Washington’s liberal political and media elites are drawing some surprising conclusions from Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts last Tuesday, when the Republican achieved the politically impossible and decisively took the Senate seat held by Democrat icon Ted Kennedy for 47 years.   They are all missing the key lesson.    

Americans are concerned about runaway government spending

True, special elections can produce protest votes but the margin of victory in Democrat country, together with recent wins for Republicans in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, have exposed the President’s agenda and weakened his party.  Critical examinations of President Obama’s first year in office are clearly warranted. 

But the liberal media remains blind to the reality.  The Washington Post, for example, asserts that the President has scored two major successes.  Reproducing the White House’s talking points, its editorial page editor credits the President with avoiding an economic depression.  But it is a stretch to believe that a depression would have occurred (and it is impossible to prove one way or the other) and it is highly unlikely that President Obama’s actions, in the form of a $787 billion spending bill, would have averted one.   The Post also cites the President’s Afghanistan strategy as a success even though, as with the Nobel Peace Prize award, any such judgment is premature. 

The BBC claims that “President Obama is on the brink of a major achievement, removing a nightmare of insecurity from millions of American lives.”  This reference to health care reform follows the liberal narrative but does not reflect how most Americans regard the issue.  If it were accurate, why do only 38 per cent of Americans now support the reforms?  And why did the Democrats lose Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat to a Republican who campaigned primarily against ObamaCare? 

Democrats are deluding themselves if they believe that they lost in Massachusetts simply because their candidate wasn’t strong enough.  The fact is that the White House and Congressional leadership are unpopular because of their policies and methods. 

Not that the President seems to have noticed.  Responding to his political setback in his now customary television interview, Obama once again pointed the finger of blame at his predecessor.  Americans are angry, he said, “not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.”  Hey, who’s in charge now? 

The spin continued on the Sunday talk shows with White House spokespeople claiming that the economy has recovered and all will be well.  Political pundits on the left are urging the President to be more liberal in order to win more public support.    

But the real question is whether Barack Obama can govern at all.  After a year of on the job training, he has failed to demonstrate that he has the political and executive skills to get things done in Washington, DC.  With majorities in both houses of Congress, and a filibuster proof one in the Senate, he had the opportunity to enact major reforms.  Instead, his first year as President has been wasted on trying to foist socialized medicine on a reluctant nation. 

Until the election of Scott Brown, competence, or more precisely incompetence, was one of the few checks on this President’s power.   The irony is that while conservatives are offended by the President’s policies, they have been rewarded by his mismanagement of the legislative process in delivering on them. 

Now Republicans have a foothold in Congress and the overwhelming expectation is that they will gain legislators in the mid-term elections.  That presents the President with a stark choice.  Force through what he can now and deal with a changed balance of power when it happens or adopt the more bipartisan approach on which he campaigned. 

Polls showing Barack Obama to be the nation’s most polarizing President suggest he may find it unpalatable to adjust his approach.  But with such a limited advancement of the liberal agenda despite his party’s control of the executive and legislative branches of government, sooner or later questions about his competence will be asked within his own party.  If the President doesn’t start signing some bills soon, the left will be openly saying that Hillary Clinton would have been – or will be – a better choice.

• Obama’s Brilliant Re-election Ploy
• Grand Theft
• Free Passes and the Presidency
• Descent and Dissent
• Waves of Urgency