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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Victor Davis Hanson
April 18, 2011
Barack Obama just gave a belated but stern warning about escalating debt -- a few weeks after he presented a 2011 budget with a
The administration expects that someone will have enough money to float our
Obama borrowed more in the month of February alone (
Gas is heading toward
The Obama administration has made it clear that such messy drilling is for others. So, much of Alaska, the American West and our coastal waters will remain off-limits. The logic is that Americans can borrow to buy oil from foreign nations that will drill in their fragile tundra, offshore seas and natural preserves. Apparently the
Instead of a detailed plan for tapping more gas, oil, coal, tar sands and oil shale, we still hear infantile chants about "wind, solar and millions of new green jobs." But solar panels and windmills are not up to fueling the nation's 250 million passenger cars and trucks any time soon.
The president announced that he would support the Libyan rebels. He pointed to
In truth, the Obama administration intervened without knowing who or what the Libyan rebels were, apparently on the theory that they were close to winning and seemed a far better option than Gadhafi. The first premise proved wrong; the second could be true but is still subject to debate. So we took a breather and just quit military operations, hoping the Libyan mess would just go away in the same way that bad dictators voluntary left Egypt and Tunisia.
The government is no longer supposed to use hurtful vocabulary like "war on terror," "Islamic terrorism" or "jihadist." But some unnamed groups are still apparently trying to kill us. Otherwise, why would the
Fantasy apparently seems preferable to reality. In our new dream world, borrowed money need not be paid back. Cars run on nasty gas that is produced in faraway places. Mean dictators should flee when told to leave. And radical Muslims are not really trying to kill us.
Like children, we turn on any spoilsport parent who nags us to stop borrowing, cut entitlements and government spending, start drilling and building power plants, get real about dictators in the Middle East, and keep vigilant against radical Islamic terrorists.
So we will keep dreaming until creditors, oil exporters, enemies or terrorists wake us up.
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