Uncivil Disturbance

"People ask me where I get my jokes. I just watch Congress and report the facts." - Will Rogers

A perspective slightly broader than Congress is good for a few laughs, too. And just now we have one unfolding before our eyes.

Barack Hussein Obama recently decided to assail his putative opponent in November by making disparaging references and ads about Mitt Romney’s years at Bain Capital, a private-equity firm at which Romney was a principal for some years. Those thrusts have backfired on Obama; indeed, dramatically so. The extent of the self-inflicted damage has caused The Won to backpedal in a uniquely humiliating way. Now he's insisting that his beef with Romney and Bain is that the claim that they created jobs is deceitful – that they’re solely about profit.

It doesn’t take a lot of brain power to see through that fallacy. In a capitalist economy, you can’t make a profit without selling a product that people find valuable and want to buy -- and that's impossible unless you first contrive to make that product. But who will make it? Either you, or others you employ for the purpose. Ergo: jobs!

Obama's Ubergaffe calls to mind an anecdote from the career of the late, great Milton Friedman. He was in China, observing some State-mandated project, and noted that hundreds of workers were laboring away with shovels when there was a powered backhoe available. The official supervising him replied that the workers had been instructed to use shovels to "maximize the number of jobs." In that case, Friedman replied, "why not have them use spoons?"

It gets worse: Two modestly prominent black Democrats -- unusually sensible for black Democrats -- have castigated Obama for his ads! Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, NJ, and Harold Ford Jr., formerly a Congressman from Tennessee, have both defended private capital and its role in our economy, in direct rebukes to Obama. GAHH! Rebellion in the ranks! Democrats differing with The Won -- and black Democrats at that! Sound the general alarm!

It's not unusual for persons within the same party to differ on something like this...but it is unusual for two black Democrats of modest stature to court the wrath of the Obamunist machine. Chicago tactics didn't get their reputation for being conciliatory, you know.

"I never met a man I didn't like," said Will Rogers. I wonder what he'd think of Barack Hussein Obama.

Mitt Romney, meanwhile, has been demonstrating impressive campaign chops. It appears that he's managed to placate a substantial fraction of the "conservative base" of the GOP, which for a long time was cool or worse toward him. He's also rising in general polling about personal likability, which, though it might not have a direct influence on the balloting, can't be a bad thing. The contest in November won't be a runaway for either contender.

But the truly interesting developments are taking place on the Left. Obama and his lieutenants are struggling to distance themselves from the Occupy crowd. They're having their own troubles with the party's far-left "base," which is unhappy that the regime hasn't pressed for even more nationalizations and redistributive programs. There's some contention over Joseph Biden as the VP candidate for November; his many verbal missteps have a few prominent Democrats openly talking about bumping him from the ticket. And now there are rumbles from American Negroes, who are overwhelmingly Christian and serious about it, and who are baffled by The Won's embrace of same-sex marriage. That's 13% of the voting public -- a bloc which has gone 90% or further for the Democrats in recent elections.

Heh, heh, heh!