The President as Pest

With the SOTU behind us, what’s left for Obama in his lame duck years? Looking at his record, it’s difficult to see any promise of accomplishment. His entire tenure has been one vast Gobi of negative achievement unparalleled in the history of this Republic. His domestic record -- to mention only the highlights -- consists of the Stimulus (“shovel-ready jobs”), ObamaCare, forcing tens of millions out of the workforce, decoupling the stock market from the economy as a whole, and a still stumbling recovery. His “post-racial presidency” is a sad joke, with race relations in a state of tension unseen since the late 60s. His party is in near-terminal disarray, with most of the states in the hands of the GOP and, apart from a pair of questionable female celebrity candidates, no one to take up the reins once he leaves.

As for foreign affairs, where do we commence? About his “victory” over Al Qaeda, the less said the better. He alienated Israel among only the most prominent of our allies. Putin’s Russia is on the rampage, and China is about to start a regional war over the South China Sea. Bush’s emphasis on assistance to Africa was abandoned by the first African-American president. A promising opening to India, a rising regional superpower, was tossed aside. But all this is a lagniappe to the greatest foreign-policy disaster since the 1970s -- the “Arab Spring”, a policy initiative so apocalyptic that media, academics, and left-leaning politicians don’t dare mention it. Thanks to Obama, along with his witch’s coven of Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, and Samantha Power, the entire region, minus only Israel, is in chaos, with no sign of an end and a potential butcher’s bill in the tens of millions. (Nobody ever realized that Power’s epic study of genocide was actually a handbook.) Moving on to scandals, we find another cornucopia. Fast and Furious! Lois Lerner! Solyndra! Jonathan Gruber! The Muslim Brotherhood! Illegal executive orders! Illegal ObamaCare changes! And going back, Obama’s award of a trillion-and-a-half dollars to his friends in the financial industry, for which he had no constitutional or legal sanction whatsoever. All this before the last phase of Obama’s tenure -- historically the period when festering scandals begin to bubble up. So pathetic is Obama’s record that his supporters have been driven to claim credit on his behalf for endeavors that he not only had nothing to do with (fracking, e.g.) but actively opposed, and still opposes. The notion of recovery simply beggars credulity. The Obama administration is in a state analogous to what aerodynamicists call “dynamic stall,” in which an aircraft is trapped by its own control surfaces at an angle in which no lift is generated and it begins plummeting like a brick. Efforts to regain control simply redouble the forces gripping the aircraft. The only solution is to punch out and watch the plane dig a hole. (See the climax of The Right Stuff for an example of this effect in action.) There’s no way out for Obama. All we can hope for is that the most urgent threats -- China, the Jihadis, a renewed financial crisis -- will hold off until a competent hand takes the controls. So what’s his alternative? Some hysterical elements have answered: tyranny. Obama, they claim, will “call off the elections,” “suspend the Constitution,” and fill up the FEMA camps. This is unlikely for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that the man behind the “Arab Spring” is totally incapable of any such effort. Obama is simply too incompetent to bring it off. His admiration for tyrants is well known, and he has no doubt reflected on the career of his largely overlooked political hero, Suharto, who obtained office in exactly that way. As generalissimo of Indonesia, Suharto loomed over Barry Soetero’s boyhood like a colossus. Much of Obama’s practical politics -- cronyism, government by decree, turning one ethnicity against another -- is derived directly from Suharto. But looking closely at Obama -- at his record, his personality, the way he walks -- we see that this man is clearly not one to embark on a coup d’etat. He can’t even throw a baseball right. Like ObamaCare, he’d need to have it done for him, and it’s doubtful anybody would volunteer. (As a final note, “calling off the elections’ has been shouted from one end of the spectrum to the other since Reagan. Every ensuing president has been accused of this. It has become the emblem of the loser, and should be dropped.) So what’s left for him? That has been obvious for the past several months, clearly evinced by his senseless executive orders, his annoying appointments, and his unwillingness to face up to the facts. Obama plans to be a pest Virtually every major action by Obama since autumn has been taken not to accomplish anything, or to achieve a goal, or to satisfy a public need, but merely to cause as much trouble, chaos, and heartache as possible. We finally know which godling Obama actually is -- he’s Loki, the Norse god of discord and strife. Taking a look at his recent actions, the pattern is clear: Immigration Decree: This failed to accomplish anything. It actually did little for the illegals, merely formalizing current government practice. What it did do was confound the Red states most victimized by illegal immigration, increase economic stress across the country, and expose Americans to novel tropical diseases. Opening to Cuba: Obama ended the embargo unilaterally, with no warning or planning. The U.S. gained absolutely no concessions from the Castros. Outside of the communists, criminal syndicates, and Obama’s friends among the financial elite, it promises to benefit no one -- the Cuban people least of all. The Paris March: No real explanation has been put forward for this, for the simple reason that the explanation can’t be spun for Obama’s benefit. Obama simply didn’t give a damn. What was in it for him? Waste a day flying the Atlantic to share the camera with European leaders, all for a bunch of dead white media bohos? And in defiance of his beloved Islam to boot. No way -- not on a playoff game Sunday. And just to twist the knife a little, he assured that nobody else apart from the ambassador showed up either. Nicely played. Release of the Yemeni Jihadis -- A week after four Jihadis associated with the Yemeni Al Qaeda murdered 17 people in Paris, Obama ordered the release of five Yemeni Islamists from Gitmo. No greater insult to France and the victims can be imagined. In the late 19th century, this, coupled with the march fiasco, would have caused a serious diplomatic incident that would have required years of work to repair. Fortunately, nobody expects anything better from Obama at this point. The Community College Scam -- What Obama is proposing here is adding another two years of high school. Anybody who has ever attended a community college knows that’s what it amounts to -- a means of warehousing students for two years to keep them off the job market. And Obama wants to spend billions to render this universal. Ingenious. The Tax “Plan” -- That this was intended to embarrass the GOP was demonstrated by the way that Obama broke tradition to announce it before the SOTU. That it has absolutely no hope of doing so was shown by the way the details were released on Saturday night of a holiday weekend. Not even Obama’s own staff thinks this one can work. Class warfare simply does not play in the U.S. for adults outside of academia. Only a throwback leftist would think otherwise. Seen side-by-side, Obama’s intentions concerning these efforts are obvious (as is the fact that all this started the week after the midterms). A seriously embittered Obama wants to annoy as many people as possible in his remaining two years. Thus far, he has struck out at the Red states, the wealthy, the leadership of Europe, the Jewish people, and American conservatives. But there is no group that can safely assume that they are not on the list. Sullen and infuriated, Obama will continue to strike out. The more chaos the better, as he looks on with that world-renowned superior smirk on his face. We can make some educated guesses as to what’s next. Racial antagonism is an obvious ploy and will continue. Obama will also do his best to aggravate relations between Muslims and Americans both domestically and internationally. Deliberately fumbling or ignoring conflict with China holds great promise, as does rewarding Putin with concessions. Gitmo is likely to be closed by fiat in the last weeks of his tenure, under the most dangerous circumstances imaginable. Curtailing fracking by “executive order,” empty negotiations with Al Qaeda, ISIS and so on… the possibilities are endless. The duty of Congress is obvious. An adolescent mentality inhabits the Oval Office. All procedural means must be taken to prevent him from doing the damage he’s capable of. (Forget impeachment. By the time that got rolling we’d be in the midst of Election 2016.) The voters, the United States, and the world at large may well deserve a thrashing for accepting, encouraging, and tolerating this clown -- and I believe they do. But there are limits. The possibilities for damage by a rogue president are nearly unimaginable.