He-Man: By the Power of the Finger
So, what do you do if you fancy yourself He-Man, and the universe just isn’t paying attention? Well, you could bluff and bluster. Fortunately for Barack the Beguiling, those are the two talents that got him where he is today. (Shame on us.) It may, however, also be his undoing. On the domestic front, it has to be a sign of trouble for Barack the Bulldozer that even freshman legislators, particularly from his own party, aren’t buying his mumbo jumbo. Representative Jared Polis, freshman Democrat from Colorado, said this: “The way we are paying for health reform would put a lot of strain on small business, which is particularly dangerous during a recession.”
Mr. Polis understands the arbitary and unjust duress that “health reform” would place on entrepreneurs and job creators, even though it’s unlikely he has enough knowledge of or interest in our own history to know it was the federal government that mandated businesses to pay for health insurance in the first place. Before that, health insurance was an employee benefit. Remember benefits? Those were the things employers gave us of their own volition – in order to attract and retain the good employees that would help make employers’ companies competitive within their own industries – before the government told us that benefits were rights. First, we believed it. Then, we took it a step further and decided we were entitled to those rights. With sound, responsible thinking like his, Mr. Polis is going to make a lot of friends among logicians. But he’s going to have a short shelf-life in the Pelosi Party.
On the foreign front, it’s Barack the Bloviator’s own ignorance of history that will get him (us) in the soup. Whatever. As long as it sounds good, that’s all that matters.
But in anointing Barack the Brilliant to lead us, we seemed to have overlooked the fact that He-Man’s story lines gave us little about his education. You have to think he must have had a few classes in swordplay. I’m thinking he must have worked in a little bodybuilding, too. But when and where did he study ecomonics, insurance, corporate management, world affairs, and the other inconsequential aspects of his job as Master of the Universe? College? Not likely. Law school? I think not. Shilling for unions? Nah, not even in the Senate. So, where do we get the presumption that he knows what he’s doing, let alone that he’s capable of creating a plan to go with his grandiose, rhetorical visions?
He’s never been a governor or the head of a government agency, so he couldn’t be expected to think through the implications of his promissory blitherings and their consequences. Otherwise, he’d think more along the lines of this piece, from Michael O. Leavitt, published in Investors Business Daily. Why in the world would Barack the Bandit need to think about investment? He’s going to crib our wealth. He doesn’t need to create his own. And if Barack the Bankrupter had ever worked a real job, let alone created one, he might think more along the lines of entrepreneur J.C. Watts. After taking the public’s money for seven years as a U.S. Senator, Mr. Watts decided he’d rather create business than tax it. Wow, that puts a whole new spin on his being a member of a minority, doesn’t it?
The only thing Barack the Brash has in common with He-Man is that they both derive their powers from sources other than themselves. Skeletor is craftier, of a more cunning intellect, and probably better educated than He-Man. (But as Barack the Boastful would be quick to point out, Skeletor loses points for handsome.) And Skeletor always gets the upper hand because he always has a plan. He-Man never has a plan. He’s a liberal. The only way he ever triumphs over his arch nemesis is by holding his sword aloft, putting on his ultra-masculine voice, and loudly intoning, “By the power of Grayskull!” thereby drawing his might from the mystical energy of his mythical refuge. Then, after the obligatory, apocalyptic, thunder and lightning, he’s transformed from the unnervingly effeminate Prince Adam into the mighty He-Man.
Likewise, when Barack the Blundering finds his derriere in a dangle, he raises his finger, adopts his most authoritative tone, and tells us what’s good for us, whether we know it or not – thereby deriving his power from those who work for a living. Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, that pedantic finger Barack the Bothersome is always wagging in our faces isn’t exactly He-Man’s sword. And I daresay, despite all of Barack the Boundless’s pretenses to the contrary, it wields nowhere near the power. Maybe it would humble him a bit to remember that’s the very same digit with which he picks the Presidential Proboscis.
Beyond that, Barack the Bereft doesn’t have the kind of back-up He-Man does. Harry Reid ain’t no Man-at-Arms by a long shot. And Nancy Pelosi certainly ain’t no She-Ra, even though she, too, wields the Power of the Finger and insists that members of the House call her the Princess of Power.
When the smoke blows away and the mirrors are shattered, we’ll know Barack was no He-Man. But for right now, it doesn’t matter. And it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t have a sword. He and his Masters of the Universe are giving all of us the finger.