By
Monty Pelerin, posted January 27th, 2010 http://www.economicnoise.com/2010/01/27/president-hoovers-state-of-the-union/
Herbert Hoover
I
don’t know what President Obama will try to sell tonight in his State
of The Union speech. I do know that what he says will have no relation
to reality. But that could be said of any President in recent years
with respect to this occasion. This particular President has
speech-making skills that few of his predecessors had. He has an
unusual ability to turn nothing into a great sounding speech.
Tonight will be little different. Talking heads, still in his camp,
will rave about the speech after it is delivered. You will hear how he
has regained his mojo and is now going to solve the economic problems.
That, of course, will be nonsense. As any number of people have
observed, what sounds like a great speech from this President does not
read like one. Once removed from the pomp and circumstances associated
with his stylistic delivery, his words wobble and usually collapse.
That is why reading, as opposed to listening, is the better way to
understand what has been proposed.
To put tonight’s speech into perspective, there is only one question
that should be asked: “Why Mr. President did you squander an entire
year on your fraudulent health care reform at the expense of dealing
with the problems of Main Street?” That question should be crawling
across every television screen in this country while he speaks.
The real State of the Union, as opposed to what you will hear, is captured by Michael Ledeen:
Banks are not lending, companies are not hiring, because
they are afraid of what Obama will do next. Both are afraid of onerous
taxes, including new health care burdens, and the banks fear new
regulations and the consequences of the recently declared war on evil
bankers by the president. Seniors are afraid they will be deprived of
medical treatment. Juniors are afraid they are going to be forced to
buy health insurance they don’t think they need. Across the board,
Americans are afraid they’re not going to find work, and won’t be able
to afford a house. And, as the Massachusetts vote showed, Americans
are worried about threats from abroad, worried about Iran, afraid of
terrorist attacks, and afraid the Obama Administration doesn’t take all
this seriously enough. As Scott Brown put it, most Americans think our
tax dollars should go to fighting terrorists, not to pay lawyers to
defend terrorists.
Rhetoric,
no matter how majestic, cannot alter this reality. There is nothing
that Obama can say (or is willing to do) to change the conditions
outlined above. Virtually everything he has done or tried to do has
made things worse. For one year, his policies resulted in producing a
deeper hole. These problems are now intractable.
There is one unexpected thing that might occur. It is possible that
the rhetorical magician has spent all his magic. As described in Healthcare Vaporizes Obama Presidency,
Obama’s used-car-salesman approach to selling health care greatly
damaged his “Messiah” image, at least amongst the non Kool Aid
drinkers. It will not reflect in the media post-speech analysis,
because most of them are still imbibing. It may show up in polling data
a few days after the speech.
Regardless of the post analysis, the irony is that Obama rode into
office as the new Roosevelt. He will be driven out as the new Hoover.
His most vigorous pursuers and critics will likely be irate Democrats.
He may escape the tar, feathers and rope of his pursuers. He will not
do as well with the historians.
A shorter version of this post appeared on American Thinker