The Absurd Report

Washington – Obama’s speech on the economy today demonstrates a pervasive ignorance about the causes underlying the current crisis or a deliberate attempt to hoodwink the American people. Topping his list of reasons for the housing crisis were the absence of a big-government regulation scheme, “tax cuts for the wealthy,” and the war in Iraq. Few reputable economists would concur with this fanciful thesis.

“On the contrary,” said Club for Growth President Pat Toomey, “a lighter regulatory hand and lower taxes for all Americans played a key role in the economic growth the country has experienced over the past twenty-five years. With the country on the verge of a recession, it is tempting to forget the success of the past two decades and a half, but only last year, the market was climbing to new heights. This economic growth, low unemployment, and better standard of living were a direct result of less government, not more.”

Obama holds up FDR’s big government New Deal as a model for how America should respond to the current economic challenges, but he neglects to mention that FDR’s platform of massive government spending, sky-rocketing taxes on the “wealthy,” and invasive regulations crippled Wall Street and Main Street alike and plunged the country into a second depression in 1937—a depression within the Great Depression.

“Now Barack Obama is determined to repeat the mistakes of the past, proposing a slew of new tax hikes and an entirely new regulatory regime that is bound to stifle the innovation and dynamism that has been so integral to the growth and success of the investment banking industry,” Mr. Toomey continued. “This dynamism has lowered the cost of capital for American companies, created a vast array of investment options for American savers, and created thousands of great jobs for American workers.”

“In times of economic challenges, there is a tendency to overreach and call on the government to save the day, failing to realize that reckless government solutions usually cause more harm than good. This was the case with Sarbanes-Oxley, and it will most likely to be the case with any rush to impose additional regulations on investment banks.”

Source: The Club For Growth

Deeper and Deeper By JAMES TARANTO

“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community,” Barack Obama said last week about his “spiritual mentor,” the Rev. Jeremiah “God Damn America” Wright. But now, CNN reports, Obama is changing his tune. Well, sort of:

“Had the reverend not retired and had he not acknowledged that what he had said had deeply offended people and were [sic] inappropriate and mischaracterized what I believe is the greatness of this country, for all its flaws, then I wouldn’t have felt comfortable staying there at the church,” the senator said.

Does this mean he would have left? Or does it mean he would have stayed but felt uncomfortable? And when did Wright apologize? Blogger Tom Maguire undertakes an extensive investigation, and the answer appears to be: Never. In fact, Obama came close to apologizing to Wright. CNN again:

“I think he’s saddened by what’s happened, and I told him I feel badly that he has been characterized just in this one way and people haven’t seen the broader aspect of him,” Obama said.

And if Obama wouldn’t now feel “comfortable” belonging to Wright’s church, how does he feel about Wright’s successor, Otis Moss? Fox News reports that in his Easter Sunday sermon, Moss delivered quite a spirited defense of Wright:

“The lynching was national news. The RNN, the Roman News Network, was reporting it and NPR, National Publican Radio had it on the radio. The Jerusalem Post and the Palestine Times all wanted exclusives, they searched out the young ministers, showed up unannounced at their houses, tried to talk with their families, called up their friends, wanted to get a quote on how do you feel about the lynching?” he continued.

The criticism surrounding Wright has not softened the services at Trinity United Church of Christ, where Obama has been a congregant for 20 years. Instead, Moss defiantly defended their method of worship, referencing rap lyrics to make his point.

“If I was Ice Cube I’d say it a little differently–’You picked the wrong folk to mess with,’ ” Moss said to an enthusiastic congregation, standing up during much of the sermon, titled “How to Handle a Public Lynching.”

The ABC News report on Obama’s “View” appearance quotes the senator as calling Wright a “brilliant man who was still stuck in a time wrap.” Quips blogress Jennifer Rubin: “So brilliant, apparently, that he has uncovered the plot by white America to kill African Americans.”

Meanwhile, the Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal reports on a seminar at Cornell University, where the Rev. Kenneth Clarke, who heads an interfaith campus organization, offered a defense of Wright:

Clarke challenged the audience to go beyond the sound bites and listen to Wright’s entire sermon from Sept. 16, 2001 where he criticizes America. Clarke compared Wright’s criticism of America to commentary found in speeches by Fredrick Douglas and Martin Luther King Jr.
The critiques are not unpatriotic, Clarke said.

The statements “reflect a different style of patriotism to which the larger society is often not accustomed,” he said. “It is a willingness to criticize the nation and its practices to help the nation, as Dr. King once said, ‘to be true to what it has put on paper’ in relation to the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution.”

A charitable way of describing this is that it requires an Ivy League level of intellectual sophistication to rationalize anti-Americanism as “a different style of patriotism,” as if the choice between “God bless America” and “God damn America” were the equivalent of wearing a flag pin or not.

To those of us who are not so sophisticated–or who have a modicum of common sense in addition to a facile intellect–Clarke’s defense of Wright sounds either crazy or disingenuous.

ABC News quotes Obama:

“Part of what my role in my politics is to get people who don’t normally listen to each other to talk to each other, who [say] crazy things, who are offended by each other, for me to understand them and to maybe help them understand each other.”

And there’s no question that Obama has promoted understanding between left-wing intellectuals and purveyors of resentment in the black community. That’s not so hard, though. These groups have a natural affinity owing to their adversarial attitude toward America–sorry, “different style of patriotism.” They are not, however, numerous enough to elect a president.