Blame Obama. Why Not?

Your Uncle Sam has spent 100 years turning himself into Jabba the Hut.
Via-WSJ

Dan Henninger

The left and the media knee-capped the Bush presidency for not making Hurricane Katrina go away fast enough. So now, like a village feud in ancient Sicily, the right and its media are knee-capping the Obama presidency for not making the Gulf's spilled oil go away fast enough. Boo hoo.

Are we supposed to say that the criticism of Mr. Obama is unfair? Sorry. The permanent smackdown that is now U.S. politics has devolved into a zero-sum proposition whenever anything bad happens in American life—an oil spill, a terrorist bomb in Times Square, a financial meltdown, a mining disaster.

It works like this: If you occupy a position of leadership or responsibility in public or private life, your thought process in the face of disaster now runs rationally in this order: 1) Am I going to get blamed for this? 2) Is there anything we can do to help? 3) Will we get tagged if something goes wrong with that effort?

The answer of course to (1) and (3) is that you will get blamed for days on end, no matter what the facts are. If under some ancient compulsion of honor you admit some culpability, the plaintiffs lawyers will pillage your assets, and a political-media bonfire will burn down what's left of your reputation. Why go there? In the pin-the-tale-on-the-donkey world we occupy now, the political and legal price of taking ownership is too high.

The answer to (2)—can we help?—is a more interesting case, especially if we limit it to the idea that when a big disaster strikes the government should come forward.

It is obvious that the Obama White House initially wanted to put distance between itself and that oil spill. And why not? What were they supposed to do? But in a world of political-media blood sport, the politicians understand that their survival means they have to throw someone to the wolves. Thus, ahead of having any clue what caused the failure of the BP oil rig, Mr. Obama's interior secretary and his press secretary said the government's contribution would be to "keep a boot on the neck" of BP.

There's a valid reason why their main contribution will be to keep Uncle Sam's boot on BP's neck: The people who live inside the government know that what government can do is in fact rather limited.

In a Politico story this week on the politics of the oil spill, a senior member of the Obama administration said of the mess: "If it doesn't show the impotence of government, it shows the limits of the government."

The limits of the government? There is such a thing?

There is now. And we better start admitting it.

For the longest time, whenever a disaster such as Katrina or this oil spill hit, people have expected the government to step up and move heaven and earth to help. With a big mess, you need big authority to clear a path. The assumption beneath this expectation is that government, if it really wants to, can do just about anything.

One can understand why elected officials would want people to buy into the myth of government's Valhalla-like omnipotence, but why, against so much evidence, would the public believe it? With the events of 9/11 and then with Hurricane Katrina, we had two case studies of public bureaucracies grown so large and labyrinthine that at crunch time they failed.

The most enduring myth in American life is that many people still think Uncle Sam is the lean, mean dude in the "I Want You!" World War II posters. In fact, after about 100 years of chowing down responsibilities, Uncle has inflated into something as big, powerful and sloppy as Jabba the Hut, a fat guy who can barely move.

Yesterday, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said Washington should send more antiterror money to his endangered city. What money? They just taxed everything in sight to pay for ObamaCare.

The national security apparatus is improving. Catching Faisal Shahzad 53 hours after he fled his car bomb in Times Square is encouraging. But we may be at a point where someone in public life needs to step up and push this subject beyond "cut the deficit."

We will never reduce anything if we don't first answer some important questions: What exactly is it that we expect government to do for us—and not do for us? Harder still, what is government able to do for us? Security tops the list. Below that, everything's fair game for a downgrade or dumping.

Imploding Greece and fretful Europe are not the United States. But they are portents. We have too-fat California and New York. We are getting there. People pay for government with taxes and want their money's worth. But a government that gets too big is not going to be able to do big things when we really need it.



More...