President Barack Obama (Photo: REUTERS) |
UK Telegraph
By Nile Gardiner
August 7, 2010 |
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What the great French historian
Alexis de Tocqueville would make of today’s Obama administration
were he alive today is anyone’s guess. But I would wager that the
author of L’Ancien Régime and Democracy in America
would be less than impressed with the extravagance and arrogance on
display among the White House elites that rule America as though
they had been handed some divine right to govern with impunity. |
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It is the kind of impunity that has
been highlighted on the world stage this week by Michelle Obama’s
hugely costly trip to Spain, which has prompted a New York Post
columnist Andrea Tantaros to dub the First Lady a contemporary Marie
Antoinette. As The Telegraph reports, while the Obamas are
covering their own vacation expenses such as accommodation, the trip
may cost US taxpayers as much as $375,000 in terms of secret service
security and flight costs on Air Force Two. |
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The timing of this lavish European
vacation could not have come at a worse moment, when unemployment in
America stands at 10 percent, and large numbers of Americans are
fighting to survive financially in the wake of the global economic
downturn. It sends a message of indifference, even contempt, for the
millions of Americans who are struggling just to feed their families
on a daily basis and pay the mortgage, while the size of the
national debt balloons to Greek-style proportions. |
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While the liberal-dominated US
mainstream media have largely ignored the story, it is all over the
blogosphere and talk radio, and will undoubtedly add to the
President’s free falling poll ratings. As much as the media
establishment turn a blind eye to stories like this, which are major
news in the international media, the American public is increasingly
turning to alternative news sources, including the British press,
which has a far less deferential approach towards the White House. |
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The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip
to Marbella and the complete disregard for public opinion and
concerns over excessive government spending is symbolic of a far
wider problem with the Obama presidency – the overarching disdain
for the principles of limited government, individual liberty and
free enterprise that have built the United States over the course of
nearly two and a half centuries into the most powerful and free
nation on earth. |
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epitomised above all by the President’s relentless drive towards big
government against the will of the American people, and the dramatic
increases in government spending and borrowing, which threaten to
leave the US hugely in debt for generations. It is also showcased by
Barack Obama’s drive towards a socialised health care system, which,
as I’ve noted before, is “a thinly disguised vanity project for a
president who is committed to transforming the United States from
the world’s most successful large-scale free enterprise economy, to
a highly interventionist society with a massive role for centralized
government.” |
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is however a political revolution fast approaching Washington that
is driven not by mob rule but by the power of ideas and principles,
based upon the ideals of the Founding Fathers and the US
Constitution. It is a distinctly conservative revolution that is
sweeping America and is reflected in almost every poll ahead of this
November’s mid-terms. It is based on a belief in individual liberty,
limited government, and above all, political accountability from the
ruling elites. The Obama administration’s mantra may well be “let
them eat cake”, as it continues to gorge itself on taxpayers’ money,
but it will be looking nervously over its shoulder as public unease
mounts. |