Yesterday, during a conversation about poverty at the Catholic-Evangelical Summit at Georgetown University, President Obama employed his favorite rhetorical device — a straw man opponent for his arguments — at the expense of his favorite target — Fox News. His point was that Americans were resistant to doing more for the poor because Fox had convinced them that the poor were unworthy of assistance thereby undermining support for government programs. But more than that, he saw this alleged sense of contempt as being linked to a belief in private initiative that he sees connected to the ills of the underprivileged. But there’s more to this issue than Obama’s trademark intolerance for criticism. At its heart, these statements tell us all we need to know about the president’s unwillingness to take responsibility for the state of the nation as well his refusal to think outside the conventional lines of liberal ideology.
The most obvious conclusion to be drawn from this is how after more than six years in office, the president is still more interested in blaming the messenger and creating a scapegoat rather than engaging with his critics. The difference between Fox’s coverage of his administration and that of many mainstream outlets is that it is not part of his cheering section. The notion that it demonizes the poor is unsubstantiated but the president’s invocation of the network isn’t meant to be part of an actual argument so much as it is a signal to his supporters that they are supposed to ignore contrary views or perspectives rather than listen to them. Though the president likes to pose as a public intellectual, he is remarkably resistant to advice even from his own side of the aisle and utterly intolerant of opposing views. From his perspective, Fox must be demonized and dismissed rather than engaged and argued with not because it’s reports are inaccurate but because anyone who watches it is open to the idea that Obama might be wrong.
But there is more to be gleaned from Obama’s remarks than a mere diversionary tactic. The problem with American poverty isn’t Fox’s coverage. The real issue is an administration that prefers to argue along these lines because of its stubborn and hypocritical devotion to the failed liberal patent nostrums of the past rather than trying creative solutions that might make things better.
The conversation about poverty has gained new urgency because of the recent riots in Baltimore which, coming soon after other protests relating to allegations of police brutality, has spawned a conversation about poverty and racism. But other than a sound byte at Fox’s expense which more or less won him the news cycle (and distracted some from the debacle on Capitol Hill where his own party spiked his effort to pass a trade bill), all the president seems to be willing to offer us is the same sort of big government liberalism that we’ve been getting from Democrats for the last 60 years with predictably dismal results.
The uncounted billions that have been spent on government “wars” on poverty have availed the nation but little. But rather than, as his predecessor Bill Clinton did for a while, own up to the fact that the era of big government was over, Obama is doubling down on the welfare state.
This is discouraging enough but what was truly disturbing was the president’s denigration of school choice options for the poor. Rather than supporting a measure that would give kids in failing inner city schools a lifeline to opportunity, the president castigated private schools as harming those who remain in the public system. More than that, he linked the idea of being educated outside of the public monopoly to “anti-government ideology.”
So when you come down to it, the problem isn’t just people watching Fox rather than liberal outlets marching in lockstep with his party but being taught in an environment not dominated by a belief in dependence on the government.
That a man who sends his own daughters to private school could denounce the efforts of those less well off than himself to get the same opportunity for their kids is an example of staggering, even Olympic-level hypocrisy. But even putting that aside the notion that the only way Americans can care about each other is if they are forced into public schools and other government entities is antithetical to the notions of individual freedom that this nation was founded upon.
More to the point, they are contrary to the basics of capitalism. The greatest engine of growth and destroyer of poverty is individual initiative and enterprise not compulsory involvement in communal institutions. More money won’t solve Baltimore’s problems or that of any other city. But better education, especially those schools that tap into the energy of individual parents and students and not government, do offer a solution.
The president likes to take credit for the economic recovery but he knows that it is plagued by endemic problems that have left many behind. But instead of addressing this, Obama and other liberals remain trapped in the ideology of the past, talking about inequality and serving failed liberal patent nostrums while ignoring or actively opposing ideas that offer a hopeful alternative. The problem isn’t a media that is insufficiently sympathetic to the poor or their self-styled champion in the White House. It’s Obama’s failed policies.
So don’t bother having sympathy for Fox News, whose enormous audience is more than enough compensation for presidential insults. If you want to be sorry for anyone, have some pity for the children of the poor that, unlike Sasha and Malia Obama, are being told to stay in failed public schools rather than getting a chance for something better.
The post Obama’s Policies, Not Fox, Hurt the Poor appeared first on Commentary Magazine.