"It profits me but little that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquillity of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

A Scenario to Muse Upon

As I've written recently, the leak scandal threatens to undermine the single tangible achievement of Obama in foreign policy -- the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden.   The narrative is inching ever-closer to becoming, not "Obama got Osama," but... "look what a jerk Obama is in using military or intelligence successes for self-aggrandizement."  

A similar effect has been happening with his economic policy.   By now, and particularly with the May jobs numbers, no one is seriously arguing that his signature program, the huge stimulus enacted in early 2009, has worked to turn the economy around.

By the end of June the third shoe could drop.   If the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare's individual mandate is unconstitutional, as they should, and that the rest of the legislation is so dependent on the individual mandate that it isn't "severable," that would mean that his greatest legislative triumph, the power grab by the federal government that he spent all of his political capital on in 2009 and 2010, ends up being a big fat nothingburger.

So, if you're keeping score at home:

1.  Osama bin Laden = character flaw for the self-aggrandizing, puffed-up armchair warrior President.

2.  Stimulus = wasteful folly/ultimate example of crony capitalism run amuck.

3.  Obamacare = unconstitutional waste of time.

What will Obama run on?   His charm?



Not likely.

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