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Jewish World Review Nov 18, 2011/ 21 Mar-Cheshvan, 5772 Dear average American: It's all your fault By Jonah Goldberg
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Congratulations, average American! It's your turn to be blamed for President Obama's -- and America's -- problems. This is the biggest honor you've won since Being the root cause of our dire national predicament puts you in some very august company indeed. You are joining the ranks of Last week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, Obama explained that, "We've been a little bit lazy over the last couple of decades. We've kind of taken for granted -- 'Well, people would want to come here' -- and we aren't out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new businesses into America." The We'll come back to that in a minute. For now, let's take him at his word. Still, you can understand the confusion. In September, the president reflected in an interview that America is "a great, great country that has gotten a little soft, and we didn't have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades." Shortly after that, he told rich donors at a fundraiser that "we have lost our ambition, our imagination and our willingness to do the things that built the So, Obama thinks Americans lack ambition and are soft, but don't you dare suggest that he also thinks they're lazy. The point of all this is pretty obvious. Obama has a long-standing habit of seeing failure to support his agenda as a failure of character. The Democratic voters of western And in the context of the country's economic doldrums, Obama sees a lack of ambition, softness, laziness, etc., in anyone who doesn't support his agenda. He's spent several years now exhorting Americans about how we have to "win the future" by doing what he says. He's told us repeatedly that this is our "Sputnik moment" when all Americans must drop their selfish, cynical or foolish objections to his program. People who disagree aren't putting their "country first." He's constantly stoking nationalistic and quasi-paranoid fears of Indeed, What's so pathetic here -- other than the obvious grotesqueness of envying totalitarian tyrants -- is that Obama's objections are so baseless. Americans remain the most productive workers in the world. As Obama himself notes, we attract more foreign investment than any other country. Meanwhile, it's Obama and his allies in In 2008, Obama said Bush's deficit of But, yes, by all means, let's blame our lack of competitiveness on the American people.
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Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||||
