Obamessiah Suck-Up of the Day

We are only bit players . . .in the passion play of progressives, billed as "the revenge of the left," according to the Telegraph (U.K.):

[W]e must assume that the whole governing machinery of Washington and the state capitols will soon be hostile to laissez-faire thinking. . . . It is not just that the Democrats will win a crushing victory in both houses of Congress, perhaps reaching the 60-seat Senate threshold that lets them steam-roll legislation. It is also that the incoming class of 2008 is of a new creed. Many no longer believe -- or actively reject -- the free trade and free market catechisms.

As commentator Markos Moulitsas put it in Newsweek: "The big question is, will Democrats nationwide simply 'win' the night--or will they deliver an electoral drubbing so thorough that it signals the utter rejection of conservative ideology and kills the notion that America is a 'center-right' country?" he said.

No matter that statist policies were responsible for this global crisis in the first place. It was Western governments that set interest rates too low for too long, encouraging us all to abuse credit.

It was Eastern governments that held down their currencies to pursue mercantilist trade advantage, thereby accumulating vast foreign reserves that had to be recycled. Hence the bond bubble. This is the deformed creature known as Bretton Woods II. Protectionist Democrats are right to complain that the game is rigged. Free trade? Laugh on.

But at this point I have given up hoping that we will draw the right conclusions from this crisis. The universal verdict is that capitalism has run amok.

In any case the damage caused as credit retrenchment squeezes real industry is likely to be so great that Barack Obama may have to pursue unthinkable policies, just as Franklin Roosevelt had to ditch campaign orthodoxies and go truly radical after his landslide victory in 1932. Indeed, Mr Obama . . . may have to start by nationalizing the US car industry.

For those who missed it, I recommend Edward Stourton's BBC interview with Eric Hobsbawm, the doyen of Marxist history.

"This is the dramatic equivalent of the collapse of the Soviet Union: we now know that an era has ended," said Mr Hobsbawm, still lucid at 91.

I hope not, because the progressive/Rawls/Hobsbawm approach doesn't work.

(via Right Wing News)