Monday, January 23, 2012

Liberal Lunacy


By Alan Caruba

Conservative commentators read what liberals have to say if only to get a glimpse into their current memes on various topics. It is always daunting because one cannot do this without coming away convinced that they are lunatics, devoid of any sense of history or reality, both of which they routinely invent to defend their opinions.

A recent case in point is New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd, whose January 22nd, Sunday commentary was titled “Showtime at the Apollo.” Ms. Dowd has been disappointed with Barack Obama for a long time, but she still struggles to find something laudatory while at the same time revealing just how defective he is.

Call it schizophrenic journalism; a liberal writer for a liberal newspaper who is torn between the party line and what she is forced to witness.

“For eight seconds, we saw the president we had craved for three years: cool, joyous, funny, connected.” Eight seconds out of three years is not much to cheer. Dowd was referring to Obama’s “seductive imitation” of singer Al Green and a song that begins “I, I’m so in love with you.” Oh, please!

The event was a fund-raiser at the Apollo Theatre in New York’s Harlem. Dowd noted, however, that “Times have been bad and sad, and The One did not turn out to be a messiah, just a mortal politician.” Surely a columnist who has written about politics for so many years had to know that, but the liberal media was and is too busy spinning fantasies about him.

Blame Bush Syndrome

“The man who came to Washington on a wave of euphoria has had a presidency with all the joy of a root canal”, opined Dowd and then immediately destroyed what little credibility she has by saying Obama had been “dragged down by W’s recklessness.”

One might think we were passed the Blame Bush mantra, but what is spectacular is the way Dowd and other liberals ignore the fact that Democrats had been in control of the 103rd Congress since January 3, 2007.

Liberals hate facts. For example, on January 3, 2007, the Dow Jones closed at 12,621.77. The GDP growth for the previous quarter was 3.5%. The unemployment rate was 4.6%. Bush’s economic policies had set a record of 52 straight months of job creation.

Dowd might well have been unaware that George W. Bush had, on seventeen occasions, asked Congress to stop the recklessness of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that would cause the September 2008 financial collapse based on trillions in “sub-prime mortgages” the two “government sponsored entities” had pressured banks to make. Then they purchased and bundled them into what would become known as “toxic assets” that nearly destroyed the nation’s banking system.

Dowd quoted Obama’s view of the critiques he’s received, when he said that he didn’t go to a lot of Washington parties and that the Washington press corps “just doesn’t feel like I’m in the mix with enough with them”, blaming him for being “cold and aloof.” Obama is cold and aloof. He and the press mix all the time at various White House and other events, but Obama claimed he couldn’t do more because “I’ve got a 13-year-old and 10-year-old daughter.” How lame an excuse is that?

Truman had Margaret. Clinton had Chelsea. Bush-43 had twin girls. Come on!

Anyone with any memory of Obama’s early press conferences can recall what disasters they were the minute he stopped reading from his TelePrompter and tried to answer their questions. He virtually stopped engaging in press conferences after two years.

Referencing a fellow New York Times reporter’s new book, Jodi Kantor’s “The Obamas”, Dowd concludes that the president disdains “the irrational nature of politics.” Well, yes, the failures of Congress are irrational insofar, as a recent report concluded, “Congress ended its least-productive year in modern history after passing 80 bills—fewer than during any other session since year-end records began being kept in 1947.”

Kantor’s book suggests that “they (Barack and Michelle) feel over-assaulted and under-appreciated.”

The obvious conclusion, said Dowd, was that “We disappointed them.” I assume this is irony.

To her credit, Dowd pointed out that “They’ve forgotten Rule No. 1 of politics. No one sheds tears for anyone lucky enough to live at the White House,” adding that “The Obamas truly feel like victims.”

No, Maureen. The real victims are the millions of Americans out of work, some with mortgages that cost more than their homes are worth, while the price of gas and everything else rises, and their president cannot come up with a better campaign theme than “economic fairness.”

I’d feel sorry for Maureen Dowd and all the other liberal loonies except that it is their political philosophy and programs that have gotten us into this mess.

Feeling sorry for the Obamas is not at the top of my list of political priorities. Listening to them feel sorry for themselves while dining on steak and lobster, vacationing in expensive and exotic places, and demanding that “millionaires and billionaires” should pay more taxes is as pathetic as it gets.

I don’t expect Maureen Dowd and her fellow liberal pundits to stop desperately making excuses for the worst president in the history of the nation. It just reinforces my belief that they are all mentally defective.

© Alan Caruba, 2012

6 comments:

McBama said...

Obama is the worst president in history. Liberalism is a disease on this nation and should be labelled a mental disorder!

Guy in Ohio said...

There's no doubt in my mind that most hard left liberals do indeed have a screw loose. You can't reason with them, facts just don't register, and they seem to live their lives immersed in a fantasy world. It seems like some sort of variation of OCD to me ...

When the majority of people in a society suffer from a condition that prevents them from facing reality and making rational decisions, the society is doomed. Let's hope we can keep that from happening in America ...

Ronbo said...

I don't understand why the Ministry of Truth comrades are so unhappy - Big Brother Obama's plan to wreck the capitalist economy is right on target and schedule.

DOUBLEPLUSGOOD, heh?

Lime Lite said...

I read Ms Dowd's column yesterday, but what was really an eye-opener for me were the comments to the article. I have never read such a bunch of deluded comments in all my life - and the more deluded the comment, the more positive ticks it had. One can only assume that the majority of the readers of the NYT are liberals living in lala land because these people can't possibly be sane! And these people get to vote!

HokieFan said...

"Dowd concludes that the president disdains 'the irrational nature of politics.'"
That's a laugh. What fantasy realm is Maureen living in? Obama is a political animal of the highest order. He constantly shows a love for the political game that goes beyond even the sleaziest of baby-kissing pickpockets in DC.
The only reason the Republicans are digging in their heels so deeply is Obama pulled the gloves off (politically) as soon as he took office in 2009. It's been nothing but constant political bickering and whining for the past 3 years. The current occupant set the tone early on by slamming the door in the Republicans' faces during the healthcare debates.
Maureen Dowd is one of the worst offenders in far-left journalism of projection and perpetration of outright lies.

Alan Caruba said...

@Lime Lite: The readers of the NY Times are the MOST LIBERAL to be found anywhere in the USA.

The newspaper publishes such slanted, biased crap it has long since been worthy of its motto, "All the news that's fit to print"

Been losing money/subscribers for a long time now. Wonder why????