The Conservative Edge

Sometimes you have to give credit when credit is due. I must commend Jonah Goldberg, a syndicated columnist, for his recent commentary published in the September 6 edition of the Dayton Daily News. His column focused on the media’s tendency to “give Obama as many do-overs as he needs.” Goldberg’s remark was made in light of the fact that Obama’s upcoming speech will be his third prime-time address in three months, and the fifth of his 7-month presidency.

Obama keeps making speeches, but he doesn’t put any meat with the potatoes, so to speak. He obviously enjoys getting TV exposure, and he makes sure the teleprompters are in place for every televised event, so his words will sound sophisticated and smooth. But when it comes to specific reforms, especially about health care, he doesn’t give many details. And when it seems that Congress isn’t acting fast enough on certain issues, the White House claims that Obama will assert himself to speed up the legislative process, and come up with solutions to America’s problems.

The trouble is, the only speedy actions taken by the dominant liberals in Congress have been to either raise taxes or expand government control of certain hated industries. As I’ve said before, the liberals have always despised cars, banks, and tobacco; as a result, the only decisive actions made by the liberals in Congress and the White House have been to raise tobacco taxes, seize banks and insurance companies, and cripple America’s car industry.

Meanwhile, unemployment keeps rising, beyond levels projected by Obama and his advisors. We keep hearing from the Obama administration that they didn’t realize the severity of the recession. But, Obama and other Democrats campaigned on their thorough knowledge of the economy, and what should be done to promote recovery. They can’t lean on the “we didn’t know” crutch forever, especially as millions of Americans are still waiting for the promise of job creation to be fulfilled. Indeed, the Associated Press reported on Joe Biden’s recent efforts to claim victory for the stimulus package: “Biden, Obama’s chief stimulus cheerleader, proudly pointed to more than 2,200 highway projects Thursday funded by the program, but didn’t mention the growing frustration among contractors that infrastructure money is only trickling out and thus far hasn’t delivered the needed boost in jobs.”

Americans may be growing impatient with all the talk, and Obama’s appetite for airtime. Goldberg observed in his excellent column, “Funny how the people who run the most sophisticated communication operation in the history of the presidency keep concluding that their difficulties stem from their inability to get their message out and never from what their message actually is.” I wonder if Americans might be more receptive to health care reform if they first believed that the Obama administration was serious about creating jobs. That was the message of the 2008 campaign, but it’s now a message that can’t be heard above Obama’s prime time noise.