DAN HENNINGER: THE PRESIDENT HAS IDENTIFIED THE REAL ENEMY- THE REPUBLICANS ****
http://online.wsj.com/articles/dan-henninger-the-presidents-public-enemies-1409787742?mod=hp_opinion
The President’s Public Enemies
Forget ISIS and Putin; Obama has identified the real enemy—the Republicans.
Barack Obama went on the attack late last week. The president delivered blistering speeches at a Democratic fundraiser in Westchester County, N.Y., at the Seafair mansion in Newport, R.I., and to unionists in Milwaukee on Labor Day.
Mr. Obama‘s purpose in these three similar speeches was to leave his audiences with one thought, one takeaway. The following two quotations are from the speech at Seafair, where some 60 people paid up to $32,400 to hear the president talk about the world. Herewith a pop quiz for readers who couldn’t be there: Who did President Obama identify as the greatest threat to mankind?
“Internationally, we’re going through a tumultuous time. And I don’t have to tell you, anybody who has been watching TV this summer, it seems like it is just wave after wave of upheaval, most of it surrounding the Middle East. You’re seeing a change in the order in the Middle East. But the old order is having a tough time holding together and the new order has yet to be born, and in the interim, it’s scary.”
Now this:
“The reason government does not work right now is because the other party has been captured by an ideological, rigid, uncompromising core that ignores science, is not particularly interested in facts, is not particularly interested in compromise, but is interested in having its own way 100 percent of the time—and that way, in large part, includes dismantling so much of what has created this incredible middle class and this incredible wealth here in America.”
As is his habit, Mr. Obama answered the question himself: “So the answer to our challenges is actually pretty simple—we need a better Congress.” That’s right, the greatest threats to America today are . . . Mitch McConnell and John Boehner. Looking at events the past five years, we’d say Mr. Obama has cut Vladimir Putin more slack than he has the Speaker of the House.
One can understand how Mr. Obama might feel it’s necessary to campaign in the North to protect Democratic senators at risk in the South and West. And that this requires minimizing the world’s real dangers while maximizing the brawny Republican threat to the homeland. But even by the low bar of campaign logic, the speeches were filled with weird flights.
“The reason people are feeling anxious,” Mr. Obama said in Westchester, “is that if you watch the nightly news, it feels like the world is falling apart.” And while “the world has always been messy,” Mr. Obama said, “we’re just noticing now because of social media.”
Videotaped beheadings of American journalists, mass atrocities, rolling tank armies in Iraq and eastern Ukraine, Nigeria’s Boko Haram Islamic terrorists kidnapping and slaughtering people are bad, but TV, YouTube and Twitter TWTR -3.31% are making it . . . worse than it is?
Notwithstanding the media’s exaggeration of the world’s troubles, Mr. Obama offered solace: “Here’s the message I have for you, American military superiority has never been greater.” Besides, “Russia’s economy is going nowhere.” What’s more: “The good news is that American leadership has never been more necessary.” All true. And that leaves us . . . where?
But it was when Mr. Obama’s thoughts turned to the home front that the most revealing convolutions appeared, especially on the economy before Milwaukee’s union members.
He began with preposterous hyperbole: In 2008, “our financial system collapsed.” But today, despite “a lock-step opposition that is opposed to everything we do,” we’re better off “by almost every measure,” including a “booming” stock market.
Moments after claiming credit for the Federal Reserve’s market boom, Mr. Obama took a nine iron to the upscale people who have captured most of it. He said the “average persons” in his audience aren’t looking for—his words—a yacht, their own plane, a mansion or “vacationing in St. Bart’s .” Here’s the line that came right before these targets: “I’m not stirring up class resentment.”
Weirder still: When the president spoke to upper-bracket donors in Westchester or Newport, he sounded like one of them. Mr. Obama mocked “the crazy money that’s floating around” in politics, and then asked his moneyed audience to give him some. But when speaking to the “average” people in Milwaukee, his English downshifted: “You should want your wife to get paid fair.” “They ain’t looking for nothing fancy.” TV news is “just kind of a whole downer.” One thing middle-class people aren’t looking for is presidential condescension.
Mr. Obama says the gridlock in Washington is the result of “a certain cynical genius.” On the evidence, who could disagree? It’s more than that, though.
Speaking in Estonia Tuesday about the ISIS threat, Mr. Obama said the U.S. will lead “an international effort,” but “that’s going to take some time.” Speaking in Newport, he spoke of the economy’s “long-term challenges.” With Barack Obama—whether it’s friends or enemies at home or abroad—every problem is always disappearing toward the horizon. Presidential decision-making is a can that he kicks down the road. With the whole world along for the wild ride.
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