Liberal assumptions proving wrong and the left's seeming surprise thereof - interesting to see Obama administration through that filter. You had the stimulus - that was full, ripe with assumptions - just throw something big and Keynesian at your economy and troubles will fall away - remember the almost haphazard way Pelosi administered the gov't largesse as if it would all work out as a matter of course. And then a doubling down on that gov't largesse with a huge new healthcare entitlement and the implementation of reams of new financial restrictions meant as much as anything to take Wall Street to a virtual woodshed for a beating as if the economy was a second tier consideration when measured against a lofty, dream addled lefty agenda - you're in a significant economic downturn and the gov't is piling up huge amounts of debt and you push through legislation that seems to assume or want to assume that none of that really matters relative to your agenda? And then you get liberal shock that the ACA may indeed prove unconstitutional, disdain for even the notion that someone would dare argue against the constitutionality of something as obviously enlightened as universal healthcare - this sort of angry incredulity only happens when you've assumed your ideological opponents are uncivilized cretins floundering in the mire of the unevolved - you're only shocked by such a thing if you haven't bothered to engage your opponents arguments seriously - the arrogance of liberal assumptions.
Where this arrogant presumption really starts to worry me is when it comes to foreign policy - particularly at moment as concerns Obama's sotto voce apparent promise to Medvedev that he'll be free to make concessions on BMD after his re-election - I don't know how else one would read this exchange other than that Obama is willing to trade away our strategic advantage on missile defense in order to win a reduction in respective nuclear stockpiles from Russia - to say that would be a trade of extremely dubious merit doesn't even come close to capturing my scorn for the notion.
Put aside the damage it does to ones negotiating position to let your opponent know how badly you want the thing you want - I'm sure Putin is still smiling over that flub - but if we posit that the Obama administration's strategic assumptions are like to be as tainted and compromised and subject to corruption by liberal arrogance as their other assumptions have shown themselves to be, well... a clear mind unblinkered by bias and ideological vanity would probably find itself a wee bit disquieted by such a thought.
