Horses, Barns and Other Obama Metaphors

OffHisMeds has had fun with some of the pronouncements of President Obama and sundry of his Minions in the past 100 or so days, not the least reason for which is that the subjects themselves seem to have tapped a vein of rhetorical stupidity as deep and wide as the Democrat Party; which is to say that while it covers an enormous amount of surface area, it is shallow in the extreme. Democrats can mine this vein by doing for rhetoric what they do for policy: exploit that which is near the surface, then move on. Just as they have for generations strip-mined the Economy without regard for the damage to the Economy, they strip-mine the English language without regard for any damage to the English language.

Our current favorite is the phrase "the horse is already out of the barn", first used by Janet Napolitano to justify her decision to impose no travel restrictions on Mexico to prevent the spread of the Swine Flu to the United States, a phrase repeated the next day by President Obama. With this simple utterance, Napolitano and Obama legitimized the fantastical notion that, having already allowed a handful of Mexicans infected with the Swine Flu into the U.S., there would be no greater spread of the disease if we then allowed an unlimited number of Mexicans with Swine Flu into the U.S. There is, of course, no explanation that would allow this statement to make any sense, and neither Napolitano or Obama offered any. Thus unmolested by reality much less the Media, Barack Obama made "the horse is already out of the barn" the official disease control policy of the United States.

If you're wondering how clichés became policy in the modern era, you clearly haven't been paying attention to the goings-on of the Democrat Party. The phrase "the horse is already out of the barn" is the embodiment of the modern Democrat's rhetoric: it is all-purpose, vague, cynical, fatalistic and unchallengeable - at least by the standards of interrogation employed by today's Media. It is also - at least until the elections of 2010 - undeniably true. And inasmuch as it was used to such good effect for the Swine Flu crisis, I look forward to President Obama and Top Democrats regurgitating this line to explain any number of wrong-headed policy decisions they have made, or will make in the future, including:

- The $1.2 Trillion dollar "Stimulus" bill - The money's committed, even though most of it won't be spent for at least four years. If the Economy recovers before then, there would supposedly be no reason to spend the money. That won't stop Democrats from spending it.

- Supreme Court appointees - Let's face it: Considering the battalion of liberal Supreme Court Justices so fond of legislating from the bench that have been appointed in the past twenty years, including David Souter, Sandra Day O'Connor, John Paul Stevens and Anthony Kennedy to name but a few, the horse is indeed out of the barn; particularly considering that all of these were appointed by Republicans.

One other thing: as regards jurisprudence, Democrats have another name for "the horse is already out of the barn". It's called "precedent". Never was such a word that could so strike fear into the hearts of freedom-loving people, but Democrats cherish it like their first-born.

- Amnesty for twenty million Illegal Immigrants - After all, they're already here, and the Democrat Party is busy counting them in the Census. Once they're counted, they're in; and it probably doesn't hurt that "the horse is already out of the barn" is the official immigration policy of the Republican Party, giving Obama all the cover he needs.

- Killing ethical government - This is a twofer. Any President that can simultaneously push through the cabinet appointment of the biggest assortment of tax cheats in history while going unchallenged on his assertions of conducting government in an open and ethical fashion has done for ethical government what The Media have done for ethical reporting.

- Health Care reform - Obama's already made a $675 Billion "down payment", and everybody knows that you can't default on a down payment. It's too bad Democrats don't as readily appreciate the virtue of "down payments" when it comes to managing the Mortgage crisis as they do when formulating Health Care policy.

- Decimating our Intelligence Agencies - Obama has already released all the damaging information he can, reversed all of the policies that allowed our intelligence agencies to be effective, made every damaging statement possible, and apologized to the world for the so-called excesses of our intelligence community, effectively criminalizing them in the process. Shades of Jimmy Carter and the Church committee.

- Bankrupting the nation - Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Revenue Sharing and twenty million government employees not only aren't going anywhere, Obama and the Democrats have proposed the massive expansion of all of them, collectively the Black Hole that is government spending. Physicists understand that as a Black Hole grows larger its gravitational pull increases. Democrats are immune to this insight.

Having thus elevated "the horse is already out of the barn" from a simple cliché to a policy fait accompli, President Obama will no doubt use it with the regularity with which Democrats think up new ways to spend your money or deprive you of your freedoms; which is to say all of the time.

The cynical aspect of OffHisMed's character also suspects that, rather than being a simple and effective rhetorical device, this is a premeditated and madly effective political strategy. Pre-emption, after all, is the Democrat's stock and trade; and what is this phrase if not the perfect manifestation of Pre-emption? Ronald Reagan famously said that there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program. Democrats - backed by a compliant Media - foist these policies on a weary public already suffering from information overload, and before you know it, they become a permanent part of our existence.

Should Democrats be ashamed of themselves for so abusing the Public Trust? Of course they should; but that's not going to stop them. After all, "the horse is already out of the barn".