There are a few interesting items in President Obama’s interview with Katie Couric, not the least of which is his ham-fisted attempt to pass himself off as a populist (check his wardrobe). Such is given the lie, however, by his wistful longing for the power to instantiate his ideas without the taint of “legislative fingerprints.” Yet another sign by the ruling class that they believe the nation would be better off without democracy (note his use of the word “unfortunately”) and administered instead by a regime of experts. Forward to the 4-minute mark:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/02/katie_couric_super_bowl_obama.html

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Jeffrey Polet
Jeffrey Polet
Jeffrey Polet grew up in an immigrant household in the immigrant town of Holland MI. After twenty years of academic wandering he returned to Holland and now teaches political science at Hope College, where he also grudgingly serves as chair of the department, having unsuccessfully evaded all requests. In the interim, he continues to nurture quirky beliefs: Division III basketball is both athletically and morally superior to Division I; the Hope/Calvin rivalry is the greatest in sports; the lecture is still the best form of classroom instruction; never buy a car with less than 100,000 miles on it; putts will still lip out in heaven; bears are the incarnation of evil; Athens actually has something to do with Jerusalem; and Tombstone is a cinematic classic. His academic work has mirrored his peripatetic career. Originally trained at the Catholic University of America in German philosophy and hermeneutical theory, he has since gravitated to American Political Thought. He still occasionally writes about European thinkers such as Michel Foucault or the great Max Weber, but mostly is interested in the relationship between theological reflection and political formation in the American context. In the process of working on a book on John Marshall for The Johns Hopkins University Press, he became more sensitive to the ways in which centralized decision-making undid local communities and autonomy. He has also written on figures such as William James and the unjustly neglected Swedish novelist Paer Lagerkvist. A knee injury and arthritis eliminated daily basketball playing, and he now spends his excess energy annoying his saintly wife and their three children, two of whom are off to college. Expressions of sympathy for the one who remains can be posted in the comments section. He doesn’t care too much for movies, but thinks opera is indeed the Gesamtkuntswerk, that the music of Gustav Mahler is as close as human beings get to expressing the ineffable, that God listens to Mozart in his spare time, and that Bach is history’s greatest genius.

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Good eye, or good ear, in catching this! I’m not surprised by Obama’s offhand comments. His self confidence is such that he slips up occasionally and lets us know what’s actually going on. It could also be a byproduct of his being relatively inexperienced, politically.

  2. I resent that our mostly documented Dear Leader is being criticized on this site. I will inform the gummint immediately and continue to monitor!
    Obama, Obama, mmmmmm, mmmmmmm, mmmmmmmmm!

  3. Well, it has now passed, thanks to Obama’s promise of an executive order to prohibit tax money from paying for abortions.

    Horse. Someone explain to me how the Constitution grants the president the authority to blot out portions of passed legislation. To be sure, executive authority has been abused before (and overlooked by the courts), but this would be a direct action by the president to block execution of handpicked sections from a bill that has been passed by Congress and signed into law. Either the courts will strike down this EO, which means abortions will be paid for by every American taxpayer, or the courts will uphold the EO – granting Obama authority that is denied him by the Constitution. I suppose it wouldn’t surprise me – Clinton did it almost at will.

    Could Stupak and co. truly be so stupid as to think that this will go over as promised by Obama? Instead, it seems almost like they were looking for some way to vote for this bill while preserving some sort of defense against repercussions from the pro-life community.

    I am sick.

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