President Obama couldn't have been more out-of-touch if he'd delivered his Berlin speech on Mars, instead of to a shriveled German audience only a fraction the size of the one he addressed in 2008. He identified the absolutely non-existent "climate change" issue the "global threat of our time," and according to The Hill, he's ready to use that old Unitary Executive razzle-dazzle to fight it:
Amid signs the White House is getting ready to unveil new executive-level steps to curb greenhouse gases, Obama linked fighting climate change to peace and justice while calling for bold action.
???Peace with justice means refusing to condemn our children to a harsher, less hospitable planet," he said in a speech at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. "The effort to slow climate change requires bold action.???
Obama touted his first-term work on green energy and boosting auto efficiency rules, but added: ???We know we have to do more ??? and we will do more.???
... whether you like it or not, tax serfs of America. I wasn't timing the President's latest "pivot to job creation," but it has to be one of the fastest, weakest pretenses of caring about American jobs he's ever made. There was some rumbling that little distractions like the IRS scandal and NSA surveillance controversy were getting in the way of the great job creation agenda, which is what Obama really wanted to talk about... and then, poof, he's in Berlin, announcing that U.S. jobs are a small price to pay, in exchange for battling a menace that no one on Earth can come close to proving is real.
Obama said Wednesday that a global climate accord is needed.
???With a global middle class consuming more energy every day, this must now be an effort of all nations, not just some. For the grim alternative affects all nations ??? more severe storms, more famine and floods, new waves of refugees, coastlines that vanish, oceans that rise. This is the future we must avert,??? Obama said.
Ah, so we're back to blaming hurricanes and tornadoes on human industry, are we? Arrgh! Sky gods angry! Sky gods punish unbelievers with storms if they don't make sacrifice! And didn't Obama promise in 2008 that his ascension to the Presidency would be remembered as the moment the oceans began to recede? Another broken campaign promise!
Also, one can't help but notice the rest of the world is heading in the opposite direction. All across the West, bankrupt green-energy regimes are being scuttled. Once upon a time, Spain gave us a marvelous story about a would-be knight who tilted at windmills, but modern Spain is abandoning that hobby, because windmills are really expensive. And outside the West, no one ever had much enthusiasm for crippling their economy in the pursuit of fashionable environmentalist dogma. After spending the last few months laughing as panicked global warming cultists fumble around for a way to explain the temperate climate data none of their models ever predicted, it's surreal to watch the President of the United States party like it's 1999.
The President is also very concerned about American nuclear stockpiles, a problem nobody else in America has on their radar screens at the moment. Reuters:
"After a comprehensive review I have determined that we can ensure the security of America and our allies, and maintain a strong and credible strategic deterrent, while reducing our deployed strategic nuclear weapons by up to one third," he said.
"I intend to seek negotiated cuts with Russia to move beyond Cold War nuclear postures," Obama said, speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate which once stood alongside the wall that divided communist East Berlin and the capitalist West.
I love it when people reminisce about the "capitalist West." It's like getting carded when you buy beer at the grocery store, even though you've got a white beard. It makes you feel young again.
Obama's remarks in Berlin are examples of a man with a hammer looking around and seeing a world full of nails. He loves talking about the "problems" he wants to solve, not the problems his country actually has. "Climate change" is the greatest blank check for power the government of any nominally free country ever wrote itself. The problem can never be solved; it can be portrayed as an existential threat even when years of accumulated data show no trace of it. Those who resist the crusade against it can be shouted down as heretics, while the crusaders are given limitless credit for selfless devotion to the Earth.
And nuclear disarmament is the global leadership soapbox few liberals can resist mounting, an opportunity for endless negotiations and feel-good speeches about turning back the hands of the doomsday clock. Meanwhile, the real problems are aspiring members of the nuclear club like Iran, whose new leader the Obama Administration couldn't wait to hail as a "moderate," even though he didn't waste any time announcing that Iran has no intention of ending its uranium enrichment program. His big moderate debutante ball should last just long enough for the Iranians to reach the next, terminal stage of their nuclear program.
It's a pity President Obama can't give us any bold speeches and rousing calls for action on the problems America actually has. Every time he gets a spotlight, he uses it to rail against disobedient segments of the American populace - from gun owners, to greenhouse-gas-emitting industries, Tea Party activists, and people other than politicians and Hollywood stars who dare to fly around in private jets. Wouldn't it be nice if he announced a fearless crusade to root out corruption at the IRS, the EPA, the State Department, or something else that's actually his responsibility?
