Faith in America

Enough with the pessimism already, writes Ross Douthat in The New York Times, and I agree.

Yes, the Obama administration is bungling everything, and the recovery will be tepid at best. But it's unlikely that the economy will swoon into a double-dip recession. And yes, the decline in M3 is troubling. For sure the mega-tax increase that is scheduled for January 1 is an act of economic folly. As is the proposal being floated around to implement a VAT tax.

Actually, the experts are always worrying about a double-dip recession at this stage of the business cycle. So there!

They are right to worry, of course. The stupidity of the political class knows no bounds. And almost everything the political class does is harmful to the economy. Why? Because pretty well everything the political class does takes money out of the hands of people who are doing something constructive and productive and hands it over to people who are not.

But this is America and America is different. Here the people rule--or at least they manage to throw the bums out from time to time--and this nation of immigrants is born of people who had the courage to up sticks and try life on another continent.

Think on the bright side:

• President Obama is not the political genius we were sold in 2008. He seems to be a rather pedestrian, rather inarticulate leader who seems to be good at dividing the nation rather than assembling a consensus for his program.
• Democratic Underground, the liberal blog site, is banning criticism of Obama. Wow! That it should come to that!
• The election of a Republican Congress in 2010, or something close to it, will make it very difficult for President Obama to gun the economy for reelection in 2012. It was FDR's shameless policies in 1935-36 that set up the horror of the 1937 recession.
• The American people are in full revolt. And here's hoping that young people, who voted 67 percent or so for Obama, will soon start to appreciate they were sold a bill of goods.

This is not going to be a revolution. The walk back from Obamism will be slow and painful. Because we are Americans and we are conservatives. And we don't believe in reckless, divisive change.

We just believe that America is the last best hope of mankind on Earth. Lincoln said in his Second Inaugural that America was the "last best hope of earth." Ronald Reagan amplified his words to "last best hope of man on Earth."

America is the Great Exception. And long may it continue.