The Incredible Amazing "Who Cares" Presidency

Victor Davis Hanson wonders about Mr Hopey Change

The Truly Amazing Fact [Victor Davis Hanson]

One wonders not that President Obama tells untruths (e.g. no middle-class tax increase, health-care "reform" will control costs, C-Span's airing of health-care debates, listing pending legislation on the internet for five days, closing down Guantanamo within a year, advocacy for all combat forces out of Iraq by March 2008, no lobbyists in government, an end to earmarks, and all the old ones about public campaign financing, the actual relationships with Wright, Ayers, Khalidi, Blago, etc.), since all politicians fib.

Rather the wonder is that he does it so serially, after promising such hope and change from the past political culture — and that his base and the favorable media care so little, the same media that for nearly a decade boasted that their signature was to care so deeply and passionately about presidential veracity. Factor all that in with a weak economy, 10 percent unemployment, astronomical deficits, polarizing appointments, and apologetics abroad, and, again, the amazing thing is not that Obama has fallen faster and further than any first-year president, but that in quite wondrous fashion, he still earns an average approval rating in the polls of 48 percent. Now that is amazing, and either a testament to his political savvy, the obsequiousness of the New York and D.C. media, or the hope by most that they can be included in the growing distribution of entitlements which now draws in nearly 30 percent of the population for substantial or near-complete subsidy.