Conservatives, real conservatives, are by now thoroughly nauseated from all of the inaugural gushing and fawning over Obama. But if they think that this slobber-fest was going to end now that he has assumed the presidency, they are going to be sorely disappointed. The leftist cheerleaders will continue trumpeting the supposed grandeur and majesty of this day long after its fabricated luster has thoroughly dulled in the eyes of the thinking public.

 

Such unbridled jubilation is particularly disturbing, given the degree to which those on the left sought to demean and undermine every facet of the Bush Presidency from the very day the U.S. Supreme Court told the State of Florida to stop playing games with the recount, thus declaring George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 election.

 

Ever since, virtually every presidential event in which President Bush participated has been subject to widespread and juvenile caterwauling from the left. From the price tag for his 2001 inauguration (less than a third of the cost of Obama’s, but we hear no complaints now), to his May 1, 2003 carrier landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln, to his exit from the White House last Tuesday, the liberal establishment was shameless in its determination to disparage every official statement or act of the former president.

 

It makes no difference to liberals that their derision exacted an enormous toll on America’s reputation in the world. The political stakes are too high to allow mere concern for country to interfere with the advancement of their agenda. All that matters is political gain for the left, and if Americans suffer as a result, that is only “collateral damage.”

 

The liberal media/Democrat cabal well knows the power of political “momentum,” and therefore, just as they incessantly sought to undermine George Bush’s standing among average citizens over the past eight years, they now intend to capitalize on their current energy to its fullest extent. Truth is not necessary to this effort. Rather, it is enough to simply declare Obama’s inherent greatness and the glory of the hour, while castigating all who would dare to argue otherwise.

 

Yet none of this is really new. In the days following Bill Clinton’s decidedly unspectacular electoral victory in 1992 (with a paltry forty-three percent of the popular vote), Democrat mouthpieces, predictably accompanied by their media parrots, declared the event a “national mandate” for the Clinton agenda. And while the election of the Arkansas Governor broke no new demographic ground, the nation was nonetheless bludgeoned incessantly with talk of his potential greatness, along with that of the overbearing new First Lady.

 

The song “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” was repeated so frequently that it took on the qualities of a pagan chant. All that had gone wrong in America under twelve years of right wing extremism (read: Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush) was about to change. The advent of the Clinton Administration would certainly be, in the words of Inaugural Poet Maya Angelou “Morning in America.”

 

Facing this tidal wave of orchestrated pro-Clinton euphoria, Republicans feared appearing as “sore losers.” So, they did their best to sound supportive of the new president. But with the involvement of the race issue, the propaganda deck has been stacked even more severely against them this time around, and they know it. Admittedly, their excessive accolades and well-wishes towards Obama, and their virtual unwillingness to raise questions regarding any disqualifying characteristics of his dubious cabinet nominees, leave many grassroots conservatives disheartened and concerned that accountability, at least among liberals, is extinct.

 

Nevertheless, the overarching lesson of the Clinton era, for those whose memories can span any further than the time between episodes of American Idol, is that political fortunes can change substantially and quickly. Furthermore, unlike all of the flowery campaign rhetoric for which Obama is so famous, the brass knuckles reality of presidential decision-making and its often grave consequences will guarantee that despite a media propaganda machine rivaling Tass or Joseph Goebbels, the truth of Obama’s capabilities, or more accurately his total lack of competence or experience, will ultimately be known to the American people.

 

Bill Clinton marketed himself as the Pied Piper of the Woodstock generation. And to be sure, the rats dutifully followed. But in retrospect, it was his narcissistic and reckless idealism, accompanied by a generous dose of selfish irresponsibility, which most distinctly characterized his presidency.

 

Major consequences from the Clinton misjudgments were not always felt immediately. The 9-11 attacks, Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, and America’s energy woes did not occur for years after the mindless idealism of the Clinton White House set the stage for them. And despite a technology based boom that boosted markets and incomes during his term in office, history will tell that the Clintonian intrusions into the banking/housing industry set the stage for the economic meltdown that America currently suffers.

 

It may be decades before the full extent of damage resulting from Clinton’s willingness to allow American military technology to hemorrhage into China is fully assessed. And when that verdict is reached, those seedy bags of cash and dubious “White House Coffees” cannot and will not be excluded from the picture. Nevertheless, until the Clintons became a liability to Democrat political strategies, liberals heralded them as being among America’s truly great leaders of all time.

 

Similarly, the Obama mania is expansive but ultimately empty. Far too arrogant to recognize the nature of tide he now rides, Barack Obama remains unaware that his seeming popularity really represents a new low in racial tokenism, even for liberals. And if Obama is sufficiently self-absorbed to play along with the ruse, thinking his political strength results from a grand and wise vision for America’s future, so much the better.

 

In these dangerous times, real leadership is needed. But real leadership, on either side of the aisle, is absent. It does not emanate from the new president with his absurdly grandiose promises to lower ocean levels by government strangulation of private industry, his stated intention to confiscate the nation’s wealth in the name of economic “stimulus, or his promises to “unite” the nation while inflaming the festering sores of racial divisiveness. Nor is leadership to be found among those “me too” Republicans who enthusiastically follow him.

 

Ultimately, the Barack Obama house of cards will not endure. Let the liberals of Capitol Hill and on the nightly news tell the nation that its future lies in the rotting carcass of collectivism. And let all of the “Bandwagon Republicans,” who shift to and fro with every prospect of a new political trend, display their spineless devotion to the Washington power structure that feeds itself at the expense of real America. Phony conservatives need to be smoked out, and this situation provides a prime opportunity to do so.