What Can A Man of Barack Obama's Experience Accomplish?

The stakes are enormous, even unprecedented, and the facts are clear: Our national debt has reached ruinous, astronomical levels and climbs higher every day. Mr. Obama has spent four trillion dollars in just over two years. The number is so large—and increasing daily--that it has almost no meaning for most Americans, yet Mr. Obama wants to spend much, much more. Virtually no one outside Paul Krugman thinks our current path of spending America into oblivion is remotely rational or sustainable, and even he is beginning to have the tiniest doubts. Moody’s is poised to lower America’s AAA bond rating, which would make it far more expensive to borrow and would almost certainly set off a round or murderous, Carteresque inflation, and that's the best case scenario. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security must be reformed. If ObamaCare is ever fully implemented, it will be sufficient, by itself, to bankrupt the nation, to say nothing about giving the government de facto power to mandate whatever it wants. Our revenues are sufficient to meet our needs, but our spending is completely out of control. If we don’t stop spending far more money than we could ever possibly have, America will go bankrupt, plunging the world into an economic apocalypse.

On one hand we have the Congressional Republicans, many obviously uncomfortable in stepping out of their business as usual comfort zones, but forced by circumstances and reality to actually stand up for no additional taxes and real spending cuts. Yet even so, they’re willing to give up more than two trillion dollars in additional spending, money we don’t have, money we will have to borrow. By any reasonable interpretation of “compromise,” more than two trillion dollars is quite a compromise.

On the other hand we have Barack Obama, President of the United States. Mr. Obama knows the state of the economy. He knows the state of the debt, yet he wants to spend more money than even the most craven politician prior to the advent of The One was capable of imagining. And to do this, he wants to raise taxes to unheard of levels. What is little known is that through ObamaCare and other devices, he has already imposed enormous new taxes that will by themselves drag down an economy seriously weakened by years of wild spending abandon by Democrats. Yes, Republicans helped, but the pubic knows who the real spending addicts are and soundly spanked the Democrats in 2010. Mr. Obama speaks of “a balanced approach,” yet his idea of balance is that the Republicans not only give him everything he wants, they must praise his patience and willingness to compromise—by graciously accepting whatever he demands--as well.

As Fox News reported on July 14 (here), Mr. Obama angrily and petulantly walked out of a recent negotiating session when mere Congressmen and Senators dared oppose his majesty.

“"I've reached my limit. This may bring my presidency down, but I will not yield on this," Mr. Obama angrily exclaimed before storming out of the session.

Thus did Mr. Obama, who promised to unite Americans, who portrayed himself as the great healer, the man who would once again make America loved and respected, demonstrate his superior temperament and boundless intellect. Yet even before that ostentatious display of juvenile temper, Mr. Obama, representing the party that pretends to champion the poor and the elderly, threatened to cut off the social security payments of the poor and the elderly in August if he did not get his way. That'll show 'em who's boss.

Why would the President of the United States behave so…irresponsibly? What, after all, can a man of Barack Obama's experience accomplish?

In one sense, actual experience is irrelevant. The legacy media slavishly supports, even worships Mr. Obama. Even when he recently cut off White House Press Pool access (here) to debt ceiling negotiations because he was angered that the press wasn't appropriately respectful, they took the scolding of Press Secretary Jay Carney and wrote the usual puff pieces blaming everyone but Barack Obama, as usual, following the lead of the man who obviously abhors them.

There is no doubt that the press has supported and defended Mr. Obama like the useful idiots he certainly considers them to be. There is also no doubt that they will continue to support the man in whom they have placed all their hopes, the demi-god they worship. Google "Obama Halo" and you'll find innumerable examples of Mr. Obama given a halo, and not by one press outlet, not by a handful, but by too many to count. Such mindless, incurious fealty is very valuable to any politician, and particularly those with monumental delusions of grandeur.

Placing a halo around the head of a political figure may, to the media, be very symbolic, seemingly making them special, important, even deities. Perhaps they even believe that the God and gun clingers of Flyover Country would embrace such imagery, and therefore take to heart their word. The truth, of course, is that Christians find such mindless trivialization of the holy to be insulting, even blasphemous.

The most egregious and insulting example of this kind of false idol worship is the Easter 2010 New York Times image of the White House at the base of a cross, with Barack Obama, obviously speaking (giving a sermon?) superimposed in profile over the cross. It would be hard to imagine an image that Christians would find more abhorrent and disgusting.

As far as is known, Mr. Obama has not commissioned such images, but anyone with any knowledge of photography viewing these images understands that many are obviously posed, and posing requires the cooperation of the subject of the photography. Is it possible that the most brilliant man ever to occupy the Oval Office had no idea what all those photographers were doing? Has he never seen their photographs? It is also noteworthy that Mr. Obama has never—to my knowledge—made a public plea that such crude attempts at Newsweek-like deification cease. There is, in fact, reason to believe that Mr. Obama sees himself as more than man.

