It really is unseemly to condemn the US Government, in its totality, as always a mess, always inefficient, and never competent to do anything right. It is also inaccurate. The Right-wing rant, a mantra of True Belief, is pure crap if you want my opinion. And it is a gross insult to James Madison and the entire generation of the Founding Fathers. However, there really are times when people in government screw up and screw up badly, and may do so, year after year. That is a different matter entirely, and to the extent that Krauthammer intends to refer to this aspect of government the following article could not possibly by more right, more on target, and more necessary for purposes of public debate. Billy ==================================== W Post Obama the oblivious
By _Charles Krauthammer_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/charles-krauthammer/2011/02/24/ADJkW7B_page.html) , Published: December 12, 2013 In explaining the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, _President Obama told Chris Matthews_ (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/53755285/ns/msnbc-hardball_with_chris_matthews/#.UqoWyfRDvms) he had discovered that “we have these big agencies, some of which are outdated, some of which are not designed properly.” An interesting discovery to make after having consigned the vast universe of American medicine, one-sixth of the U.S. economy, to the tender mercies of the agency bureaucrats at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Internal Revenue Service. Most people become aware of the hopeless inefficiency of sclerotic government by, oh, age 17 at the department of motor vehicles. Obama’s late discovery is especially remarkable considering that he built his entire political philosophy on the rock of Big Government, on the fervent belief in the state as the very engine of collective action and the ultimate source of national greatness. (Indeed, of individual success as well, as in “_If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen_ (http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/you-didnt-build-that-uncut-and-unedited/) .”) This blinding revelation of the ponderous incompetence of bureaucratic government came just a few weeks after _Obama confessed_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/11/14/the-nine-best-quotes-from-president-obam as-news-conference/) that “what we’re also discovering is that insurance is complicated to buy.” Another light bulb goes off, this one three years after passing a law designed to force millions of Americans to shop for new health plans via the maze of untried, untested, insecure, unreliable online “exchanges.” This discovery joins a long list that includes Obama’s rueful admission that there _really are no shovel-ready jobs_ (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-no-such-thing-as-shovel-ready-projects/) . That one came after having passed his monstrous _$830 billion stimulus_ (http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/25/cbo-stimulus-law-will-cost-43-billion-more-than-estimated/) on the argument that the weakened economy would be “jump-started” by a massive infusion of shovel-ready jobs. Now known to be fictional. Barack Obama is not just late to discover the most elementary workings of government. With alarming regularity, he professes obliviousness to the workings of his own government. He claims, for example, to have known nothing about the _IRS targeting scandal_ (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/31/dan-pfeiffer-irs_n_3682755.html) , the _AP phone records scandal_ (http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-doj-ap-phones-2013-5) , the _NSA tapping_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/german-leader-calls-obama-about-alleged-cellph one-tapping/2013/10/23/2edb4aa2-3c10-11e3-b0e7-716179a2c2c7_story.html) of Angela Merkel. And had not a clue that the centerpiece of his signature legislative achievement — the online Obamacare exchange, three years in the making — would fail catastrophically upon launch. Or that Obamacare would cause millions of Americans to lose their private health plans. Hence the odd spectacle of a president expressing surprise and disappointment in the federal government — as if he’s not the one running it. Hence the repeated no-one-is-more-upset-than-me posture upon deploring the nonfunctioning Web site, the IRS outrage, the AP intrusions and any number of scandals from which Obama tries to create safe distance by posing as an observer. He gives the impression of a man on a West Wing tour trying out the desk in the Oval Office, only to be told that he is president of the United States. The paradox of this presidency is that this most passive bystander president is at the same time the most ideologically ambitious in decades. The sweep and scope of his health-care legislation alone are unprecedented. He’s spent billions of tax money attempting to create, by fiat and ex nihilo, a new green economy. His (failed) cap-and-trade bill would have given him regulatory control of the energy economy. He wants universal preschool and has just announced his unwavering commitment to slaying the dragon of _economic inequality_ (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/12/04/remarks-president-economic-mobility) , which, like the poor, has always been with us. Obama’s discovery that government bureaucracies don’t do things very well creates a breathtaking disconnect between his transformative ambitions and his detachment from the job itself. How does his Olympian vision coexist with the lassitude of his actual governance, a passivity that verges on absenteeism? What bridges that gap is rhetoric. Barack Obama is a master rhetorician. It’ s allowed him to move crowds, rise inexorably and twice win the most glittering prize of all. Rhetoric has changed his reality. For Obama, it can change the country’s. Hope and change, after all, is a rhetorical device. Of the kind Obama has always imagined can move mountains. That’s why his reaction to the Obamacare Web site’s crash-on-takeoff is so telling. His remedy? A cross-country campaign-style speaking tour. As if rhetoric could repeal that reality. Managing, governing, negotiating, cajoling, crafting legislation, forging compromise. For these — this stuff of governance — Obama has shown little aptitude and even less interest. Perhaps, as _Valerie Jarrett has suggested_ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-obamas-presidency-unrave ls-through-chaos-and-crisis/2013/11/22/57132e74-52de-11e3-a7f0-b790929232e1_ story.html) , he is simply too easily bored to invest his greatness in such mundanity. “_I don’t write code_ (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-id-fix-healthcaregov-myself-but-i-dont-write-code/) ,” said Obama in reaction to the Web site crash. Nor is he expected to. He is, however, expected to run an administration that can. -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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