Newsweek's cover this week declares that Barack Obama is the "First Gay President," playing on the reader's knowledge that Obama isn't himself gay, but his support for same-sex marriage earns him an honorary rainbow halo. The headline obviously calls back to 1998, when Toni Morrison declared Bill Clinton the first black president in The New Yorker, which at the time was edited by current Newsweek editor Tina Brown.
Similar to the Atlantic Wire piece, let's take a stroll down the pandering line, shall we...
This year's most prolonged placation has to be the so-called war on women, kicking off with Obama's contraceptives mandate forced on religious institutions, his uncompromising compromise, and christened in February, with the aid of Pelosi, by the testimony of Georgetown co-ed Sandra Fluke. Just google or youtube 'war on women' to view any number of participating media outlets and leftist PACs conveniently foisting this on the right in an election year. The Obama administration has kept this one going over several months, with a White House forum on women and the economy in early April...
...nevermind that the White House pays female employees 18% less than men (oops). Though this topic has begun to die down in the face of more facts like the prior, you'll continue to hear this one brought up from time to time.
Next, after that didn't work as well as had been anticipated, the administration used a local (not federal) incident surrounding the fatal shooting of a black teen to turn, once again, to an old standard: racial division. Targeting the black vote, the President said, "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon."
Immediately following that failed pandering attempt once more details were revealed that the victim may not have been as innocent as the media initially portrayed, Obama launched a rapid succession of placation throughout April and into May. First, targeting the hispanic vote (both legal and illegal of course) at a Cinco de Mayo reception held on the White House grounds...
...then quickly moving on to the college crowd the next day, manipulating them with promises that he cannot deliver: the best college education that money can buy on the taxpayer's dime...and oh yeah, the taxpayers can pick up the tab for your student loans after you're done as well.
Then of course, we find ourselve still immersed in the same spot that Joe Biden setup for Obama last week: pandering to the LGBT community (or in English, 'the gay vote'). Again, like the rest, this is all about politics, not principle.
I skipped the Asian & Jewish placations, but you can read the Atlantic Wire piece for those, among other aspects that I've already mentioned. Anyway, I think you get the point!
Also, you'll notice that within each of these instances -- whether composed of one-on-one interviews with media lapdogs, 'breaking news' events behind a podium on the White House lawn to a small audience of both admirers and paparazzi, or supposedly scheduled speeches before an enthusiastic Obama crowd -- the President not only placates to specific voting demographics, but all of these moments seem to conveniently (and by that, I mean intentionally) morph into taxpayer-financed reelection campaign rallies initiated by Obama & Co., for the purposes of permeation through an extremely willing media. But if there's one fortunate thing to take away from this oversaturation of pandering, it's that the real ailments of our nation (i.e., the economy and the debt...stupid) continue to overshadow the placation, allowing the citizenry to see these for exactly what they are: distractions.
Oh! I have failed to mention one demographic that the Obama administration has taken aim at since waltzing into office, predating all of the above: the rich. Of course, that excludes the super-rich & rabidly-liberal celebrities, the Democratic-supporting mega-business elite, and the like...just those wealthy Americans (over $250K a year) who would question the motives and policies of this President, his party, and the ruling class. However, a new Gallup poll shows that this line of illogic is failing Obama as well.
Despite the recent political emphasis on wealth inequality and the call for higher taxes on the rich, more than six in 10 Americans think the United States benefits from having a class of rich people, unchanged from 22 years ago.
Although the poll shows that an alarming amount of Democrats believe that the wealthy do not benefit the United States (46%), the vast majority of Republicans and Independents acknowledge the overwhelming benefits of wealth creation in America (80% and 59%, respectively). So for now, the American intuition still envisions a shining city on a hill. And that's incentive enough to end the slobbering love affair with Barack Obama.
