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In which George Will makes @BarackObama cry

**Posted by Phineas

"Magic president"
“Magic president”

Oh, this is going to leave a mark. George Will has an absolutely brutal column in Friday’s Washington Post on President Obama’s apparent naive faith that saying something is true makes it true [1]:

Barack Obama, the first president shaped by the celebratory culture in which every child who plays soccer gets a trophy and the first whose campaign speeches were his qualification for the office, perhaps should not be blamed for thinking that saying things is tantamount to accomplishing things, and that good intentions are good deeds. So, his presidency is useful after all, because it illustrates the perils of government run by believers in magic words and numbers.

The last progressive president [2] promised Model Cities, with every child enjoying a Head Start en route to enjoying an Upward Bound into a Great Society. Today’s progressive president also uses words — and numbers — magically emancipated from reality.

Here’s one example:

The workforce participation rate [3] is at a 36-year low; in the second half of the fifth year of the recovery, a smaller fraction of the population is employed or looking for work than was when the recovery began. Nevertheless, the administration is cheerful about the Congressional Budget Office’s conclusion [4] that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will substantially slow the growth of employment and compensation over the next decade.

The decrease is projected to be nearly three times larger than the CBO had previously predicted. The ACA’s insurance subsidies, which decline with rising income and increase with falling income, will cause many people to choose to stop working, or to work less, or to stop looking for work, thereby reducing the number of hours worked by the equivalent of 2.3 million full-time jobs by 2021.

An administration spokesman did not dispute the CBO’s key finding but hailed it [5] as evidence that the ACA is increasing Americans’ choices. Really.

In reality, it’s a form of  Orwell’s “Newspeak [6],” a controlled language the purpose of which is to control the thoughts of the speaker, as well as the listener. Are productive hours being lost to the economy because of Obamacare? Well, that’s a good thing. Did Obama demand Bashar Assad leave power? (1) Well, he’s still there and Director of National Intelligence Clapper says he’s stronger now than when the president delivered his command. But, that’s okay, you see, because victory has now been defined as a minuscule reduction in Assad’s chemical weapons stocks, and that’s the way it’s always been, prole.

And Oceania has always been at war [7] with Eastasia. The Obama administration’s magical words make it so.

Be sure to read the whole thing [1].

via Brit Hume [8]

Footnote:
(1) I can’t resist reminding readers that, when George W. Bush issued an ultimatum, he carried through on it. And world leaders took him seriously, unlike the current holder of the office.

(Crossposted at Public Secrets [9])