In today’s American Thinker, “Dave Smithee” (a pseudonym), does a fine job in pointing out the dangerous gamble that Liberalism has taken in promoting Barack Obama to the land’s highest office:

In a receding economy and aided by a political monopoly, President Obama is going to prove unable to resist his fetish for increased taxation and eco-regulatory strangulation. In a dangerous time, his vanity will lead him to grant legitimacy to nations that wish America ill. When an Obama presidency with majorities in the House and Senate ends in economic calamity, emboldened international foes, or both—as history wearily tells us it must—then the healing can begin.

...For the Democrats, it was an act of sublime short-term calculation to trot out Obama.  A man whose easy, telegenic charm was able to narcotize into irrelevance all the facts that would have rendered him unelectable in anyone else’s skin. The sewage of slum lords, communist sympathizers and domestic terrorists swirl about his ankles. And yet a flash of smile and a few words in his soothing baritone captured the American imagination and soothed a majority of the electorate.  But now the work is going to start. Results are going to matter, and if there’s one fact about Barry that the media was unable to obscure, it’s that he is a candidate truly uncluttered by moderation.

He is the proto-Democrat; liberalism’s gleaming new flagship. And that’s going to be a long-term problem for Democrats in ways they can scarcely now imagine.

If you’re looking for a bit of a lift and a boost in motivation, read the whole thing.

I think the article makes a great point, but I also think Liberalism’s great Obama gamble has a chance in succeeding.  In Western Europe, their late 20th century journey into socialism, made possible by an American nuclear umbrella, became effectively permanent when a tipping point was reached.  The moment the public began seeing government subsidy as a right, and government intervention as the only answer to hardship, the jig was up.  Government handouts, once commenced, rarely end.  It’s easy to envision going from a private healthcare system to government-subsidized socialized healthcare, but the other way around, please, don’t kid yourself.

America’s greatness is built upon a foundation of self-reliance.  Innovation in America, driven by entrepreneurship, has at its core the eternal truth that man will do best when he is incentivized and rewarded for his efforts.  Who can deny this?  Yet, if we believe that the American people are incapable of sacrificing their economic freedom in exchange for perceived economic security in the form of Liberalism’s siren song, we are mistaken.  America’s greatness, rooted in liberty, is not inevitable, it must be fought for continuously, in every generation, year after year and day after day.