The Patriot Post® · Notes From the War Zone

In every war, there are big moments and small ones. The same holds true in election years. The biggest event, the Super Bowl as it were, takes place on November 6, but along the way there are any number of incidents that help to determine the eventual outcome.

For example, why would any American vote for Obama after he put the kibosh on the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would have simultaneously provided us with a friendly source of oil and 20,000 jobs? I mean, even if you’re one of those environmental zealots who feel that jobs and energy should take a back seat to the comfort and well-being of insects and rodents, wouldn’t you be the least bit annoyed that he merely delayed a final decision until 2013 so that you and your kind will continue to donate to his re-election campaign? Doesn’t it bug you the least little bit to be played that way? Why don’t you folks just stamp SUCKER on your foreheads and be done with it?

How is it that the same people, Democrats, who pretended that George Bush was a dunce because they didn’t like the way he pronounced “nuclear,” never mentioned the fact that in heaping praise on Ener1, yet another green energy company that received $118.5 million of our tax dollars from the Department of Energy before filing for bankruptcy, Joe Biden kept referring to it as “Enron”? While anyone can occasionally mispronounce a word, it takes true comic genius to take a company name that is, at best, nebulous and verbally change it to a name that has become synonymous with the most corrupt practices of the capitalist system.

It would be like the Vice-President giving a rousing campaign speech for a liberal senator such as Charles Schumer or Harry Reid and concluding with, “And now it is both my pleasure and my privilege to introduce… Adolf Hitler!”

It figured that Newt Gingrich would latch on to Mitt Romney’s “I don’t care about poor people,” while ignoring the words that followed. In fact, after attacking venture capitalism, cozying up to Nancy Pelosi on that famous couch and labeling Paul Ryan’s economic plan as “right-wing social engineering,” I couldn’t tell if Newt was seeking the GOP nomination or had decided to put himself in the running in case Obama decides to dump Biden as his running mate.

Moreover, I couldn’t quite figure out why Gingrich thought that his own plan for improving the lot of America’s poor was so terrific. A trampoline, for God’s sake? Given that the former Speaker clearly doesn’t exercise anything but his jaw, what made him think that a trampoline was the ideal metaphor with which to illustrate the glory of capitalism? Someone should have explained to him that the way it works with one of those contraptions is that it allows you to bounce up in the air, but the lift is only momentary. Within a second or two, you’re right back where you started. The next time Gingrich decides to paint a word picture, perhaps Callista could suggest he’d do better to mention an Up escalator.

It shocks but doesn’t surprise me that Obama and his cronies are rejoicing in an 8.3% unemployment rate when most people know that the reason the number isn’t twice that high is because it doesn’t include those who have taken low-paying temporary jobs and those who, after three years of this economy-destroying administration, have simply removed themselves from the work force. I suppose if enough people finally give up, Obama will boast that he managed to get the unemployment rate down below 5%.

In three years, the Democrats have added 200,000 people to the federal payroll, meaning that there are 200,000 people who now have a reason to vote for Obama. Several million people have also started getting food stamps since 2008. Obama would say the reason that one in seven Americans is currently collecting federal assistance is because he inherited a bad economy. Other people, those who can’t afford to spend a billion dollars in order to remain gainfully employed, would point out that today’s economy is far worse than the one he took on three years ago.

For example, the day he moved into the Oval Office, unemployment was 7.8 %; we had a triple-A credit rating; we had a $10 trillion debt; we had a federal budget; and the average gallon of gas was selling for $1.81. Today, even the doctored unemployment numbers are higher than they were; we have a double-A credit rating; we have a $16 trillion debt; we haven’t had a federal budget since Bush moved back to Texas; and a gallon of gas goes for $3.69…unless you happen to live in California, where I paid $4.29 a gallon for regular this afternoon.

It’s true that some fruitcakes on the Left are still upset that President Obama hasn’t shut down Gitmo; hasn’t campaigned for same-sex marriages; hasn’t entirely destroyed the oil and coal industries; hasn’t eliminated military tribunals or the Patriot Act; and didn’t pitch in when the various unions trashed the state capitol all because Gov. Walker tried to bring fiscal sanity to the state of Wisconsin.

In their insistence on nit-picking, these ungrateful leftists remind me of the scene in “Now, Voyager,” when Bette Davis urges her suave lover, Paul Henreid, to join her in appreciating what they have and not to focus on the fact that, thanks to certain plot-related circumstances, they are unable to get married: “Oh, Jerry, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We have the stars.”

In similar fashion, I would urge America’s loony liberals to concentrate on their guy’s numerous accomplishments, not on his various shortcomings.

If they follow my advice, only then will they fully appreciate the fact that when Senator Obama vowed to radically transform America, that fool wasn’t kidding.