Obama, Obviously

What strikes me about politics over the last couple of years is how obvious it all has been. In 2008, as the junior senator from Illinois campaigned across the country demonstrating his gifts as a motivational speaker and community organizer, all one had to do was review his recent life to know that he was about to bring down on the country -- ever so incompetently -- the most left-wing government in American history. And so he has -- with the utmost incompetence. Think of the paucity of swine flu vaccine, in large part the consequence of his government's meddling with production.

As I say, it was all so obvious. No president in modern times has come to power with less political experience and less managerial experience. On the other hand, no president has come to power with a clearer record of political extremism. Senator Barack Obama had the most left-wing voting record in the Senate, brief as his record was. Back in Illinois he had a record of associations with extremists that would have sunk any other presidential candidate. Think of his friendship with Bill Ayers, a co-founder of the Weather Underground that actually bombed public buildings in the 1960s. Think of Obama's attendance week after week at religious services where the Rev. Jeremiah Wright thundered forth with diatribes lilting with such lines as "God damn America." The radical direction of the Obama presidency was foreordained.