Next Stop Wonderland

The Obama Administration was embarrassed recently by the revelation that, back in 2009, during the height of the recession, there was a star-studded White House Halloween party decorated by none other than eccentric Hollywood director Tim Burton and featuring his favorite leading man, Johnny Depp in full costume as his character in the mind-bending blockbuster “Alice in Wonderland”.

The administration had successfully kept news, photos and video out of the press about the lavish soiree until the release of a book detailing the party and other White House gossip.

Actually, “Wonderland” is a pretty good metaphor for the Administration.  Think of all the idealistic but imaginary projects it has undertaken.

There was the stimulus that added nearly a trillion dollars to the deficit without slowing the slide into recession.  There was Obama’s belief that Ahmadinejad just wanted someone to talk to and he would stop building the bomb.  Then there was “Cash for Clunkers”, which offered money for older cars, but then took most of it in taxes, because it was regular income.

And how can we forget “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (Obamacare), which we were told would lower health care costs, but already has led to increases in insurance premiums, even while older doctors are opting to retire early to escape the coming healthcare cataclysm, leading to a shortage of healthcare professionals.  And shortages always mean increased costs.

And what was up with “Fast And Furious”?! Giving guns to Mexican drug runners and then NOT tracking them? That’s REALLY grounded in reality!

More recently we have seen that there are no less than a dozen “green” companies that the administration made high-dollar loans to which now are falling to bankruptcy like so many dominoes. Idealistic ideology is no match for the realities of demand (or lack of it) in manufacturing. (see “Barak Obama The Venture Capitalist”)

Oh, and there was the campaign speech during which Obama said if he was elected, the seas would recede. Whoa!

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” (Through The Looking Glass, Chapter 5).