Shelby Steele On Wonderboy

Distinguished scholar Shelby Steele of the Hoover Institute wrote an insightful piece on Wonderboy's presidency in an editorial on March 31st of this year.

Perhaps the most descriptive passages Steele wrote were these,

"Well, suppose you were the first black president of the United States and, therefore, also the first black head-of-state in the entire history of Western Civilization.....If anything, you may literally experience yourself as a myth in the making...A historic figure making history, this is emerging as an over-arching theme- if not obsession- in the Obama presidency.

Of the two great societal goals- freedom and "the good"- freedom requires a conservatism, a discipline of principles over the good, limited government, and so on. No way to grandiosity here. But today's liberalism is focused on "the good" more than on freedom. And ideas of "the good" are often a license to transgress democratic principles in order to reach social justice or to achieve more equality or to lessen suffering.....This is an old formula for power, last used effectively on the presidential level by Lyndon Johnson.

There has always been a narcissistic charge around Mr. Obama, the sense that in embracing him one was embracing something special in oneself- and possibly even a larger idea of human perfectibility.

Many presidents have been historically significant in retrospect, but Mr. Obama had historic significance on his inauguration day. His inauguration told a transcendent American story. Other presidents work forward into their legacy. Mr. Obama is working backward into his."

Steele noted, in passing, why Wonderboy hasn't focused on taking what governmental actions would facilitate US economic recovery. Simply stated, it's non-transformational, not noteworthy and poor fare for standing out as a modern legend.

Steele's perspectives seem to perfectly capture and explain so much of our First Rookie's behaviors and actions, don't they?

He's constantly looking at himself in the mirror, as it were. Listening to himself deliver endless numbers of self-referential, self-aggrandizing speeches.

He really is seeking to justify his instant legacy of the day of his inauguration. We will all pay for this- one way, or another.