MINT-AND-CORN COUNTRY, INDIANA — Call my Tuesday-morning mind boggled. Eugene Robinson has just flipped the world upside down with a startlingly bizarre piece of disinformative agitprop.
Glass one, not yet overly sweetened:
It’s been a year since a healthy majority of American voters elected Barack Obama to change the world. Which is precisely what he’s doing.
Glass two; even I’d not typically write in such a purple hue:
I wish he could summon more of the rhetorical magic that spoke so compellingly to the better angels of our nature.
Glass three, getting sugary:
Yes, the $787 billion stimulus package has been messy, but most economists believe it was absolutely necessary — and some believe it should have been even bigger. Yes, Obama continued the Bush-era policy of showering irresponsible financial institutions with billions in public funds. Yes, the administration bailed out the auto industry — and we actually heard the president of the United States reassure Americans that General Motors warranties would be honored.
But these and other actions convinced the financial markets that the White House would do anything to avoid a complete meltdown. The economy grew at a rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter and, while unemployment may not yet have peaked, the odds of a strong and fairly swift recovery have greatly improved.
Responding to the crisis required creating an enormous fiscal deficit that Obama will spend years trying to reduce {by ramming healthcare “reform” down our throats, inter alia}. But not even the most conservative economists recommend attacking the deficit before the economy is stabilized on a path of growth. Only Republican demagogues think that’s a good idea.
(My bracketed commentary; Robinson’s italics. — NPO) That our president would do anything, even bailing out a faltering auto industry (on top of a less-justifiable bailout of Wall Street) and continuing to “[shower] irresponsible financial institutions with billions in public funds”, to avoid a “complete meltdown” and “another Great Depression” is a good thing? (Would another Great Depression be so bad, anyway? Have we not grown too big for our britches?) And, of course, the Holy Grail of American politics: the unquestioned goodness of economic growth!
Glass four, starting to feel a sugar high:
On national security, Obama moved at once to categorically renounce torture — a big step toward removing the ugly stain that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney left on our national honor. It looks as if Obama will miss his self-imposed one-year deadline for closing the Guantanamo prison, but a delay of a few weeks or months will be worth it if the administration succeeds in developing a comprehensive legal framework — consistent with our ideals and traditions — for bringing terrorism suspects to justice.
Except for the loopholes.
Glass five: Who spiked the punch? I’m drunk.
Obama should have supported a full-blown investigation into apparent Bush-era violations of national and international law. And, at a minimum, he should allow the limited torture probe ordered by Attorney General Eric Holder to follow the evidence wherever it might lead.
In other words, he hasn’t done a damn thing. Except that he has. He’s further circumvented national law: Paging Glenn Greenwald:
In other words, beyond even the outrageously broad “state secrets” privilege invented by the Bush administration and now embraced fully by the Obama administration, the Obama DOJ has now invented a brand new claim of government immunity, one which literally asserts that the U.S. Government is free to intercept all of your communications (calls, emails and the like) and — even if what they’re doing is blatantly illegal and they know it’s illegal — you are barred from suing them unless they “willfully disclose” to the public what they have learned.
Glass six, because sometimes, once you’re inebriated, you forget when to say “Stop.”
And then there’s health-care reform. I’ve been impatient with Obama’s strategy of letting Congress take the lead on writing legislation, but he’s brought us to the brink of truly meaningful reform much faster than anyone could have imagined a year ago. We still have some fighting to do over two words — “public” and “option” — but it looks like the principle that everyone is entitled to health insurance, a Democratic Party goal for at least six decades, is about to become law.
Heaven forbid the legislative branch should take responsibility for writing the legislation! And then, of course, we have the questions about being “entitled to health insurance”, and, beyond that, to what extent one may be entitled. Is “much faster than anyone could have imagined” ever a healthy attitude toward carving policy? We probably should keep up the fight against the words “public” and “option”, indeed, when the premiums are going to be higher. And we definitely need to fight against the pairing of word “mandate”.
Robinson’s article is not honest op.-ed. journalism: It’s irresponsible, sycophantic rubbish, complete fluff unworthy of so estimable a journal as the Post and its readers. For shame, yet again.
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