Personal Aside: Decadent “Old Europe” Turned Around and So Can We if We Try.

In January, 2003 Donald Rumsfeld used the phrase “Old Europe” to describe not just Europeans nations which failed to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq (specifically France and Germany), but to describe a “peace-at-any-price” decadence he feared might spread across the continent. But since then two central nations of “Old Europe” have veered right—France under the leadership of a center-right president, Niolac Sarkozy and Germany whose Chancellor is Angela Merkel who was just reelected and strengthened with a vital new conservative coalition.

So two nations of former “Old Europe” are back, with Sarkozy correcting our President Obama who gave an airy vision of perfect vapidity a few weeks ago by saying that reality is not nearly as vaporous as the illusions Obama is casting. But there is still a lot of decadence in what remains of “Old Europe”—unredeemable public pension debt, high taxes which snuff out job creation, low birthrates, unrealistic agricultural subsidies that have ended many family farms in favor of huge corporate ones which suck up the public monies and the disinclination to finance their defenses preferring that the unconscionable spiraling taxes pay for ever-growing entitlements that make the populace fat, lazy and unlikely to pay to maintain its freedoms.

And if vestiges of “Old Europe” are showing signs of turnaround, the U. S., thanks to its decadent Democratic government—a president with no discernible philosophy, no real religious affiliation who denies we’re a Christian nation at all but one who holds amorphous “values,” a Congress that sees ever-more spending frivolity and which lies copiously about how it will pay for its bills (using accounting tricks and conceptual language on health care to make voters believe it will not add to our deficit).

But there is hope after all. The U. S. under Obama is shaking off its liberalism…starting with Obama. Gallup yesterday recorded an average daily approval rating of 53% for the third quarter of this year, reflecting a propitious drop from 62% he chalked up last April and the 78% approval he basked in when he entered the White House. It’s the fastest drop in recent U. S. history in a president’s first term. Despite heavy majorities in Congress, Obama has terrified Democratic members who have to run for reelection next year. Unless it changes the name Obama is going to be anathema for Democrats who otherwise would have been happy to snuggle up to him. Part of the reason is that he followed the advice of his twin advisers who simulate the duplicitous clowns in the play “Hamlet”—Rosencrantz (Rahm Emanuel) and Guildenstern (David Axelrod).

They advised him to pile his plate to heaping with unconscionably expensive liberal goodies—universal health care, cap and trade, education “reform” meaning stratosphere spending from K1 to senior college-- instead of concentrating just on fighting unemployment. When the Congress balked, the twins suggested he demonize the portion of the media that doesn’t follow him lockstep: talk radio (blistering Rush Limbaugh with made-up quotes Limbaugh never said)…Fox News (insisting incredibly it’s not a news network at all despite its popularity with the highest ratings in cable news)…Glenn Beck of Fox who single-handedly brought down Acorn while mainline broadcasters ignored the scandal…and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce which supported Obama on the stimulus package and a variant of cap and trade but has the temerity not to salute and say “yes sir” for the entire Obama package.

So maybe there’s hope for the U. S. taking a detour from cruising to become “Old USA” to rejecting his ideas and blocking liberal proposals in a Congress that is heavily Democratic but which still can’t bare to hold its nose to vote for his ideas.

Let’s hope so. The only holdbacks are the misnamed “mainstream media” ala Katie Couric, much of the “mainstream” print press—the New York Times and the slenderized…with fast fading advertising support… newsmagazines “Time,” “Newsweek” and “U. S. News.” Then there’s pro-Obama public TV and public radio subsidized heavily with taxpayers’ dollars. The heavy residue of decadence is harbored still in ivy league universities where patriotism is dissed and of course Hollyweird. 2009 could be the start of the mammoth turnaround with Democratic loss of two governorships, Virginia and New Jersey.