It only takes a few simple words to ruin an otherwise insightful newspaper column. Keep that in mind as you read Mort Zuckerman in today’s Wall Street Journal:
It is no surprise that many have begun to doubt the president’s leadership qualities. J.P. Morgan calls it the “competency crisis.” The president is not seen fighting for his own concrete goals, nor finding the right allies, especially leaders of business big or small. Instead, his latent hostility to the business community has provoked a mutual response of disrespect. This is lamentable given the unique role that small business especially plays in creating jobs. [Did I really need to add the emphasis?]
Latent, Mort? Latent? It was pretty obvious by absolutely no later than the summer of 2008 that Senator Obama — the most liberal member of that august body — was nothing but hostile to business. A guy steeped in the Marxism Lite of Hyde Park and the Marxism Heavy of the Ivy League nomenklatura was never going to understand business as anything other than a wild horse to break to his will.
And President Obama has certainly done just that, with ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, the NLRB and his out-of-control regulatory state. The fact that Obama is surprised and displeased with the actual results of his pogroms, only speaks to the shallowness of his hostility. But there was never anything latent about it.
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