New Silicon Graffiti Video: Barack To The Future!

The latest edition of our Silicon Graffiti video blog is coming to you partially in glorious black & white this week, as a reminder that despite the hip, sleek high tech Internet campaign that Senator Barack Obama ran in 2008, President Obama has governed very much like a boring, mid-20th century old fogy:

• The Keynesian “Stimulus” Plan – yes, that certainly brought a speedy end to the recession, just as when FDR similarly tried to spend his way out of the Great Depression in the mid-1930s.

• Nationalizing two-thirds of the American auto industry? Hey, Congress nationalized the passenger railroad industry in 1971 with Amtrak – and outside of the still-busy Northeast Corridor, most Amtrak trains that continue to run are boondoggles kept alive more to placate congressmen, then to actually serve customers.

• Socialized medicine? Britain went that route immediately after World War II – thus making the still privatized American medical profession the envy of the world.

• Demonizing Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other conservative news and opinion sources? Welcome back to the days of Nixon’s enemies list, FDR and Harry Truman violating Godwin’s Law, and Woodrow Wilson’s brutal crackdown on dissent during World War I.

• Back in October, the Washington Post ran a headline titled, “Obama Sets Sights on Urban Renewal.” Paging LBJ and his Great Society, which whole-scale demolished perfectly serviceable neighborhoods and trapped millions of urban poor into high-rise war zones. Or as President Reagan said in 1988, the left declared war on poverty. Poverty won.

• So-called green energy and global warming? Kowtowing to foreign dictators? Welcome back Carter!

And even in the wake of Scott Brown’s victory last week, and numerous other examples of public dissatisfaction (to say the least) with President Obama’s policies, the desire to increase command and control out of Washington rolls on.