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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (64842)	3/18/2008 11:01:46 PM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Michelle Obama and the audacity of whining Power Line Last night, C-SPAN presented a campaign speech by Michelle Obama. The theme of the speech was how "they" are always raising the bar. And you can certainly understand why Ms. Obama feels this way. No sooner has she paid for music lessons for her kids than it's summer and she has to pay for special camps. No sooner has she adjusted to being a Senator's wife (on only $1 million per year), than she's got to help her husband campaign for president. In fairness, though, Ms. Obama is a pretty good orator, and her "raising the bar" meme, while ultimately incoherent, is fairly potent stuff. She started from the idea that "they" have constantly raised the bar on her husband's campaign. After he won Iowa, he had to prove he could win primaries; when he won primaries in one type of state, he had to prove he could win primaries in another type of state, etc. Similarly, Ms. Obama contended, "they" are constantly raising the bar on the American people. Thus, folks keep reaching the bar only to find that it's been set higher, just out of their reach. It is this diabolical reality that causes people to be fearful and isolated, and keeps us from coming together. The notion of the moving bar lies, of course, at the core of the victim mentality. You hear it, for example, in employment discrimination case where the plaintiff claims to have done everything he or she was asked to do, only to be discriminatorily denied a promotion because the bar kept moving. Most of the time, this reasoning is fallacious. In a dynamic society, the bar typically is not set by reference to pre-established standards; it's set by reference to the performance and qualifications of the people one is competing with. Ironically, however, a presidential nomination race is an exception. For Obama (as for all other candidates) the bar is stationary - win more than half of the delegates and you're the nominee. Ms. Obama's message resonates nonetheless. The bar may not moving in any way that is improper or unfair (except, I would argue, when it is lowered for minority groups pursuant to affirmative action). Still, having constantly to meet fluctuating standards set by competition, and having to worry about your employer's ability to compete as well, is a recipe for significant anxiety. However, the answer to coping does not lie in whining, much less in seeking artificially to restrict competition. Indeed, it is quite irresponsible for a politician to pretend that he or she can insulate people from this sort of anxiety. If anything will "keep us from coming together," it is Ms. Obama's combination of fear-mongering and over-promising. The answer to coping lies in developing the skills and the mind-set that will maximize one's ability to compete. By peddling a mind-set of victimization and by failing to support meaningful education reform out of deference to teachers' unions, the Obamas, like nearly all modern-day liberals, represent the problem, not the solution. powerlineblog.com