That Voice

cross posted at Right Michigan

What's not to like about Barack Obama?

The guy can speak pretty very in front of a teleprompter, is intelligent, he's got an attractive wife, a couple of adorable daughters, he is motivated, has a great voice, a wide smile and, from what I understand, if he sticks his head out of a moving car's window it makes a noise like a mourning dove taking flight. (I had a childhood friend that could blow milk out his nose. While that would be cool in a chief executive, I suppose we can't have everything.)

We do like our Presidents to be a lot of things, and regardless of what any candidate is and what he has to offer, we always want more. This desire for "more" is warranted simply because the office of the President is one without boundaries and its occupier, by virtue of the job alone, is the most powerful human on this planet despite whatever Al Gore would want you to believe.

The man (or woman) that sits in the Oval Office should be someone special, and his outward projection should truly amount to more than a well-oiled veneer polished to a heavy sheen by armies of public relations people. That one person in 300 million that is chosen to lead our country through the next four years had better have something going for him other than just a catchy gimmick spoken with a deep voice. If he doesn't we might be in big trouble.

Me personally? I'm not holding my breath.

Barack Obama has exhibited few ideas that should make anyone think that even his most wildly thought out master plans are anything more original than the retread covering Joe Biden's head. In fact, Joe Biden is the perfect example of what change means to the candidate that is making "change" his battle cry.

Given the opportunity to make any one of a number of great choices for his running mate, Obama's voice eloquently announced the selection of a six term Washington insider with a poor track record, a super-human ego, and a regrettable propensity to misremember facts. Why Joe Biden is exactly the kind of man that Barack Obama feels should help him carry the torch of change is anyone's guess. Change, from what and to what, Joe Biden has no clue, he's just happy to have an actual working microphone shoved into his face once in a while so he doesn't have to keep practicing in front of the mirror. He also thinks it's cool to own a comb for something other than a pretend reporter's equipment.

Nor was Obama's political career founded on a newly revamped sort of political attitude, but rather the insider sort of closed-door back scratching that has ruled the windy city political landscape for decades. When Obama moved to Chicago, he knew exactly who to attach himself to, and he did it quickly. He did it socially, he did it professionally, he did it politically. Nothing new here to see.

It is hard to find much by way of change in the manner in which he has managed to turn his political success into personal wealth. His close friendship with an indicted speculator has a familiar ring to it, and forgive me for being cynical, but how surprised should we be that he was able to steer earmarks toward his wife's employer? When exactly did she get that huge promotion and salary increase?

While Obama's list of accomplishments is thin, his nation saving initiatives read like a laundry list of socialist boondoggles, the disastrous results of which can be studied in any one of scores of different countries that have tried their hands at the same change decades ago. There is nothing remarkable about his health care plan, his retirement plan, his education plan, his plan on housing, or his plans on welfare reform. Each and every initiative that Barack Obama promotes with his reasoned and eloquent voice also promotes larger bureaucracies that will learn to cleverly survive on the money of taxpayers like a swollen tick survives while latched onto an animal's hide. Oh, guess who that unfortunate animal is.

Obama's soothing voice calls for a change in America that he proposes to reach by stepping backwards through a door that is best left closed. If you want to see the glories of socialized medicine, look to the UK where bed-ridden elderly patients literally starve to death in government run wards. If you want to see the glories of socialist welfare policies, look to Scandinavia where public coffers have run dry in order to support an increasingly lethargic population content to live off the state while voting for itself larger and larger benefit packages. (It's good work if you can get it.) If you want to see the glories of a modern housing, look to France where the last extended heat wave caused the deaths of over 10,000 people who ended up being baked into the afterlife in hot, air conditionless housing. If you want to witness the glories of a socialist economy, again look to France where thousands of Muslim youths regularly take to the streets torching cars, burning store fronts and creating havoc because, they say, they have too few opportunities.

I have no doubt that Obama is a great guy and his intent is to do the right thing. I'm also certain that he has skills that would translate into success in any number of areas in both the public and private sector. (Audio books, anyone?)

But as a presidential candidate Barack Obama offers no ideas more interesting than the most generic variety of socialism. He describes the same old canards in a way that makes them sound fresh and breathtakingly packed with common sense. That is his skill. He wants a better America, he just doesn't have the faintest clue how to make one.

Call it change if you want to, and insist that it is our only hope for the future, but you would be better off looking into the rear view mirror where the results are clearly visible.

It ain't change, and there is no hope for its success, but gosh, that voice...