After Nobel Comes the Whirlwind

I wouldn't want to be a liberal right now. Because any liberal with any sense must see that a perfect storm is brewing.

We wish President Obama well, and we congratulate him on winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in diplomacy.

The trouble for the president is that this award probably will be remembered as an inflection point. After today, things will start going downhill for the president, and I predict that they will go down fast.

Let's look at all the issues that are combining, like weather disturbances, into the perfect storm.

1. The dollar. The Obama administration has done nothing to adjust to the fact that, after the Crash of 2008, the nation is poorer. That means it can afford less government. That means that it must revive the economy by--get this--reviving the private sector. That means it is going to have to defend the dollar or see massive inflation. But instead the Obama administration has governed as if nothing had changed. The US consumer and the US creditor aren't going to like this.
2. Government Spending. The Obama administration spent about a trillion dollars on a "stimulus" bill. Actually the bill was not a stimulus but a payoff to Democratic voters. It won't stimulate the economy. This is going to result in higher unemployment in 2010 and 2012 than otherwise. The US voter isn't going to like this.
3. War on Terror. In the Oughties, Democrats said that the Iraq War was a mistake and a distraction. The real war was in Afghanistan, and how come we haven't captured Bin Laden yet? Of course, as Charles Krauthammer makes clear, the only reason the Dems talked about Afghanistan was that it was a way to criticize President Bush while neutralizing the Democratic reputation for being soft on defense. "Bush Lied," they said. Well, you ain't seen nothing yet. The American people aren't going to like this.
4. Health Care. The Obama administration proposes to spend at least a trillion dollars on extending health care subsidies to their supporters. Probably this is a gross underestimate. This additional burden on the private sector will make the economy weaker.
5. Cap and Trade. The Obama administration is proposing to raise energy taxes by trillions of dollars in order to "save the planet." Leaving aside the science of global warming, and leaving aside whether carbon reduction is the appropriate response, Americans just don't want to pay more in taxes, especially in the middle of a recession.

Of course, there is more stuff that the American people don't like. They don't like the corruption; they don't like the regulation of the blogosphere; they don't like the use of the "race card." And on and on.

When all these issues combine together, we are going to see a perfect storm. It will transform the US economy, and it will transform US politics.

There is no way to tell what all the ramifications of the storm will be. In any storm, the damage will be horrific, but it will be impossible to tell, before the storm, what will survive and what will be utterly destroyed.

But I will make this prediction. After the storm has passed, and after the American people have viewed the wreckage, and taken in the scale of the disaster, our liberal friends will be utterly discredited.