Time to be cynical
I will remain a cynic until such time as the governing class and the media stop urinating on my
leg and telling me it is rain caused by global warming.
TOM BURGUM
Contributing Columnist
burgum@lbknews.com
Webster’s Dictionary defines cynical as, “Distrusting of human nature: doubting or contemptuous of human nature or the motives, goodness, or sincerity of others. Example: Many people have developed a cynical distrust of politicians.”
Well, I’m one of those people who have developed a cynical distrust of politicians. But, I’m not limiting my contempt for the motives or sincerity to just those of our politicians. I include the media, the purveyors of politically correct nonsense, and those who put “Save Biafra” bumper stickers on their Volvos.
The late George Carlin was certainly a cynic when he said, “By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.” Our political class understands this concept all too well.
President Obama is fond of lecturing us, telling us that the current rate of deficits are unsustainable, that we can’t keep spending as if we are using Monopoly money. Then we learn that Mr. Obama will add more to the deficit in his first two years than President George W. Bush did in eight years. In deference to the president, some of the spending is laudable and necessary: indexing the alternative Minimum Tax for inflation, increased R&D funding, loan guarantees for new nuclear power plants, and subsidies and loan guarantees for small business. But these programs only serve to hide the huge expansion of social engineering programs that have nothing to do with job creation or the recession.
I don’t mean to ignore the Republicans. I would like to say they spent like drunken sailors during their ascendancy but I don’t want to offend drunken sailors. To this day I can’t recall any justification for the spending with the exception of appropriations for the Iraq and Afghan wars. Oh, excuse me, there was the unfunded drug prescription program. Given all this, it is almost laughable now when you hear Minority Leader Boehner wax sorrowful about Mr. Obama’s awful level of spending. It becomes laughable when you remember House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s strident criticism of the Republican profligacy during the Bush years.
The current direction of the global warming debate is grist for the cynicism mill. Professor Phil Jones, a very important contributor to the International Panel on Climate Change and the source of Al Gore’s famous hockey stick graph, has finally admitted what many have suspected for some time. Jones now admits there has been no global warming since 1995. He also admitted that the debate about whether the medieval period was warmer than it is now is far from settled.
Can this be true? Jones was the temperature guru on which so much of the global warming science was based. The government and the media have assured us that all this had been peer-reviewed up the wazoo. Can it possibly be that our government and the media have played loose with the facts about global warming? Can it be true the government simply wants an excuse to regulate even more and more of our economy and our lives? Does a wild bear romp in the forest?
Attorney General Eric Holder is the cynicism−in−government poster child. He announces plans to prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed architect of the September 11 attacks in New York City. Mr. Holder’s stated objective is to show the world just what swell folks we really are. Then, to blunt the storm of domestic criticism, Mr. Holder and the president promised that the guilty son-of-a-bitch would be given a fair trial, found guilty and executed. They didn’t seem to notice the rather cynical aspect of saying: Death sentence first, trial later.
Again, Republicans are not to be outdone by the Democrats. Virtually the same Republican congress that sat silent while the Bush administration ran various terrorist suspects through federal court, now demand military tribunals least Western civilization crumble to dust. You have to wonder sometimes if any of them blush when they do a 180 degree pivot simply because of partisan considerations.
Mr. Obama might want to be careful. He speaks well and promises much, sometimes too much. He has recently called for more drilling for oil and natural gas along with heavier reliance on coal. Still, the Department of the Interior and the Environment Protection Agency are reluctant to initiate the programs necessary to actuate Mr. Obama’s promises.
The difference between Mr. Obama’s words and his administration’s performance has not pleased some Democrats in Congress. Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat from West Virginia, isn’t sure he trusts the president’s commitments to coal.
“He says it in his speeches, but he doesn’t say it here,” Rockefeller said, referring to the president’s budget proposal. “He doesn’t say it in the actions of (EPA Administrator) Lisa Jackson. And he doesn’t say it in the minds of my own people. And he’s beginning to not be believable to me.”
Note to the administration: You are headed for real trouble when Democratic leaders began to publicly question your veracity.
Cynicism has a bad name with some folks. I refer them to George Bernard Shaw who wrote, “The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.”
Whatever the case, I will remain a cynic until such time as the governing class and the media stop urinating on my leg and telling me it is rain caused by global warming.
