Confusion

In the last 24 hours or so I have seen this story in various places, and honestly, I don’t get it.  I’ve been confused all week, from Obama’s big “not a State Of The Union,” State Of The Union address, to his $3.5 trillion budget, which comes with a pretty blue cover and the words “The era of responsibility” stamped on the front.  I really can’t say it better than how Powerline put it in response to Obma’s claim to be ready to fight lobbyists, when they said yesterday, “As Obama well knows, lobbyists all over Washington are lighting cigars with $50 bills at the prospect of having $3.7 trillion worth of spoils to divvy up. Obama must think the American people–his supporters, anyway–are complete idiots.”

In the context of the Tuesday’s speech and the budget, I really can’t decide how he actually views the American people.  I described the speech to a few friends as “a bunch of statements that sound inspiring and plausible to everyone except those who get their news from somewhere other than MTV.”  He keeps throwing this “era of responsibility” tag around, and yet in reality it’s more accurate to describe it as “the era of insurmountable deficits.”  (just look at the graph here) How is that responsible?  And as often as he can Obama throws in the “I inherited this deficit from Bush” line.  Right.  So the best response is to make it 10 times worse?  And don’t forget, he actually said in his speech that he was not a fan of big government.  With a straight face, no less.

Additionally, we are now on the cusp of subsidizing mortgages.  Just think about that one- some of our neighbors aren’t able to make adequate payments on their houses, and rather than letting them deal with the ramifications of making unwise decisions, we are going to take money out of people’s pockets who were responsible, in order to help those that aren’t.  Any citizen in the country would agree that stealing and slavery are morally wrong, but a high percentage are apparently willing to look the other way when it benefits themselves.

So I ask, how does Obama see the American people?  He clearly knows that talking about responsibility is something the public wants to hear.  And he apparently knows that the majority of Americans will turn a blind eye to the fact that his actions are not coming even close to lining up with his rhetoric, pre and post campaign.  So does he think we are, as Powerline sarcastically put it, idiots?  Does he know, as J. Norman and I often say to each other, that he is the MTV President for the MTV Generation?  Has he rightly identified that the vast majority of the public is completely ignorant of basic economics and history, and is then exploiting it?

He can’t have it both ways.  He can’t talk about responsibility and do the polar opposite, all while self proclaiming his own moral authority.  If he really believes what he is saying, his actions would at least be on the same planet as his words, which they’re not.  Is a little change from business as usual too much to ask?  Apparently so this time around.