Speechless in Seattle
Air Force One landed at Boeing Field earlier today, carrying an individual visiting one of the few corners of the nation where he still enjoys broad voter support and approval: Seattle.
Few Americans reading that President Hussein visited the Hemorrhoid City would stop to wonder whether it was a fair-weather campaign stop. Along with big cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Philadelphia, Chicago and (until recently) New York – Seattle is a place where liberals congregate in huge numbers.
But if you know the history of Seattle over the past twenty years, beginning with its pop culture “grunge” revolution in the early 1990s, you might raise an eyebrow or two at the president’s poorly planned remarks at a fundraiser in the Paramount Theater.
“We are a people who write our own destiny,” he said. “And it is fully within our power to write it once more.”
Now, leaving aside the obvious dishonesty of the statement, you have to wonder who the president is trying to please here. He’s not talking to a group of undecided, independent voters. The people attending this function are Democrat loyalists, and on top of that, they are Seattle Democrat loyalists.
Has the president no familiarity with the nihilistic outlook Seattle liberals have on life in general?
Somebody needs to tell the White House speechwriting staff that words like “destiny” and phrases like “fully within our power” do not feature prominently in the code of Northwest lefties.
For that matter, Washingtonians living up and down the Puget Sound area tend to be pessimistic regardless of their ideology – and I include myself in that category, at least when it comes to weather.
“Destiny” is not the word of choice in Seattle. “Fate” might suffice, “sentence” would definitely click, and “your lot in life” says it all. But not “destiny.”
Secondly, Northwestern people know that whatever is “within our power” is not “fully within our power.”
For example, it might be within my power to want to go outside and enjoy the day when it is sunny.
But that doesn’t mean that it’s fully within my power to do so, because the sun will disappear behind the clouds and it will begin to rain as soon as I do. Other Americans do not live under such inevitable unpredictability.
With the president’s unbalanced supporters in Seattle, the same is true in the political sense.
Despite supermajority control of the state legislature and the governor’s mansion, with a shored up liberal voting base including plenty of illegal aliens and dead people, and a bottomless socialist pit in the state’s largest city, Washington remains in permanent gridlock.
Over this weekend, Gov. Chrissy Gregoire once again called the legislature into special session to fix yet another state budget shortfall.
In 2008, campaigning against Dino Rossi for her first legitimate term as governor, Gregoire denied that there was a budget shortfall.
She then took office and switched the story around to admit that there was one, but added that a recession was no time to raise taxes.
In 2009, with full party control of the legislature, Gregoire switched the story around again to admit that not only was there a budget shortfall, but that the only solution to the problem was to raise taxes.
So the Democrats enacted taxes on soda, candy and bottled water, and attempted to circumvent a statewide initiative requiring a 2/3 supermajority to raise state taxes.
Washington back-handed Gregoire and her ilk in 2010 with resounding, landslide anti-tax initiatives repealing the new ones and making it even more difficult for Olympia to raise them again.
This kind of mindless bickering over public money and authority might seem more likely across the state, but it is no less prevalent in the one-party rule of Seattle.
The Hemorrhoid City’s impotence in resolving the trumped-up crisis regarding the Alaskan Way Viaduct is reminiscent of the Hussein’s latest childish political stunts.
He poses for idiotic photo-ops in front of Ohio bridges, taunting the House Republicans while deliberately refusing to submit the “American Jobs Act,” which he says is the only way to save our nation’s economy (but which, if he does not submit it, will supposedly lead to the bridge collapsing).
The endless quibbling between radical socialist Mayor Mike McGinn, Seattle labor unions, Gregoire, the Seattle City Council and the state legislature over how to repair or replace the viaduct caught the attention and mockery of the New York Times earlier this year.
To date, McGinn has finally assented to the building of an underground tunnel to replace the viaduct.
But the debate over replacing it began in 2001, which means that the decision to begin building the tunnel, counting inflation for political grandstanding, should be made in about 2025.
And even today, in a state where there is a strong undercurrent of social liberalism, lawmakers hesitate and operate quietly behind the scenes to push through a full vote on the definition of marriage.
So, knowing that my advice will go unheeded, I nevertheless extend to President Hussein a word of caution: don’t try to inspire Seattleites with ideas like “destiny” and “fully within our power.”
As little as you blush about speaking with brazen dishonesty, Mr. President, do please remember that these people are irreversibly insane. They actually believe you when you promise them sunshine and lollipops, and if you should somehow pierce the bubbles in which they live – well, it would be devastating.
So, be more pessimistic when you talk to Seattleites.
Tell them, “You are a people who write your own obituaries, and it is fully within your power to fulfill it, especially because you have a Death With Dignity law.”
© 2011 Ed’s Voices LLC
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