Sometimes, Mr. President, The Truth Hurts

One would think, considering the magnitude of problems this country currently faces, that President Obama would be a very busy man.  But, obvious by his perpetual campaign tour, his top priority is keeping his party's stranglehold on our country intact.

I guess even the busiest world leader needs a break, however.  How sweet of Obama to take time away from his busy schedule to personally address the graduating class at the University of Michigan.

Read it for yourself here, if you have a strong stomach.  Like most Obama's speeches, it is long, boring, and self-serving.  Several passages have a gag factor that is off the scale. Like his comment about the child's letter asking if he wore black coat and had a beard.  "I guess he confused me with the other tall guy from Illinois," Obama quipped.  Funny, but I don't remember Blago having a beard, and I don't remember Daley as being tall.  Must be some other crooked politician from Illinois, then.

Equally as sweet was his condemnation of "over-the-top rhetoric" and "the proper role of government in a democracy." Obama explained his theory that democracy requires government to have an important role.  He went on to explain that you have nothing to worry about with the ever-growing control of the government.  He also touched on the subject of disenchantment with the government.

I suppose Obama had his reasons for only briefly mentioning the importance of the limited role of the federal government.  Apparently he is not of that school of thought, as job growth since he took office has been limited to the public sector.

Obama enlightened the crowd with his assertion that the argument shouldn't be between big government vs. small government, but instead should be how we can create a more efficient government.  Logic would suggest that, in most all cases, a smaller, less bureaucratic system could operate more efficiently.  But Obama seems to suggest his policy is that "big government is here to stay, and it will only get bigger, so get used to it."  Hard to imagine how he could deliver a line like that with a straight face.

He went on to remind the crowd that some things "only the government can do effectively."  If, by effectively, he meant wastefully executed and riddled with fraud and corruption, then I would have to agree.  There are few organizations which excel at mucking things up better than the massive bureaucracy of the federal government.  There has yet to be a single task, either economically or politically, to which government interference has not proven counter-productive.  If you want to guarantee higher costs, longer delays, greater waste, fraud and theft, just ask the government to get involved.

He spoke of the Great Depression, and how our government afterward put in place regulations to assure it would never happen again.  Understandably, he failed to mention anything about the government's systematic dismantling of these same regulations, which allowed our current economic situation to fester.

In his classic style of deception, Obama puts blame for the financial meltdown squarely on the fact that the government wasn't big enough.  He completely ignored the reality that it was the interference of the government over the last 50 years that pushed to inflate the mortgage bubble, eventually setting up the financial collapse.  At least he has stopped, for now, blaming his predecessor for his lack of success.

I believe Mr. Obama's real message here was "don't judge me on what I do, but judge me on how nice my speeches are."  And regardless of what Obama "believes" the proper role of government is, it is actually spelled out for us in the Bill of Rights.  I assume he has actually read it, but I believe he prefers to follow Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" instead.

The single portion of Obama's speech that contained any real truth was his point on civility, the need to "treat others as you would like to be treated, with courtesy and respect."  It would be nice to see Mr Obama follow his own advice.  He speaks of angry, "over-the-top" rhetoric, yet is constantly taking cheap shots at his opponents during his perpetual campaign tour.  And while he now decries massive corporate lobbyist contributions, he seemed to lose little sleep over accepting millions from the largest firms on Wall Street.

The kicker here was the plea for a 'return to civility' in politics.  Apparently Mr. Obama is allowing his critics to get under his skin.  I can only imagine that our President is tired of everyone crying "socialism" every time he takes over another piece of the private sector.  Many observers have noticed how surprisingly thin Obama's skin is.  Well, Mr. Obama, sometimes the truth hurts.

The President needs to get over it, because he hasn't heard anything yet.  If he thinks America will simply lay back and watch him dismantle our Constitution, vastly increase the size of federal government, and stand idly by while he pushes his socialist agenda upon the nation, then I believe 2012 will seem a very, very long time away.  He will be forever reminded that his 52% election victory was in no way a landslide, and is not a "mandate from the people' that he seems to assume.

It will be interesting to see what this generation of college graduates think of Mr Obama when they see how difficult it is to find a job in this economy.  Obama's concern for them is touching, especially his desire to see more of them pursue "public service" careers or "community organizing".  That would be fine, especially to repay the huge amount of debt amassed during their college education.  I'm sure that the New America will one day offer the green jobs, the high-tech jobs of the future that Obama   promised.  Now, if  he will just stop making promises and start delivering, we might have something here.