CLINE: AN OPTIMISTIC TAKE ON OBAMA

Andrew Cline at the American Spectator is providing a new twist to the throw-the-frog-into-boiling water theory (already debunked by Glenn Beck). The argument, I suppose, is that conservatives should be thankful for Barack Obama's election as they eat turkey this Thanksgiving. Why? Well, because he is causing people to become conservative in droves. I know it's hard to digest but here goes:

Conservatives have the country. Obama has the government. Given Obama's remarkably open and constant disdain for the people he was elected to govern, one can make an educated guess what their reaction will be the first time they have a chance to register their feelings at the ballot box.

For giving them such an unexpectedly early opportunity to correct the mistake they made last fall, the American people -- especially conservatives -- ought to be thankful for this president. He is an unapologetically aggressive liberal. For the right, that's a good thing. It means there will be no blurring of the ideological lines in the next two elections.

I understand the argument and it has a historical standard. The Carter years primed the pump for the Reagan years and the thinking goes that Obama - who is actually worse than Carter - is priming the pump for someone to the right of Reagan.

Although he doesn't mention her name, the implication Cline seems to make is that America's long term harm would have been in much greater jeopardy had Hillary Clinton been elected instead. In this case, Cline seems to be referencing Bill's time in office but comparing it to a hypothetical Hillary presidency isn't much of a leap either.

This is no Clinton administration. Governing from the middle and playing to the polls are not behaviors we've seen this year. The Obama team doesn't seem to want to hold power indefinitely. It wants to enact its agenda as quickly as possible, under the apparent assumption (usually correct) that massive expansions of government power are never reversed.

This is speculative for sure but depending on how much damage Obama and the Democrats in Congress do before the 2010 mid-terms, it's definitely a point well-taken. Hillary is much more seasoned and would have been more consciously calculating. She wouldn't be moving this fast but that's only because of that seasoning and appreciation for the triangulation that got her husband two terms.

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