Taking On Water

Mark Steyn rips into Barack Obama’s performance to date. Let’s put it this way: the change you were hoping for ain’t there.

Those supporters who were wary of touting Obama as the walk-on-water Messiah did their best to lower expectations by hailing him merely as the new FDR. You remember the old FDR – “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Ha! With the new New Deal, we have everything to fear. As President Obama warned Tuesday, “A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.” If you’re of those moonstruck Obammysoxers still driving around with the “HOPE, NOT FEAR” bumper stickers, please note that, due to an unfortunate proofreading error at the printing plant, certain nouns in that phrase may have become accidentally transposed.

As it happens, the best way to ensure catastrophe is to “act now.” It would be nice if the world could all prance along in regimented unison like the Radio City Changettes. But, alas, the foreigners made the mistake of actually reading the “stimulus” bill, and the protectionist measures buried on page 739 subsection XII(d) ended, instantly, the Obama honeymoon overseas. The European Union has threatened a trade war. Up in Canada, provincial premiers called it “a march to insanity.” Wait a minute, I thought the Obama era was meant to be the retreat from insanity, a blessed return to multilateral transnational harmony.

As longtime readers will know, I’m all in favor of flipping the bird to the global community. But at least, when Rummy was doing his shtick about “Old Europe,” he did it intentionally. To cheese off the foreigners entirely accidentally before you’ve even had your first black-tie banquet is quite an accomplishment.

There has been nothing at all from Obama but fear-mongering. Despite the plunging support from the public for the condom and political payoff Stimulus bill, Obama is pressing the fear buttons hard. In less than a week, he gave up on even an appearance of pushing for bipartisanship and went on the attack against the Republicans. I hope you folks who voted for the walk-on-water candidate got the change you were hoping for.

For the two or three seconds it lasted for.