"Columnist to the world" Mark Steyn has seen more than most and sizes up Obama on July 4th as the "uncool," the "square." He's living in the past and marching in the wrong direction, leading the country over the cliff.
Excerpts:
President Obama was supposed to be "cool." But he isn't. He's square. Not just mildly so, but embarrassingly square. He's squaresville squared. It's like you're having a party with your friends and he's the cringe-making middle-aged parent who wants to show he digs where the young people are at by grooving around in the middle of the dance floor all night long.
How do I know? I've been there and I've been square. By "there," I mean I've been in places that have tried all the cool Obama dance moves and eventually wised up to what utter clunkers they are
[M]ost of the developed world has already gone down the paved road of good intentions and is now frantically trying to pedal up out of it. New Zealand was one of the few western nations to sign on to Kyoto and then attempt to abide by it -- until they realized they could only do so by destroying their economy. They introduced a Dem-style cap-and-trade regime -- and last year they suspended it. In Australia, the Labor government postponed implementation of its emissions-reduction program until 2011, and the Aussie Senate may scuttle it entirely.
While the U.S. is going full throttle for Scandinavia-a-go-go, the Continentals have begun to discern to the limits of Europeanization. In 2007, government spending in Europe averaged 46.2 percent of GDP; in America it was 37.4 percent, of which 20 percent was federal. A mere two years later, federal spending is up to 28.5 percent, so, even if state and local spending stand still, we're at 46 percent: the European average. But, as Randall Hoven points out, the real story is that we're at 46 percent and climbing, the Continentals are at 46 percent and heading down.
And the New York Times thinks it's all so wonderful.
Read all of what Mark has to say -- and weep.
Behind the Times
There's nothing cool about Obama.
July 4, 2009
Mark Steyn
