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Saturday

23

January 2010

I’m Not Sympathetic

Written by , Posted in Culture & Society

NRO describes the “questions” Obama received at his Ohio Town Hall appearance yesterday:

A very out-of-rhythm speech was followed by some of the most obscure and unhelpful questions ever uttered at a town-hall meeting. I was left with a bit of sympathy for President Obama, as questioner after questioner asked about their own specific concerns, often way out of the president’s duties, responsibilities, and realm of expertise: One guy was an inventor who wanted to give him a sales pitch, one woman lamented the impatience of the American people before complaining about a slow response from the state environmental agency over her toddler’s lead poisoning, one guy wanted to read the president a poem; there was a woman who talked about the problem of finding students for her truck-driving school, an old lady who was upset that her Social Security didn’t have a cost-of-living increase, and a guy who had the patent for some wind-turbine issue that he was in a fight with some company about. One poor soul raised his hand and just wanted to shake Obama’s hand.

While I would no doubt find this very frustrating if I were in his position, he has no one to blame but himself (and his statist political philosophy). He has long encouraged people to look to government to solve all their ills and to look to him personally as a savior figure to right all the wrongs in society – indeed, in the world (slowing the rise of the seas and what have you).

These are creatures of his own making. They are exactly the constituents he deserves.