Even Taranto is freaked

You know that Obamacare is really, really bad when the Wall Street Journal’s terminally detached and superficial James Taranto is seriously alarmed by it:

What accounts for the relentless drive to ram ObamaCare through every procedural obstacle, regardless of the political cost? Ideological zeal, from Obama himself above all, is part of the explanation, but it isn’t sufficient. One can, after all, be ideologically committed to a goal without falling into a self-defeating obsession.

There seems to be an emotional desperation at work here. The legislative success of ObamaCare has become so tied up with Obama’s sense of himself that he feels he must push ahead—and to some extent, the leaders in Congress feel the same way. Obama is not the calm rationalist he seemed during the campaign. But while there’s a place for passion in politics, to be governed by a politician who fails to govern his passions is a frightening and creepy experience.

Taranto’s insights into Obama’s tyrannical psychology are not new; I and others have been voicing them for months; Plato voiced them in the fourth century B.C. The only reason I’ve posted his remark was the novelty of seeing Taranto admit that something frightened him, that something actually touched him, that something actually bothered him—a lot. The hallmark of the WSJ types is that they know it all and are above everything.

In connection with which, you should have seen the superior, dismissive sneer on Taranto’s face when he was listening to Geert Wilders speak at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York last year.

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Ben W. writes:

LA wrote:

“In connection with which, you should have seen the superior, dismissive sneer on Taranto’s face when he was listening to Geert Wilders speak at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York last year.”

Doesn’t that show that liberalism wants to remake the entire world in its own image so that we can co-exist with different cultures and religions in other countries? As far as I’m concerned, Iraq or Iran can stay Muslim and theocratic, and Muslims can stay there.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 18, 2010 10:59 PM | Send