An International Ignoramus Opines

As President Obama's approval rating  among US voters slip to George W. Bush levels, and as his Democrat prty braces for a humiliating trouncing in the November  elections, Kenyans will be no wiser as to why  if the go by Prof Ian Buruma's piece, "The Great American (populist) Tea Party" ( Daily Nation  Sept 6th) and available here in the Lebanon Daily News version.

Buruma is an elite  European intellectual  from the commentariat of  the international left.  Such usually show abysmal misunderstanding of the USA coupled with sneering condescention and Buruma certainly does not disappoint. Buruma is ignorant of even the simplest facts, such as the Democrats of the USA many years ago surpassed the Republicans as the party of wealth and class and are able to outspend their opponents handily.

It can't be that  Democrats have plunged the US into double the  debt that Bush left. It's zero to do with Obama's debt rising higher every year until it will overwhelm the US economy. It has, for Prof Buruma, nothing to do with ramming "free" heathcare down US throats - despite every poll showing the clear majority of all voters did not want it.

The Lord help Kenyans if any believe that American traditional opposition to "big government" has the slightest to do with Obama's fall from grace. His Democrats rushed to expand every possible government payroll and create huge new burdens of bureaucracy - a bit like Kenyan MPs. Those dumb ,uneducated  ,prejudiced  "overwhelmingly white" Americans just don't understand how wonderful Obamanomics really is. Even those who still have a job

Lastly, despite the Democrats putting every single US citizen  $44,000 into debt in unpaid government borrowing, the economy is stagnant, the stimulus has failed and unemployment is going up, not down. America's foreign policy is a mess and many of the US staunchest allies are  perplexed.  Neither does Prof Bururma educate us at all that the Tea Party movement against "big government" had it's roots before Obama took office, in the George Bush stimulus and bank-bailout of 2008.

For the "progressives"  l none of these issues are real.  Obama got elected with two "elite" degrees, a Muslim middle name and a black Kenyan father. Prof Buruma tells us those are hindrances to him, oddly enough. It seems they were pluses just two years ago, but Buruma is incapable of explaining this paradox. The fault lies not with Obama's policies since election, but in his dumb low class opponents. 

If Buruma was a  visiting a psychiatrist instead of writing fatuous articles, he would be diagnosed as being in deep denial coupled with fantasies and projection.

Obama's  opponents are thus simply racists, bigots, uneducated and populist.. Kenyans relying on this narrative will be bewildered as US events unfold, and the good professor will not have taught them a thing.