The Economist Meets the Underwear Gnomes

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Complete with its headline, “The Criminalization of American Business,” the cover of the latest issue of the Economist stared up from the magazine rack at the local Safeway yesterday. 

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Gee, how did American business become so criminalized in recent years? Some of the mile-markers along the way are pretty frightening stuff. Incidents such as the raids on Gibson Guitar and other businesses. Siccing the IRS on small businesses after “joking” early in his administration that he’d do just that. Operation Choke Point. And small-time videomakers being tossed into jail. It’s not like the Economist would condone such actions, would they?

Oh, right:

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Economist Obama covers through the years. Click to enlarge.

As I’ve written before, you can a pretty good sense of the arc of the left’s Obama worship by checking the various Economist covers from 2008 through the present.  The outlier in the collage above is the image of a punch-drunk and bandaged Obama after the bruising fight to pass ObamaCare in 2010; but note that the Economist was firmly back in the tank by 2011. Nice touch having Michele Bachmann waving at the president while brandishing a sniper rifle; take two Krugmans out of petty cash, boys.

So to review how we got here, let’s borrow from a beloved meme from TV’s South Park:

  1. Support a socialist-loving community organizer turned tyro senator who had completed less than a full term before choosing to run for the White House blindly, pretend, like most Democrat operatives with bylines, that he walks on water.
  2. ?
  3. Wonder why American business has become increasing criminalized.
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When it was obvious as early as mid-2009 that Mr. Obama was having more than a little trouble staying afloat while walking on water, Mark Steyn wrote:

This is the point: The nuancey boys were wrong on Obama, and the knuckledragging morons were right. There is no post-partisan centrist “grappling” with the economy, only a transformative radical willing to make Americans poorer in the cause of massive government expansion. At some point, The Economist, Messrs Brooks, Buckley & Co are going to have to acknowledge this. If they’re planning on spending the rest of his term tutting that his management style is obstructing the effective implementation of his centrist agenda, it’s going to be a long four years.

And how about this?

In an accomplished press conference this week, Mr Obama reminded the world what an impressive politician he can be. He has a capacity to inspire that is unmatched abroad or at home.

Oh, dear. That’s so January 20th it makes these toffee-nosed Brits sound like straw-sucking hayseeds.

And I wasn’t exaggerating about the Economist believing that former President Obama walked on water. Recall their cover last fall, during the disastrous rollout of Obamacare, which itself will further criminalize millions of small businesses:

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As I noted last November, “Hey rubes! Considering that the only people who thought that Obama could walk on water in the first place was the MSM, the Economist tacitly flashes back to their naïveté. Which would be charming, if its end result hadn’t been so destructive to the country.”

Which brings us to the Economist’s latest cover. But I doubt they’ll connect the dots and point a few fingers at themselves.

Update: A very good rule indeed:

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