Obama's Godfather Speech
By DANIEL HENNINGER
Most press accounts of Barack Obama's speech in Osawatomie, Kansas, Tuesday
described it as delivered by the "president of the United States."
And indeed the person delivering it analogized himself to Presidents Teddy
Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Clinton. In fact, the
Osawatomie speech was not given by the President of the United States. It was
given by the leader of the Democratic Party.
Most of the time, this distinction isn't a problem in the United States
because historically people have tended to think that the office of the
presidency represents "all the people." This doesn't mean everyone
expects to benefit from a president's policies. What it means is that in some
informal way no one has to worry that the presidential motorcade, so to speak,
will drive off the road so that it can plow into you. That is no longer the
case in the U.S.
The Osawatomie speech sounded like what you'd expect to hear in Caracas or
Buenos Aires. As in: "The free market has never been a license to take
whatever you can from whomever you can." (Applause.) And: "Their
philosophy is simple. We are better off when everybody is left to fend for
themselves and play by their own rules."
Some will say hearing crude Chavista populism in the Obama speech is an
overreaction. That once it's understood the Kansas speech was the work of the
party leader, not the president of the United States, it becomes easier to
think about it without overreacting to its intense and vivid rhetoric:
"Millions of working families in this country . . . are now forced to take
their children to food banks for a decent meal."
Mr. Obama, the bloodless political analysis of the speech runs, was just
rallying his base. He needs to. Last month, in an election for state offices in
Virginia, which Mr. Obama carried in 2008, Democrats turned out poorly, and
Republicans won at every level of government, even in "independent"
northern Virginia.
Democrats are depressed about the awful economy we've had the past three
years. In Mr. Obama's view, this is a coincidence; the bad economy happened
during his term because of mistakes someone else made in 2001 and 2003. Lest
the base confuse his policies with someone else's, Mr. Obama needs to transform
Democratic depression into some form of Democratic energy. This week, and
apparently in the election next year, he has chosen a strategy based on fear
and loathing of an opposition he identifies simply as, "They." "They
argue, even if prosperity doesn't trickle down, well, that's the price of
liberty."
About two-thirds through Mr. Obama's Kansas speech, I started to think of
"The Godfather." After slapping around the "wealthy" for
about a half hour, Mr. Obama said, "This isn't about class warfare."
Maybe that's true. In "The Godfather," when awful things are about to
be done to people, Michael Corleone or Tom Hagen reassure those about to get
hit, "It's not personal; it's strictly business."
But I could be wrong about that. There is that defining moment when Michael
Corleone says to Fredo, his brother, "You're nothing to me now." When
even as party leader, a president of the United States gives a major speech in
which people get singled out repeatedly as basically enemies of "the middle
class," one has to wonder if they are nothing to him.
You then have to wonder about the tenor of another Obama term in office. If
in fact there are categories of Americans he simply doesn't like, a second
Obama term, like the last half of "Godfather II," could be a clinical
exercise in hammering the people he singled out in this speech. Metaphorically speaking.
The Kansas speech was built around one concrete policy idea: that the rich
and millionaires (officially still defined as families with before-tax income
above $250,000) should send him more money so he can "invest" it.
This single policy, if we heard correctly, will end high unemployment, raise
middle-class incomes, put children through college, make America fair and
defeat countries that pollute.
But will it?
Mr. Obama says everyone has to play by his new rules: "Unless you're a
financial institution whose business model is built on breaking the law,
cheating consumers and making risky bets that could damage the entire economy,
you should have nothing to fear from these new rules." Really? Citigroup
on Thursday said it will eliminate 4,500 jobs. In the third quarter alone,
2,500 U.S. banks cut 20,332 jobs. Let 'em go. In the coming Obama economy, they
can "make wind turbines and . . . high-powered batteries."
What the Democratic base would get out of an Obama re-election is political
power, which counts for something. It lets you tell other people what to do.
But nothing in that Kansas speech, especially the wealth taxes, will produce
real growth in the dry economy America has had for three years. Strong growth
is the only solution to the Osawatomie catalog of horrors. If he wins, five
years from now, the president's base will be about where it and nearly everyone
else is today, trying to stay afloat in Barack Obama's still waters.
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