Barone: Obama's Convenient Fantasies

Lots of good points in Barone's piece yesterday.

Liberal columnists have been attacking Republicans because some of their voters are "birthers," believers in the absurd charge that Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii and thus is not a natural-born U.S. citizen. But they have failed to identify any "birther" that occupied a position in the Republican firmament comparable to that of "truther" [Van] Jones in the Obama administration.

Reminds me of Mark Steyn's comment on Hugh Hewitt's show yesterday about those ACORN employees caught in a sting where they are giving out advice on how to file taxes for a prostitution ring and other money-laundering secrets. Steyn said something like "They talk about the right wing having a lunatic fringe, but here is the American left's lunatic mainstream." I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist.

If there were money to be made in green jobs, private investors would be creating them already. In fact, big corporations like General Electric are scrambling to position themselves as green companies, gaming legislation and regulations so they can make profits by doing so. Big business is ready to create green jobs -- if government subsidizes them. But the idea that green jobs will replace all the lost carbon-emitting jobs is magical thinking.

I have a good friend who truly believes that wind, hydroelectric and ethanol could be making everyone millions of dollars, providing jobs, getting us off foreign oil (sorry, Canada) and saving the Earth. But "these corporations" are too stupid to take advantage of these huge money-making opportunities. I've tried to reason with him, explaining that there are some smart people who actually work for some of "there corporations" who are exceptionally good at finding ways to make more money... but... well... (sigh).

There is an element of convenient fantasy as well in Obama's health care statements to date. We are going to save money by spending money. We are going to solve our fiscal problems with a program that will increase the national debt by $1 trillion over a decade. We are going to guarantee you can keep your current insurance with a bill that encourages your employer to stop offering it.

Another sigh is in order, I suppose. Anyway, I love how he ends: "No-enemies-to-the-left and convenient fantasies may work in Chicago. They don't work so well when your constituency is the whole United States." I surely hope not. But Obama sure is giving it the good ol' college professor try.

H/T Rerum Novarum.