President Obama’s press conference on 24 March involved considerable tedium, especially if one watched it all, as was the case in this corner. Constantly referring to his goals of making everything better concerning health, education, climate, energy, and the economy, of course, he provided little in the way of actual information. The anointed One fielded 13 questions in 57 minutes, an average of about 4.5 minutes per answer, more than enough time to continue the campaign of last year, which is what the exercise actually entailed.
Strangely, he alluded approvingly to the pitch made earlier in the day by Treasury Secretary Geithner before Chairman Barney Frank’s House Finance Committee for Congressional fiat to afford him (Geithner) virtual dictatorial powers with respect to taking over financial institutions, as well as other enterprises, that he feels are about to fail. Strange, because as a former law-school teacher of Constitutional Law, Obama’s bound to know that such power is indeed un-Constitutional…or does he?
Geithner’s plan, another in a series of “test balloons” launched lately to try to discover which way the wind is blowing, also seemed to involve (does anyone actually know?) the government’s colluding somehow with private entities – presumably of any stripe – in the matter of their saddling themselves with those “toxic assets” (how’s that for an oxymoron?) to get errant banks off the hook so they can start lending money again. The government would also loan the entity the money to buy the toxic assets, so there’s no way the private outfit could lose since the government would also absorb any loss, according to the proposed legislation, translated as taxpayers again being robbed. Any profit would accrue to the rescuer-entity. The amount involved: $1 trillion!
There’s a problem with this, of course, to wit, that no one knows what the toxic assets are worth, in the first place. Geithner’s position seemed to be that…well, that’s just the way it is. This is incredible, this floundering around in a sea of red ink without the slightest idea of how deep the shade or depth of red is. Geithner seemed also to be saying that there’s no way now to determine if this idea will work. If it does – fine! If not – too bad! Madness!
The current head of the European Union, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, on Wednesday warned that the U.S. economic rescue plans were, "a way to hell." CBS) Obama seemed not to understand this in his remarks since he insisted that he would “drive down” the cost of health care while driving up astronomically government spending (stimulus package), including $150.1 billion for health care.
This makes no sense, obviously, so the Anointed One probably means that he will place caps on everything medical – doctor fees; surgery costs; medicine; nurse uniforms; hospital expenses; wheelchairs…Egad! This is socialized medicine, the one thing Americans, notwithstanding race, creed or anything else, fear the most. In the middle 90s, there were some 46 health-insurance companies in Kentucky, at which time the governor/legislature decided to tell them whom/what they would cover. Forty-five companies left the state. The Obama administration is heading into deep waters in the health area.
Obama blew off the remark by a questioner with regard to the fact that the Congressional Budget Office (nonpartisan) had determined that his budget was actually more expensive than claimed by a mere $2.3 trillion, simply stating that the White House figures involved a prediction of greater growth than that of the CBO. So…the financial experts are in the White House now, speaking of whom, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was shown during the conference (Fox camera) smiling broadly while White House spokesman Robert Gibbs was seen whispering to the guy on his right. In his press conferences, Gibbs has raised the terms of “uh, uh-uh, uh-uh-uh” and “er, er-er, er-er-er” and “um, um-um, um-um-um” to a new level of repetition/eloquence. He manages about one “uh, er, um” per three words…virtually incoherent, but maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be. Makes Obamessiah look perfect by comparison!
Finally (last question), somebody asked about the Middle East, Israel/Palestine in particular. The president said this (checked the transcript): “And by assigning George Mitchell the task of working as Special Envoy, what we've signaled is that we're going to be serious from day one in trying to move the parties in a direction that acknowledges that reality.” Is that perhaps the same as sending the Archangel Michael? Was he saying that other presidents were not serious? Of course he was – elitism carried to a profound extreme. What a laugh! With a passing reference to the (gasp) video he sent to the Iranians, he proceeded to get back to the economy for the finale.
Oh yes…he insisted somewhere in there that there would be a cap-and-trade law passed by Congress and that he would sign it. This is in spite of the fact that global cooling has been taking place since 2002. Indeed, the term “global warming” is out of fashion now, since the globe isn’t warming. Now, it’s all about climate change, as if that makes any difference. Cap-and-trade (not favored by Congress currently) means more taxes, and for no purpose at all. This president and his co-conspirators actually mean to take this country down the socialism trail. One can only hope that enough Congresspersons will finally catch on.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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