The Constitution Club

The Beast found this piece in todays Boston Globe, of all places! Maybe it’s the specter of economic death that’s inspiring them down in Beantown, but we’re getting some good stuff alongside the usual boilerplate mass-lib claptrap. On the other hand, the Globe might have discovered that the other half of the electorate has change in their pockets too and might actually buy a paper that’s not totally hostile to their worldview.

We all know by now that Obama loves to say one thing and then do the very opposite. His fluency with the language allows him to get away with this, but the days when he could dig himself out of a political hole by smoothly reciting a speech off his teleprompter are rapidly coming to a close. Even the press is noticing. Alex Beam of the Globe maps this out beautifully:

It is inevitable in modern American politics that each new president inaugurates his own brand of bushwa – rubbish, lies, eyewash, whatever you choose to call it – that reminds one of nothing so much as the previous guy’s bushwa. Mr. Obama is no exception. Consider:

Soon after taking office, Obama & Co. rebranded George Bush’s “war on terror,’’ choosing to call it instead “overseas contingency operations.’’ There is a history here. In 2005, Bush’s people tried to rename the WOT, suggesting instead the delightfully Rumsfeldian “global struggle against violent extremism’’ (GSAVE!) or “the long war’’ (nice movie title) when discussing, well, the war on terror.

Those never caught on, and there is no reason to believe the jaw-cracking “overseas contingency operations’’ will either.

Remember, this is the guy who told us he could no more repudiate Reverend Wright that a member of his own family. Then he repudiated Reverend Wright. If the Beast was a family member he might be nervous.

Obama’s public pronouncements are magic shows – call attention to the right hand so nobody notices what the left hand is doing. Another feat of oratorical legerdemain:

The Bush administration oversaw “bailouts’’ of its fat cat friends on Wall Street. The people-friendly Obama administration continues to throw money at its bankrupt pals, but prefers to talk about “rescuing’’ failed companies and the American economy. Neither phrase softens the blow to the taxpayers footing the bill, the Los Angeles Times noted sardonically: “We suggest they call the package an ‘iPod,’ because everyone will pay for an iPod.’’

Et tu, LAT? This is the kind of magical thinking that tells us dropping $1 Tril on government managed healthcare will save us money.

Everyone knows that healthcare reform will be a hard sell, so the administration has its neologisms at hand. The New York Times recently revealed that instead of “managed care,’’ the Obama-ites will be pushing the coinage “evidence-based care.’’ Likewise they plan to avoid the term “rationing,’’ but alas no usable circumlocution has yet emerged for a system that aims to, well, ration healthcare.

I have a not-terribly-original idea. Why don’t we call healthcare reform “iPhone’’? Nobody objects to paying for an iPhone, and people are more than happy to wait in line to buy them. Like Canada’s healthcare system, iPhones have a single service provider, AT&T. I’m phoning my congressman: Vote for the iPhone!

Returning to the original statment that Obama says (A) and then does (-A), witness this beauty:

Remember signing statements? Those were the dastardly little postscripts George Bush attached to legislation that he didn’t completely approve of. Signing statements ignore the “fundamental principle’’ of the separation of powers, the American Bar Association huffed. On the campaign trail, candidate Obama was asked, “Do you promise not to use presidential [signing statements] to get your way?’’ “Yes,’’ he answered. “I taught the Constitution for 10 years, I believe in the Constitution, and I will obey the Constitution of the United States. We are not going to use signing statements as a way of doing an end run around Congress.’’

That was easy!

Less easy is explaining away his six signing statements so far, an impressive one-a-month clip. “Signing statements serve a legitimate function in our system,’’ Obama now says, “at least when based on well-founded constitutional objections.’’

Marvelous! What’s next – sawing someone in half?