If President Obama's critics assume he is cynical, they
should reconsider, says George F. Will, because the man seems sincere to him,
and that's what the critics should be scared about; not the President's
non-existent cynicism. Actually, Will expresses this opinion at the end of the
article he wrote under the title: “President Obama's magic words and numbers”
and published in the Washington Post on February 7, 2014.
The writer went through a great deal of recent and distant
histories to make the points that he wanted to make and illustrate; the most
basic point being this: Despite the fact that history shows things can only
happen when a physical event takes place, President Obama believes that
thinking of something and describing it with words is just as valid as when the
thing is made to happen in reality.
The trouble is that George Will makes the classic mistake
that writers make when they hit on what they believe is a great insight and, in
their enthusiasm, try to embellish it at the start of the discussion, thus sow
the seeds of its demise, if not its complete demolition. Here is what he did:
“Barack Obama, the first president … whose campaign speeches were his
qualification for the office.” In effect then, Will admits that having captured
the essence of the culture in which he found himself, Barack Obama gave the
public the great speeches it wanted to hear, and got it to elect him. So the
question is this: Whose fault is that? Obama's or that of the culture that was
there before he came on the scene?
Instead of discussing that culture in an attempt to generate
the sort of insights that will help identify and remedy its deficiencies, the
author scoffs at the record of President Obama by comparing it both with those who
– like him – made utopian promises they did not keep such as Lyndon Johnson;
and those – unlike him – who created new realities by actions and not words,
such as Cromwell, Grant, Trotsky, Franco and Mao.
Whomever he blames for those deficiencies – the culture or
the President that adopted it – George Will cites the most immediate issues
facing America today, and laments that they are not properly addressed by the
Obama Administration. These are the level of employment that failed to rise as
a result of the stimulus. The Keystone XL pipeline that requires a decision as
to whether or not it will be constructed. And last but not least, the
Congressional Budget office latest conclusion that ObamaCare will slow down the
economy's rate of growth.
But the Coup de Grace that the writer gives to his writing
approach if not his entire thesis comes with the mockery that he levels at the
numbers which the President cites. He calls them “magic” numbers as if to mean
that Obama believes in the magic of numerology. In fact, Obama mentioned only
two numbers. He said that the rate of unemployment will not rise above 8
percent due to the stimulus, and was proven wrong because the rate did rise
above that level, if only for a short period of time. The President also said that
7 dollars will be saved by every dollars spent on high quality preschool
education, a number that no one has been able to disprove.
And that is considered to be a Coup de Grace because it is
George Will who is drowning the reader with the numbers that he cites. You
sense that he savors those numbers like a child savors candy in his mouth. He
begins with: “Thirty months have passed.” He then quotes Reuters which
reported: “4.1 percent of the roughly 1,300 tonnes of toxic agents” was
surrendered by Assad. And he hits the reader with an orgy of numbers regarding
the Keystone pipeline. Here they are: “2 million miles … 1,179 miles … 42,100
jobs … 2,000 jobs.” And there is more numbers: “36-year low … second half of
the fifth year ... decrease nearly three times larger … the equivalent of 2.3
million jobs.”