There is considerable reason to believe that the press, the press that called Obama a god, that was awe-struck by his superhuman ability to swat a fly, that felt tingles run up their legs at the mere thought of The One, and thought that he would be an excellent president because of the crease in his pants leg will be every bit as taken with him in 2012 as they were in 2008, perhaps more.

Stephen Marche, writing in a July 12, 2011 Esquire article, proclaimed Mr. Obama's narrative to be ancient, literary, the story of a modern Odysseus or Gilgamesh, a man of historic import and accomplishment.

According to Marche, Mr. Obama is more than man: he is myth. He is a legendary literary hero for the ages, and Marche lays out a list of characteristics of literary greatness to better illustrate his timeless narrative and glory. It is almost impossible to fully explain the delusional, drooling man-love Marche displays. However, it is frighteningly familiar to those who understand history and Communism. It is the cult of personality worship enforced in totalitarian nations like North Korea and Cuba. You really need to read it yourself. But here's a representational excerpt:

"We can finally see who he is, we can finally understand the reality: In 2011, it is possible to be a levelheaded, warmhearted, cold-blooded killer who can crack a joke and write a book for his daughters. It is possible to be many things at once. And even more miraculous, it is possible for that man to be the president of the United States. Barack Obama is developing into what Hegel called a "world-historical soul," an embodiment of the spirit of the times. He is what we hope we can be.

We love Obama — even those who claim to despise him — because deep in our hearts and all over our lives, we're the same way — both inside and outside our jobs, our races, our cities, our countries, ourselves. With great artists, often the most irritating feature of their work is the source of their talent. Obama's gift is the same as his curse: He's somehow managed to be like the rest of us, only infinitely more so."

Such psychosis cannot be parodied. If we endeavor only to be honest, we most certainly do not hope to be what Mr. Obama is. Fortunately, for those who are willing to acknowledge that Barack Obama is a mere mortal, there is compelling evidence that he is far more mortal and fallible than most.

Consider this: If anyone wished to discover the salient facts of your life, how hard would it be to find them? Would it not be easy to discover where you lived, where you went to school, your grades, where you worked? Wouldn't a relatively simple search turn up friends, neighbors, co-workers who would know a great deal about you? If you attended college, and particularly graduate school, wouldn't it be easy to find fellow students who could recount anecdotes about your time with them in innumerable classes? If you were a professional in a profession that required publication, wouldn't there be evidence of your writings, of your beliefs and values?

For normal people, all of this, and more would be easily found for in our paths, we leave behind innumerable records, records we're not even aware are being kept. I have little doubt that a search could reveal where I went to school in the third grade and my grades for that year. It would reveal where I lived and when, and my college classmates could certainly tell a story or two about me, and my grades in college could easily be found. But little or none of this is true about Barack Obama.

Normally, such anomalies, such missing stretches of time, the chronicle of existence, would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull to a professional, competent press, but they have been remarkably uninterested in the background of The One, and with good reason. They don't want to find what they know they would find. They don't want to have to report that the President of the United States is the least qualified, least capable, most fraudulent, and most narcissistic and arrogant man ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Mr. Obama's college years are shrouded in mystery. His grades are unavailable. There seems to be no one who remembers him from his undergraduate years, at least not with the kind of memories one would expect of someone who shared the college experience with a superior being in the process of becoming. Perhaps this is because in his two autobiographies (as I recall, Benjamin Franklin satisfied himself with one) Mr. Obama notes that he consciously hung out with the radical—far, far left—elements in college, which is not exactly prime material for a presidential campaign bio.

At Harvard, Mr. Obama was awarded the presidency of the Law Review on the strength of his performance as Barack Obama, yet apparently produced no legal scholarship. At the least, none of it, or any of his work in college or graduate school at Harvard, has ever been revealed. Those who remember him recall that he occasionally stopped by the offices of the Law Review to allow others the thrill and inspiration of his presence, but apparently did no actual work. In a pattern that would eventually become practice, he led from so far behind that there remains not a trace of his leadership. There are no tales of his budding legal genius, no indicators of great promise to come in trial competitions or debates, none of the indicators and milestones one would expect of virtually anyone taking Mr. Obama's educational path. Odd for a man acclaimed by the press as one of the greatest orators in American history, a declamatory genius to rival Abraham Lincoln, with whom Mr. Obama has often compared himself.

Part II of this article will be posted on Saturday, July 23. It begins with Mr. Obama's only executive experience, his years heading the Chicago Annenberg challenge. It was a complete failure.