While I certainly agree his basic instincts are Statist, I am somewhat encouraged by an undercurrent of intelligence and ruthless pragmatism that his most devoted followers will find offensive as time goes on.

His dinner a couple nights ago with George Will, David Brooks, Bill Cristol and Krauthammer - aside from co-opting a chunk fo the guest list of my fantasy dinner party - was probably one of the political events of the last decade I would have most like to have bugged. My guess is he did well, opened some very interesting channels that will stand him in good stead, and it won't be the last time he gets perspective from those sources. I think what we may see in the future is seeking consensus where possible among intellectuals while finessing the ideologues.

The lefty blogs are, of course, apoplectic (even after the rumor - probably encouraged by Rush - that Rush was there was debunked. He didn't belong there and wasn't)

If Obama's smart (and whatever my disagreements with him I don't doubt that for minute) he knows it's his Left flank that is going to be the most trouble. He can ignore ideologues on the right if he has conservative thinkers giving him some room, but it is going to be tough fighting off attacks from the left.

The apostate is always the first crucified.

(the only thing that has me really shaky so far is Panetta at CIA. The first pick for a new member of the Supremes will tell the tale of exactly who Obama is and just how much guts he has.)


>Obama will be the kind of President who will concentrate more and more power in government bodies as time goes along, that's the kind of President Obama will be. You can think of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Baines Johnson on crystal methamphetamines, that's the kind of concentrater of power in the government Barack Obama will be.
>
>He's already promised us trillions of dollars in government deficits for years to come-he is completely unwilling to reduce the power of the government in any way to combat our problems. A columnist wrote about Obama's abiding faith in the power of the state to solve all of mankind's problem's: "The damn fool really believes it." Bush and the Republicans have been damn fools to go along with any of these Federal bailouts-but this crop of Republicans has few believers in freedom in its ranks, back when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were collapsing they should have been shut down and the kind of legislation
>that was responsible for their existence and collapse, the Community Redevelopment Acts, should have been repealed.
>
>It seemed then that the government was ready to do on a wild orgy of spending, bailing out every debt there was. It seems even more so now. Which means the taxpayers are going to be called upon to pay more and more in taxes. To quote Joe Biden: "It's your patriotic duty to pay taxes." I thought Obama's policies would create hordes of unemployed people, there already are hordes of newly unemployed people and his policies are going to create more hordes of unemployed people. The conservative supply siders are correct about this one: Taxation and other government policies affect human behavior. Too many people believe in what has been called the myth of the state-that government is the entity best situated to do all things for all men. After a century of socialism, communism, and fascism and the simultaneous existence of Bismarckian-Rooseveltian welfare states all over the world, it's extremely difficult to get people to see the truth of the opposite-that most things are done best by private individuals who don't possess the coercive power of the government. Such as the food industry here in the United States. Or by our private schools including home schoolers as opposed to government schools. Who built all of the first railroads and all of these automobiles? Private industry Etc.
>
>Barack Obama's brain has been completely shaped by the myth of the state-that's the kind of President he is going to be. If it moves, he'll tax it. If it still moves, he'll regulate it. If it keeps on moving, he'll subsidize it. If it still moves after that, he'll probably nationalize it. Like the 17th Century French manufacturers who were asked by Louis XIV what he could best do to help them, they replied to their king, "Laissez faire" - Let us produce and leave us alone so we can produce, I'll shout "Laissez faire" one more time. I hope it has some effect.
>
>No one should wait around for businessmen to fight for capitalism, they have been kicked around so much by the state and by a society that envies them every cent they earn that many of them gave up long ago, hired armies of lawyers to help them still function, and caved in to the myth of the state along with just about everyone else. Any honest man can still fight for freedom and he doesn't have to wait for anyone else to do it. Wow, I haven't even said a word about Obama's foreign policy yet, which will probably be horribly pacifistic in the face of religious fanatics who seek our annihilation. So there we have it-near dictatorship at home and horrible pacifism towards our enemies abroad-that's the kind of President Obama will be.