Calm Down, He's Only Human

During the presidential campaign, many conservatives laughed at the seemingly supernatural powers that Obama supporters saw in their candidate. Now those folks are doing essentially the same thing - working themselves into a frenzy over the massive, monstrous Change that Obama is about to unleash on us all.

For instance, a very intelligent and very conservative friend of mine is circulating this Dick Morris column to everyone he knows. Obama, according to Morris, is bent on nothing less than imposing "socialism" on America. We are going to become like Germany, France, the U.K. and even Sweden!

My response to this is simple: Chill out, people. Obama is only human. A very talented, intelligent, rhetorically gifted human, yes. A politically and theologically liberal human, yes. But still human. He cannot simply snap his fingers and force his will upon the rest of us.

Obama is, above all, a pragmatist. He will do many things we won't like, but nothing so dramatic as to risk his chance at re-election. To the extent he does the evil things some conservatives predict, it will be because he knows those policies have broad public support.

You can, of course, debate why the public supports leftist policies. A good part of the blame has to land on the backs of conservatives who failed to articulate a clear, consistent political philosophy. Over a period of years - and most especially in the last eight years under Bush - we gave Obama the ammunition he is about to use against us.

Rather than whine about it, I suggest we all examine the reasons we are in the predicament and consider how we can bring about the kind of change we want.