The Carnivorous Government

posted at 1:41 am on January 5, 2010 by Doctor Zero
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Every presidential administration takes a ferocious beating during its term. Sometimes this beating inflicts a mortal wound, as public consciousness hardens around a particular theme. The government has grown to massive proportions in the decades since the New Deal and Great Society, leaving its chief executive to preside over a vast number of programs and functions, which absorb trillions of dollars. Most voters could not hope to keep track of everything a President does. They instinctively seek to understand the vast mechanism of a presidency the way ancient astronomers sought to understand the sky: they look for patterns of behavior, sliding memorable events and images together, the way our ancestors found the shapes of bears and dragons in the stars.

Writing in Commentary, Jennifer Rubin outlines the pattern of incompetence that has come to define the Obama Administration:

On Face the Nation, there was some serious talk as to why the Christmas Day bombing is so perilous for the Obama team. It is not simply that once again Democrats may be perceived as weak on national security. There is a more basic issue now rumbling through not just conservative circles but also in the mainstream media: can these people be trusted to do much of anything?

Rubin then relays quotes from the transcript of Face the Nation, in which Jan Crawford says: “The reason that’s an issue for Obama is that it goes to the bigger question of the competency of his government, and the trust that people have in that government.” Bob Schieffer makes an amusing joke about Obama spin resembling the feeble excuses of Tiger Woods, and observes that spin doctoring “makes it harder to believe anything the government says… Real security is based on trust in government.”

I don’t think incompetence is the only factor dissolving public support for this presidency. Obama’s predecessors made plenty of mistakes, and engaged in loads of spin. People have a vague, mounting sense of unease about the capabilities of the President, but their ears are still ringing with a year’s worth of incessant media praise that approached the level of religious devotion. Obama himself still tends to poll better than either his policies or his party.

I think what’s killing this presidency, along with the Democrat Party in general, is the combination of ineptitude and the insatiable hunger for power. The public is beginning to fear this government, instead of merely disapproving of it… and well they should. Like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, the carnivorous government growing in America’s rear-view mirror is even closer than it appears.

The past year has been a mad, headlong rush to accumulate central power, utterly unprecedented in modern American history. Even the New Dealers weren’t as blind in their hunger for control – they had very elaborate plans, which they were proud of, and quite eager to discuss in detail. History proved these plans to be disastrous, as all forms of socialism are, but you can’t say the plans weren’t on the table. Looking back to the early years of the Progressive movement, it was hard to get Woodrow Wilson to stop clattering out detailed papers and speeches with teletype endurance.

By contrast, the Obama Democrats have no plans. They prepare thousand-page bills with hundreds of blank sections. They incubated a bloated health-care plan, then began slicing off pieces of it to purchase the votes they needed for cloture. Various Democrats have told friendly audiences that the exact details of health-care “reform” aren’t important, since whatever bill manages to drag itself onto the President’s desk for signature will be merely the first step in an endless legislative mutation… leading eventually to the cherished single-payer health-care trophy, awarded for the final victory of command-economy socialism.

The nauseating process we watched on various midnights in November and December was not merely a messy legislative battle to “reform” health care. It never had anything to do with health care. Not a man or woman in the Democrat Party has the first clue how to manage the medical needs of the entire nation. No one does. They only pretend to the wisdom necessary to design an intricate system that will reduce costs and increase access to medical services. The public looks at absurd backroom deals to buy the support of reluctant senators for non-existent legislation, and sees the ravenous hunger of a maddened beast.

As Jennifer Rubin says in her Commentary article, the Underwear Bomber episode heightens the public perception of a government that angrily demands vast amounts of money and power, but has absolutely no idea what to do with it. It’s telling that the most basic, Constitutionally-mandated function of the federal government has them the most completely flummoxed. Every detail of this Administration’s response to the attack – from the hapless Secretary of Homeland Security obediently reading her “system worked” talking points, to the growing revelations about how many red flags were fluttering around Abdulmutallab as he boarded Flight 253, to the oddly disconnected public statement Obama gave days after the incident – paints a portrait of confusion. Even worse, it paints a portrait of neglect. The public has begun to return the sentiment. Nobody cared what Obama had to say in his much-delayed comments on the subject.

The “climate change” disaster in Copenhagen plays into the theme of senseless hunger as well. None of the global-warming fanatics or political hustlers gathered in Copenhagen have the first clue about whether the Earth is warming, or why. They were exposed as frauds on the eve of the event – but they plowed ahead anyway, eager to gather around the manger of a newborn “world government” that would nurse from the money spigots of Western democracies. President Obama was happy to join in the farce, brimming with the naked desire to embrace a trans-national order that would furnish him with more weapons to subjugate the American economy and political system. When Copenhagen fell apart, the hysterical rage of the disappointed participants contained echoes of frustrated predators deprived of a kill.

The Obama Administration answers every question with a demand for more power, to implement nebulous plans no one is allowed to review. It’s striking that, over a year after the subprime mortgage crisis caused by activist government legislation, there is absolutely no area in which the Democrat Party thinks government should be made smaller… no problem they believe American citizens should be given greater liberty to solve. Their menu for the future of America consists of nothing but pork-fried government spending, sauteed in reckless deficit sauce and coated with greasy regulations… and just wait until you see the tax-hike surprise they’ve got under glass for the second course.

Consider the implications of pushing both amnesty and socialized medicine on the American public, in an economy-shattering double hammer blow. Look at the stories of Porkulus billions disappearing into imaginary Congressional districts and non-existent zip codes. Contemplate the absolute confusion of the Administration as unemployment continues to rise, contrary to all of their predictions and promises. This is not a President, or a party, determined to provide leadership, or craft intelligent solutions to social and economic issues. They have no ideas or strategies… only demands, and bottomless appetites. This is why the public has no confidence in either the Democrats, or the economy they’re pushing so hard to eviscerate.

Cross-posted at www.doczero.org.

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