Way Above Obama's Pay Grade

Way Above Obama's Pay Grade
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
by Burt Prelutsky

Depending on how you look at it, I am either blessed or cursed with one of those brains that attempts to make sense of whatever data is available. So, for instance, I ask myself why those liberals in Congress who aren’t wealthy enough to just pack up and live la dolce vita in Switzerland or Australia when their fiscal policies inevitably turn the U.S. into Greece don’t start facing up to reality. Why is it that they refuse to acknowledge that a nation can no more continue to spend twice as much as it takes in than an individual can?

I realize that even in the midst of the Great Depression, the very rich -- people comparable to the Kerrys, the Kennedys, Dianne Feinstein and the Obamas -- could live very well, so long as they weren’t unduly perturbed by apple stands on the corner, soup kitchens on every other block and former middle class wage earners riding the rails as hoboes.

But even if the IRS confiscated the accumulated wealth of the top 1%, it would hardly make a dent in the $16 trillion hole Obama and Congress have dug for us, so why do these knuckleheads keep pretending that if only rich people were taxed at a higher rate, everything would be hunky dory?

Speaking of Obama, how much longer is the mainstream media going to try to convince us that he’s a genius? It has become so obvious that he is simply a very lucky fellow who has benefitted from affirmative action in every facet of his life, from getting into Ivy League schools to being elected president, that even many on the Left are finally seeing the light.

For instance, when Obama decided the best way to destroy Romney’s claim to having financial expertise was to attack his connection to Bain Capital, it wasn’t just conservatives who took him to task. It was also Democrats, people such as Newark’s Mayor Cory Booker, Rep. Harold Ford and the former governor of Pennsylvania, Ed Rendell, who rapped his knuckles.

What’s more, Jo Ann Nardelli, the president and founder of the Blair County Federation of Democratic Women, has defected to the GOP as a result of Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriages.

Artur Davis, a former member of Congress from Alabama, and the man who seconded Obama’s nomination for president in 2008, has also taken leave of the Democratic Party. Once described as the Alabama Obama, Davis has become so critical of this administration in general and ObamaCare in particular, that he is considering running for Congress, this time as a Republican.

Things could hardly look bleaker for Obama, short of Michelle’s deciding to change her party affiliation.

Clearly, attacking Bain could easily turn out to be the bane of Obama’s existence.

In related news, Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk demanded that Obama explain his reference to “Polish death camps.” In his statement, Mr. Tusk said that the remark smacks of “ignorance and bad intentions” and amounts to “a distortion of history.”

If Obama knew history, aside from his imagined place in it, he might have known that the death camps were run by and for the Nazis, and that of the six million people who were killed in those on Polish soil, half were Polish Jews and the other half were mainly Polish Catholics.

To be fair, it’s possible that the Prime Minister was still sulking because Obama had already decided to curry favor with Russia’s former KGB honcho, Vladimir Putin, by breaking his promise to provide Poland and the Czech Republic with a missile defense system.

And lest the Poles take the insult personally, they should keep in mind that this former community agitator (aka the Smartest Person in the World Who Isn’t Named Hillary Clinton) is the same very ignoramus who referred to America’s 57 states and, proving that was no fluke, referred to the Austrian language and to the U.S. Marine Corpse. For good measure, while insisting that he was Israel’s best friend ever, advised them to commit suicide by moving back to its pre-1967 borders. Calling him Dr. Kevorkian is tempting, but it would be unfair to the late physician, who merely assisted individuals in killing themselves, never entire nations.

So, while I certainly understand why conservatives despise Obama, I can’t figure out why liberals don’t all take their lead from Mrs. Nardelli and Mr. Davis and reject the buffoon-in-chief.

I mean, why don’t they get on his case for keeping Guantanamo open when he kept promising to shut it down? And why aren’t they upset with his using armed drones to whack Muslims, even those who are American citizens, the way they surely would have if George Bush had done his killing by remote control?

Don’t get me wrong. Using the drones is one of the few things Obama has done that I view in a positive light. But I find it farcical that the same yahoos who couldn’t sleep at night because they were so concerned that a few Islamic terrorists were being dunked in water don’t seem even slightly irked when their own guy skips the part where they’re captured and placed on trial, and, instead, goes straight to blowing them up.

Believe me, if I had known that death by explosive device was the alternative to waterboarding, I, too, would have been in favor of stopping enhanced interrogation and shutting down Gitmo. But candidate Obama never thought to mention it. The fact is, I’d still be in favor of shutting the place down so long as he used eight or nine drones to get the job done.

Finally, I’d like to know why this administration is still playing footsies with Pakistan. Even if we forget about the general corruption that pervades that country; even if we don’t hold them accountable for providing a safe haven for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban; and even if we don’t make a big deal about their soldiers murdering our soldiers, why on earth would we want to be aligned with them instead of with India, which is bigger, stronger, richer, democratic and, in addition, hates Pakistan as much as I do?

In the grand scheme of things, India is our natural ally, while Pakistan is our natural enemy.

It would be like watching a movie in which the dashing hero is married to his loyal and beautiful high school sweetheart, but decides to throw her over for the snag-toothed, scab-encrusted, disease-riddled, hag who lives in the alley.

Or to put it another way, it would be like someone comparing Mitt Romney’s record, his character and his associates, to Barack Obama’s…and then deciding to vote for Obama!
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To read another article by Burt Prelutsky, click here.