I learned yesterday that the unofficial Democratic Party strategy to re-elect President Obama is to "kill Romney." My reaction to this inadvertent revelation is threefold.
First: This concept is coming from some of the very same people who reared up in righteous indignation after the shootings in Tucson, blaming the Republicans in general and Sarah Palin in particular, for having "targeted" certain Democratic incumbents for defeat. Their high dudgeon then was irrational, given the fact that neither the Republican Party nor Governor Palin had anything to do with the shootings, and that the shooter was certifiably insane. But these facts did not concern the critics on the left, which just proves my point that not even reality can sway an ideologue. This sort of hypocrisy is beyond breathtaking; it is asphyxiating.
Second: The enunciation of this strategy simply lays bare the fact that the president has nothing to run on. He cannot boast of his record, which consists of record spending, record deficits, record unemployment and record national debt and the downgrading of America's credit rating. There is an old adage in the law which holds that if you have the facts on your side, then argue the facts; if you do not have the facts, then argue the law; and if you do not have the law, then attack your opponent. This is the position in which the forces that have created and have sustained Obama find themselves. They have no recourse but to assassinate the character of whomever runs against him. It is not a strategy; it is a confession.
Third: Relieved now of the threat of Sarah Palin, the Democrats propose to kill Romney. I do not believe that Romney can get the nomination, and so I am pleased that all of their venom is focused upon him. They are killing the wrong guy. In the debt ceiling debate, Romney was silent, as were most of the Republican candidates. There is a vacuum of leadership in this country, and Romney had neither the courage, the independence nor the insight to step into it. That demonstrates to my satisfaction that he is not the antidote to the poison of Obama. We do not need to replace one vacuum with another.
Barack Obama is an utter failure as a leader and as a president. His is the most tragically ineffectual presidency since -- no, not Jimmy Carter -- James Buchanan. That pudgy, milquetoast president presided in the late 1850s at a time of imminent danger to the nation, and still he managed to do nothing. The result was the Civil War -- the nation torn apart, 612,000 Americans killed.
What I believe we have to look forward to here and now is what we see in silhouette in Europe: widespread discontent erupting into civil disorder in the streets. For generations, politicians on the left in Europe and America have sold their electorates a bill of goods; namely, that pie in the sky can not only be afforded, it can be expanded indefinitely. My fear is that what we see in London and Birmingham today will soon play itself out in the streets of New York and Chicago.
What we suffer from in the long term is the creeping sickness of socialism in our society, coupled with the current lack of leadership, vision and integrity in Washington. Meanwhile, the president enjoys a ten day vacation on Martha's Vineyard. And Rome burns.
