HANSON ON OBAMA – AT 9:12 A.M. ET:  Victor Davis Hanson sums up the Obama dilemma, a year after The One's triumphant inauguration.  I find it fascinating to count how many warnings about Obama, ignored during the presidential campaign, have proved to be accurate:

In Plato's ideal society, philosopher kings and elite Guardians shepherded the rabble to force them to do the "right" thing.

To prevent the unwashed from doing anything stupid, the all-powerful, all-wise Guardians often had to tell a few "noble" lies. And, of course, these caretakers themselves were exempt from most rules they made for others.

We are now seeing such thinking in the Obama administration and among its supporters.

A technocracy - many Ivy-League-educated and without much experience outside academia and government - pushes legislation most people do not want but is nevertheless judged to be good for them.

These are people who'd put their College Board scores on their gravestones.

Hanson notes that a good part of the Obama agenda is actually unpopular with the very nation that elected him.

Why, then, does the Obama administration persist with such an apparently unpopular agenda?

Like Plato's all-knowing elite, Obama seems to feel that those he deems less informed will "suddenly" learn to appreciate his benevolent guidance once these laws are pushed through.

Liberal columnist Thomas Frank once promoted similar assumptions in his book "What's the Matter with Kansas?" Frank argued that clueless American voters can't quite figure out what their own self-interests are.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, another Obama supporter, also reflected the philosopher-king thinking in a recent column praising China's "reasonably enlightened" dictatorship. Unlike the messiness of American democracy, he argued, a few smart strongmen in China can ram through the necessary policies "to move a society forward in the 21st century."

It's the totalitarian temptation.  And there are many "leading intellectuals" who are prone to it, which explains, in part, why intellectuals often support the worst causes.

There is one other trait of this administration similar to those of utopian philosopher kings. Our elite must have the leeway to be exempt from their own rules.

Higher taxes must be levied on many of us. But the guardian of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, now and then can cheat a little. So can the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Charles Rangel, who oversees the writing of tax law.

And, finally, why Plato was a lot smarter than Obama:

There is, however, one difference between Plato's thinking and the Obama administration's agenda. Plato at least assumed that philosopher kings were fantasy ideas and his utopia unachievable.

Our president and his modern-day Guardians in contrast haven't quite figured that out yet. Perhaps after this week's election in Massachusetts they will.

It's unlikely.  It's in their career interests not to.

Wise politicians know that they must never get too far ahead of the people.  I said "wise" politicians.  One problem with the Obamans is that they confuse education and wisdom, assuming the former guarantees the latter.  It does not, just as it does not guarantee morality or goodness. 

The midterms in November will be the most significant of our era.  One more Massachusetts message must be sent.

January 21, 2010