Will We Wake Up in 1933?
Obama's "restraint," says this blogger, is to be admired. He is in possession of "both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament," said conservative Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, paraphrasing Oliver Wendell Holmes's judgment of FDR. Christopher Buckley cribbed the same line, declaring that Obama "has exhibited throughout a 'first-class temperament.'" I can't disagree with any of these assessments, and I'm all for leaders with a Rooseveltian temperament. But shouldn't we be slightly more skeptical of those in possession of a Rooseveltian vision of domestic policy? And with the McCain issue will likely off the table by tomorrow morning, with the curtain soon to be drawn on the era of Bush's big government conservatism, with no dreaded Republican to do battle with, are we ready for a president with an expansive view of government intervention into the economy? (And yes, Bush was the worst of the worst on spending, but we soon won't have Mr. Bush to kick around anmore.) Will Obama, in this time of crisis, heed the advice of those members of the liberal commentariat agitating for radical economic change; will he push for some kind of New New Deal? According to this John Heilemann story in New York magazine, some of Obama's adviser's are already looking to the ghost of FDR to guide them:
"A lot of people around Barack are reading books about FDR's first hundred days," says a member of Obama's kitchen cabinet. "It's a sign of the shift that's going on emotionally: from being on this improbable mission to believing, Hey, we're going to win."
Obama might show "restraint" (whatever that means) and be an astoundingly clever guy, but perhaps it is time for the Obamacons and the Obamatarians to face the prospect of four years of big government liberalism, to accept that American foreign policy probably won't be any less interventionist (just fronted by people lacking that Rumsfeldian bombast). Perhaps we should start thinking about a big, messy healthcare bureaucracy, the victory of card check, an attempt to reintroduce the fairness doctrine, or the establishment of a "fair" (read: protectionist) trade policy.
Oh, and be prepared for more stuff like this bizarre rant from half-witted actor John Cusack, star of the Hitler buddy pic Max ("C'mon Hitler, I'll buy you a glass of lemonade"), who declares in the Huffington Post that "the modern free market system is false but a new revelation shall come." Deep, man. After all, sayth Cusack, we have reached "the end of Milton Friedman, Reaganomics and supply-side theory" and we, as conscripted members of the new CCC, must "help Obama try to implement another New Deal…"
