John Podhoretz examines that quote from President Obama in the latest Commentary cover story:
By saying ?the time for talk is over,? Obama was echoing his own words a year earlier about the $787 billion economic-stimulus proposal he was then trying to work through the legislative process: ?The time for talk is over, the time for action is now.? At every step of the way in the course of pushing his relentlessly ambitious domestic agenda, Obama has invoked this duality: His opponents want to fight; he wants to do. They are playing politics; he is above politics.
The obvious objection to my argument here is that Obama doesn?t mean this; in belittling his opponents and their propensity to talk, he is playing politics himself, attempting to throw them on the defensive. But the habitual nature of his response, and the response of those who support him, to the populist uprisings against his agenda over the past year suggests he is not the least bit disingenuous.
Obama really does seem to believe that the opposition to his core policies?the creeping nationalization of health care, the effective nationalization of the American automotive industry, the imposition of onerous regulations on energy production, and the expiry of tax cuts that will lead to gigantic effective increases?is not principled. Rather, such opposition deserves to be dismissed as bad faith?the efforts of the status quo, big business, and the politicians in their pockets. Or it is to be explained away as evidence of psychological or spiritual impairment created by the wounds inflicted upon sorry and ignorant souls who are being manipulated by forces beyond their control.
I?m reminded of Jonah Goldberg?s discussion of this same issue during a Carolina Journal Radio interview:
