inflicted ample damage upon the economy and our security, etiquette still dictates that we send him thank-you notes for not screwing up the country as much as he said he would.

Anthony Bialy is a freelance writer and “Red Eye” Conservative in Western New York.  He blogs at http://thebuffalobean.com and tweets at http://twitter.com/AnthonyBialy.

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