PURELY POLITICAL Promises
Speech writers put fancy words into the mouths of empty suit politicians in every election.
Fairy Tales Almost Never Come True
Now that Labor Day has passed, the Iowa State Fair is over, and House members are about to return to what many of them describe as “work” in Washington, D.C., beginning next week Jim’s Journal and Purely Political observations will cover the candidate goings-on in the nation’s capital and on the campaign trail regularly, as well as those in California and other states.
But beforehand, as a final column good-bye to President Biden’s long summer vacation along the Delaware shore, please join me in a stroll down Memory Lane in remembering the humble beginning of another administration.
When Barack Obama stepped out onto the ornate Classical Greek stage setting (Styrofoam pillars and all) in St. Paul Minnesota on June 3, 2008, in the run-up to that year’s presidential election, and delivered his Democratic Nomination victory speech to thousands of enthralled supporters, he intoned that should he win the presidency, his triumph would mark the beginning of the complete transformation of the United States.
He and his acolytes in attendance apparently believed then that the United States was fundamentally, I don’t know, corrupt, racist, homophobic, maybe even transphobic, although trans personnel had yet to fully enter the pantheon of “protected classes” the U.S. had been collecting for the past few decades.
The same cast of characters have been pouring empty words and empty gestures into a silo filled with cynical and broken promises ever since, well, at least since the assassination of President Lincoln put a Democrat into the White House. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant in Appomattox Court House, Virginia on April 9, 1865. Thus, ending the bloody Civil War or, if you will, the War between the States.
Less than a week later, on April 14, John Wilkes Booth shot and killed President Lincoln at the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C., after which Vice President Andrew Johnson – a Democrat chosen as a National Union candidate for the re-election campaign of President Lincoln in 1864 – was sworn in as president.
When Johnson took over, he vetoed a number of bills that Congress had passed offering opportunity and compensation to the freed slaves. Because of Johnson, Democrat leaders in the Southern states who’d joined the Confederacy were able to return to office; they proceeded to pass a number of laws in their respective states, making it difficult for former slaves to, among other things, vote.
But I digress.
Here’s what Democrat Nominee for President Barack Hussein Obama promised in 2008:
“The journey will be difficult,” he intoned with that teeth-clenched bottom-lip sincerity he’d mastered (or was that Bill Clinton’s act?).
“The road will be long,” Mr. Obama continued (maybe shaking his finger, but I’m not sure). “I face this challenge with profound humility and knowledge of my own limitations, but I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.”
What followed was a litany of the emptiest and most cringe-inducing promises ever given by a leader or would-be leader anywhere at any time.
“Because if we are willing to work for it,” Obama said, “and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that
“generations from now
“we will be able to look back and tell our children that
“this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick
“and good jobs to the jobless.
“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow
“and our planet began to heal.
“This was the moment
“when we ended a war
“and secured our nation
“and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.
“This was the moment,
“this was the time
“when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.
I don’t know about you but, looking around, I do believe I can sense that the rise of the oceans really has begun to slow, that – because of President Barack Hussein Obama and his team of planetary saviors – our planet really has begun to heal.
Right.
More statements and promises made by the successful 2008 candidate, considered “The One” by many of his followers.
“Let me express my thanks to the historic slate of candidates who accompanied me on this journey, and especially the one who traveled the farthest — a champion for working Americans and an inspiration to my daughters and to yours — Hillary Rodham Clinton.
“To President Clinton, who last night made the case for change as only he can make it;
“to Ted Kennedy, who embodies the spirit of service;
“and to the next vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, I thank you.
“I am grateful to finish this journey with one of the finest statesmen of our time, a man at ease with everyone from world leaders to the conductors on the Amtrak train he still takes home every night.”
The new president stopped short of handing out barf bags for those with more delicate sensibilities.
But I digress.
“…I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America.
“I will eliminate capital-gains taxes for the small businesses and the startups that will create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.
“I will cut taxes — cut taxes — for 95 percent of all working families. Because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle class.”
With those words, he had me wondering what that other 5% of “working families” had done to be left out of his largesse.
“And for the sake of our economy,
“our security,
“and the future of our planet,
“I will set a clear goal as president: In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.”
Little did Mr. Obama (or Mr. Biden) know that ten years later it was a Republican President Trump who would achieve that goal, and that a little over 12 years later, after stifling oil production in the U.S., a President Biden would go hat in hand to beg the Saudis to pump more oil.
“…Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.
“As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power.”
As President, he did no such thing.
His party wouldn’t let him, and he didn’t really care.
President Obama followed that up with one of the biggest whoppers made during his eight-year planet-saving voyage.
“I will also go through the federal budget line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less, because we cannot meet 21st-century challenges with a 20th-century bureaucracy.”
That 20th-century bureaucracy remains in place, buttressed by the coming tens of thousands of 21st-century IRS agents and others to make sure you obey…, I mean comply.
What all this proves is that no candidate from whatever party can be trusted to fulfill any promise. Judge them by their deeds not their words.
See you next week!