More "speculative retrospective"

The New York Post gives us more of what I've come to call speculative retrospective on an Obama presidency, this time from Ralph Peters. This one skewers Obama's complete lack of foreign policy chops, but in the form of a hagiographical adoring media account of Obama's first four years in office, and in doing so smacks the national media around even more than he smacks Obama.

Looking back on the four years of his first administration, President Obama can be proud: He made the US welcome among the family of nations again; he reduced our reliance on military force; and he gave us peace by reaching sensible accommodations with our enemies.

The lies told about him in the 2008 election were exposed as sheer bigotry. Far from being "soft on radical Islam," President Obama was the first world leader to welcome Jewish refugees after Iran's nuclear destruction of Israel's major cities (his only caveat - a fair one - was the refusal to accept Zionist military officers and their families, in light of Israel's excessive retaliation).

And here's yet another one in the NY Post. In this one, Nicole Gelinas fantasizes that Obama does a 180 on his economic plans and a depression is narrowly avoided.

That's why the Democrats howled when Obama gave a pre-inauguration speech on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in which he seemed to backtrack on many of his election promises.

First, Obama, alarmed at the market's continued drop, declared a moratorium on tax increases of any kind for his entire first term, most importantly keeping the 15% capital-gains rate in place. The Dems couldn't figure out why Obama was coddling the rich. But as we now know from Bob Woodward's book, "Cool Amid the Chaos," Obama had listened to his University of Chicago economic advisers. They had told him privately that raising taxes on capital gains would add one more reason for people to stay out of the market, when the nation desperately needed people to start investing again in the hopes of future gains.

Don't bet on it, Nicole.

A retrospective that can still be avoided

Jonah Goldberg pens a speculative retrospective (I think I may have just coined a new phrase) on the Obama presidency. Apparently, Goldberg thinks - as I do - that if Obama wins, he'll be a one-term wonder.

It's hard to believe that just four years ago, some were talking about Barack Obama as a national savior, a secular redeemer, a "light worker." Even more shocking, President Obama lost the nomination of his own party to none other than Hillary Clinton. How did we get here?

There are no shortage of recriminatory theories for President Obama's precipitous fall from would-be messiah, to near pariah. Discussions with leaders within the Democratic Party, including prominent former members of the Obama administration, give a kaleidoscopic picture of missed opportunities, wrong turns and embarrassing blunders.

For now, I prefer to think that it's still possible for McCain to pull off a win, but if we do end up electing this egotistical, arrogant dilettante on Tuesday, it'll be fun a few years from now to go back and read this stuff.