Just Another Blog

We all know what kind of campaign Barack Obama has been running. He stands for The Future and Change! He's running a "new" kind of campaign filled with Hope for All! He's rejecting the politics of old!

But Obama isn't. I submit that Barack Obama is another Carter, another Mondale, another Dukakis and even another LBJ. In a recent speech, Obama said: We can't expect to drive our SUVs as much as we want and eat as much as we want and keep our homes at 72 degrees and expect the rest of the world to be OK with it.

Of course, the audience applauded wildly as I thought to myself "what is wrong with these people?" The message here and in other Obama speeches seems to be reminiscent of LBJ's "we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people" comment. It seems to evoke thoughts of Carter's "national malaise" speech. It brings back thoughts of Dukakis's weakness on crime and of Mondale's pledge to raise taxes. And it reminds one of Senator Fulbright's notions that the Constitution it outmoded and that our system of individual freedoms cannot solve the complex problems of today.

The message is not optimistic, but unbelievably pessimistic. What is he really saying here? Here's what it seems like to me:

Americans must accept that we have too much in this country. We've lead lives of excess for 30 years, and now we come to accept that the world will not tolerate us anymore. We must learn to do with less. Less food, less oil, smaller houses, smaller cars and smaller lives. We must join the global community and accept that we cannot continue to use as much of the planet's resources as we do. We must do with less.

Moreover, Americans must look to government to solve their problems. Americans cannot solve the issues of health care, gas prices and the credit crunch without the government getting involved or even taking over these areas. We must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people. We need the government to break us out of this national malaise.

In Iraq, we must have peace at any price. If we pull back now, we can achieve detente with the terrorists. We should just admit that the war is an utter failure and was started by lying liars and that we wasted 4,000 lives and 500 billion dollars.

In my judgment, this is the speech Obama really keeps giving. How is that "hope?" It might be "change," but is it change for the better? Of course not. I for one reject all those notions. I further propose that McCain gives his own speech, one that is truly optimistic and hopeful:

My fellow Americans,

My opponent has suggested that we have too much. He thinks we must accept a future where our children have less than we do. And why? Because we have too much already. We're too successful, and now we must pay for it. That's my opponent's position, but it's not mine.

I say that we declare that we want more for our children, not less. We want better housing, better food, better security, better health care and better financial success. We should declare that we, as Americans, can solve any problem. We can become energy independent and energy efficient. We can win the war in Iraq. We can defeat terrorism. We can solve health care, the credit crunch and the national debt. We can have all of that. And why shouldn't we think those things. After all, we're Americans. We defeated Hilter. We went to the moon. We won the Cold War. We unleashed technological and economic growth the likes of which the world has never seen. And we did it without national health care, green taxes, carbon credits, mortgage bailouts and setting a date for defeat in war. We did it because we're Americans, and that's what we do.

Wow..that kind of makes on miss Ronald Reagan more than ever, doesn't it? The problem, of course, is that Barack Obama doesn't understand the notion of American Exceptionalism. If he does, he derides it instead of embracing it. To Obama, we're the world's fat bully, and he wants to slim us down. But we know we're not that, even if we do make our mistakes. And McCain? He's not Reagan. He'll probably never give that speech.

But at least he's not Barack Obama.