Charlatan Obama

He’s a free trader but opposes every trade agreement on offer. He’s pro nuclear power but only if the waste issue is satisfactorily addressed. No possible resolution is satisfactory. He offers a message of peace and racial harmony but for twenty years attended a church known for its confrontational and divisive theology. He is a patriot but has associated himself with some of the nation’s most violent radicals. He’s for energy independence but opposes all new drilling or exploration where there are known domestic petroleum reserves. In Rocky Mountain shale alone the United States owns six times as much oil as Saudi Arabia but Obama opposes its extraction. Instead he proposes higher automobile mileage requirements and greater reliance on ethanol, a fuel requiring almost as much energy to produce as it yields, and one less efficient than the gasoline it supplements. He addresses energy independence by discouraging economic activities that require energy. He’s for clean coal but would impose impossibly strict carbon emission standards, far higher than on the fuels it would replace. He’s all for reviving a sagging economy and would raise taxes to do it. He wants to prosecute the war on terror vigorously but would initiate a precipitate withdrawal from Iraq, leaving the field for an unencumbered terrorist renaissance, or would he?

We’ve established a pattern here. Obama’s solution to ruinous gasoline prices is a windfall profits tax on big oil, a recycled idea from the Carter administration that had the disastrous effect of discouraging domestic production. Surely someone has explained to him that despite its size, Exxon Mobil is only number 14 on the list of global oil companies, the really big ones are all safely out of his reach. He would use the proceeds to fund endless research on alternative fuels, all the while complaining that any new offshore drilling would take years to have an appreciable effect. Presumably no new alternative fuels would be acceptable either.

Senator Obama has painted himself into quite a few boxes. If he is elected president and behaves responsibly in Iraq his base constituency will most likely react with a vengeance. If he does not he could well produce a national security catastrophe. Either outcome could make his a one term presidency. Ask the senior George Bush about his “read my lips” pledge on no new taxes. If Obama renegotiates NAFTA the Mexicans will want something in return for any new concessions. What’s he going to give them? Looser immigration controls? $4 gasoline is having painful results. People are losing their jobs, not eating right, and avoiding expensive trips to the doctor. Al Gore wants it to go to $5. If we aren’t already in a recession that ought to do it.

No wonder Obama doesn’t want to debate John McCain. Questions are Obama’s Achilles heel. In the primaries there weren’t many real policy distinctions but in the general election the contrasts are stark. Obama has begun the traditional move toward the center and he is already getting push back from his base. The New York Times has taken him to task for changing positions on campaign financing, faith based social initiatives, and gun control. They’ve fired warning shots across his bow on any redefining of issues like Iraq, taxes, health care, or Supreme Court nominations. But Obama needs to expand his base and has been catering to people with radically opposing views. Trade Unions expect him to block any new deals, Wall Street financiers (and big contributors) think he is a closet capitalist. Both sides think they have been promised something. The pattern holds on issue after issue. I don’t see how he pulls this off.