Posted on 12/03/2010 3:41:08 PM PST by Tom D.
Newsweek and The God Who Fails
By Jon Sanders
December 03, 2010
This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Jon Sanders, Associate Director of Research for the John Locke Foundation.
RALEIGH — Turns out Hugo Chavez was right. George W. Bush really is the devil. Only the true prince of darkness could so screw up the country that even the lord god Obama Himself can’t fix it.
OK, I don’t really believe any of that. But Newsweek apparently does.
In Newsweek’s defense, it’s the only way to acknowledge the stark reality that President Barack Obama’s agenda has been an abject failure without contradicting editor Evan Thomas’ infamous assertion that “Obama’s standing above the country, above — above the world; he’s sort of God.”
If that wasn’t clear enough, the magazine later opined that Obama was better for Catholics than the Pope, under the headline “Without a Doubt.” (In contrast, Time merely likened Obama to Moses. They of little faith.)
But what kind of god fails like Obama? He promised he could convert stimulus funds to jobs, but that hasn’t happened. He promised that his health care takeover would make believers of us all. He promised lower taxes and continuously seeks higher taxes. He promised open, transparent government and proceeded to cloak everything. He promised to change the culture of Washington but chose to distill and embody everything offensive about that culture. Lord knows I could go on.
Obama rode into Washington on the back of an ass, and now the ones who were waving palm fronds and shouting hosannas at him are asking themselves how it is their savior morphed into his conveyance.
Now their own reputations are at stake. When your livelihood depends upon people continuing to subscribe to your epistles, it isn’t wise to admit to false prophecy. Consider Newsweek’s challenge: Without contradicting ourselves, how do we explain the failures of the man who’s sort of God and without a doubt above the Pope?
Their solution appears on the Nov. 22 cover: Depict Obama as “God of All Things,” specifically a multi-armed deity reminiscent of the Hindu god Shiva, with a hand apiece for the recession, the housing crisis, the military, peace, world affairs, and health care. Then explain “Why the Modern Presidency May Be Too Much for One Person to Handle.”
Newsweek notes that “the issue is not Obama, it’s the office.” Reading between the lines, the article makes a sterling case for the sort of limited government promoted by the [insert hysterical insults here] Tea Party types. Were anyone to make that case directly, of course, Newsweek would attack the apostate (who would also be an angry racist, which by now goes without saying).
The article notes that Obama’s presidential models, FDR and Lincoln, had “time to think.” They weren’t burdened with a presidency swollen by post-FDR inhabitants such as Eisenhower and especially the latter Bush. And they didn’t have the added intrusions by the rapidly evolving news media, “many from Internet outlets.”
Newsweek’s choice of Shiva as the sort of god Obama is seems rather revealing. Shiva is but one of a multitude of gods. The message seems to be that if the many hands of Obama aren’t enough to solve America’s problems, then other gods — Obama’s multitude of czars with sort of godlike power — need to step it up. Newsweek ultimately doesn’t question the very necessity of the president getting personally involved in the seemingly infinite number of areas “burdening” him.
Compare that image of a necessarily burdened deity with the one adopted almost as a mascot by the Tea Party. The election of Obama ignited sales of Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, Atlas being the Titan of Greek mythology, also one among many deities, and this one overtly tasked with bearing the weight of the world.
Note, too, that in the modern political context Atlas comes with a very key proviso: shrug. In Rand’s context, Atlas represents the productive members of society who are weighed down by the many hefty burdens imposed by an increasingly socialist government. But the same advice — “Shrug!” — could apply just as well to any political god overburdened and failing under the weight of all his overreaches and impositions.
All the more so because, see, you’re not a god.
“Why the Modern Presidency May Be Too Much for One Person to Handle.”
Yeah, and that one person is Obama.
Deciding when human life begins is above his pay grade — but he apparently doesn’t have any doubt about it.
I wonder if they ever look back at saying things like this and ask themselves “What was I thinking?”
When they say this, Republicans, if there were any, would say that News-weak is correct. The Presidency is impossible becasue it controls way more of Americans society than is possible to govern. So lets cut the scope of Federal government and return power to the States and the people as designed by the constitution.
At least The Onion is normally plausible for a few paragraphs.
There was a copy of Newsweak at an inlaw's house where we were having dinner last night.
I said I thought it was a pretty silly cover, and everyone--almost all of them libs--agreed. In fact, they were all sick of Obama quite some time ago, although for them it's his failure to accomplish the liberal goals. Especially his failure to end the war, more than a year ago.
Newsweek? Weren’t they recently sold for the grand sum of $1.00?
Less than the cover price of a single issue?
Still more than it’s worth?
If ever a company lived up to one dollar, it’s those retards at Newsweek.
court jester!!
What keeps me optimistic is the knowledge that socialist schemes are bound to fail, as they always have in the past. The only problem is, at what cost?
“Obama rode into Washington on the back of an ass, and now the ones who were waving palm fronds and shouting hosannas at him are asking themselves how it is their savior morphed into his conveyance.”
Gotta love that line!
Sure, if that "one person" is the lightweight, inexperienced, narcissistic, know-nothing, arrogant fool named Obama. Otherwise, no.
Court jester without a sense of humor. He looks pretty mad at the world to me. Things are not cooperating with His Divine Majesty.
Which is why we keep telling you to divvy the power out to the several million heads of families out there in fly-over country.
They don't need the O. They'll be fine without him. In fact, the sooner he departs the stage and retires to history's dust-bin, the quicker we can all get back to whatever it was we were doing when he showed up.
They should have put a basketball, golf club, or an ice cream cone in one of his hands.
Lincoln freed the slaves.
King obuma wants to reinstitute slavery.
Obuma is the anti-Lincoln.
But King obuma will surpass one of Lincoln’s most dubious achievements - become the most hated man of his time.
Fifty years from now obuma will be ridiculed in children’s nursery rhymes. He’ll be the butt of a million jokes. His vandalized gravesite will be relocated to Kenya. The Kenyans will open the casket and auction off the bones at eBay.
But, but, but...dosen’t he have Moosechell and her mother, and a gaggle of czars to help him destroy this country?
Last week’s Newsweak magazine was down to 56 pages. It’s getting thinner and thinner....
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