The Impact of the Puppet Presidency

  We've been watching the absurdity of Obama's feckless policy for five years; now we see the fruition in the lives of every day Americans.
  You don't have to be a Tea Partyer to be angry about the mess he's created.
  It's obvious at this point that the Obamacare plan was designed to fail. The more people who lose their insurance policies, the more will--presumably--sign up for Obamacare.
  Except it's not really turning out that way.
  Many folks are going on to Medicaid.
  Young healthy people will stay on their parents' policies as long as they can--until 26, as inconceivable as that may seem. Those decisions will have repercussions. Will they live with their parents until then? The unemployment rate for the ideal youth market is over 17%. Many live by working several part time jobs, or not working at all.
  What impact will the lack of success for young people have on the housing market? With all those baby boomers entering retirement age, will they be unable to downsize their houses because fewer buyers will be on the market? 
  Obama's most faithful believers--the young and minorities--may still cling to their determination that he is an effective leader, even after a disastrous five years.
  And they are the most affected by Obama's policies. 
  It's apparent that not only is Obamacare designed to fail, it's spectacularly destructive of American policy and security.
  It's not just that the website coding is BAD; it's that the policies are horrendous. 
  One small article that went almost unnoticed this week was the revelation that numerous incorrect phone numbers were on the Obamacare website, directing users to call private businesses rather than the "navigators" who are "trained" to help them.
  So how did that happen?
  In addition to other problems--untrained and unsecured navigators, no promise of privacy, unworkable coding, onerous regulations that strangle the insurance market and bounce people off their plans, excessive cost and so forth--someone wrote the wrong phone numbers on the website.
  How is that a mistake? It had nothing to do with HTML, but rather the competence of the individuals supplying the information to the coders.
  Impossible!
  And yet Obama has no idea that any of this did not work.
  We've had videos of Obama showing us how to log onto government websites, yet he knows nothing about the nightmare website.
  Saw it on the news.
  Obama knew nothing about the NSA spying.
  Nothing about Fast and Furious.
  He knew nothing about the IRS intrusion into conservatives' political and personal lives.
  He knows nothing about the IRS harassment of businesses who support conservative causes.
  He knew nothing about Benghazi, in fact, was mysteriously absent the entire evening.
  Gensert at American Thinker enumerates the things Obama didn't know here:

Well...after the IRS targeting of political opponents, the NSA spying on everyone -- including the tapping of the German Chancellor's cell phone, the Fast and Furious dead, Solyndra and all the other crony capitalist backroom deals, the Pigford payouts, his $6 trillion addition to the national debt, the 13.6% U6 unemployment rate, the increase in food stamp and disability rolls, the Benghazi dead and the cover-up, the Syria embarrassment, the racial divisiveness, the doubling of the price of gasoline, and now, Healthcare.gov, people are starting to realize a thing or two about Mr. Hope and Change.

  But:

The shutdown of our government, while seemingly detrimental to Republicans in the short run, will be a blessing going forward.  The MSM did conservatives a favor by making sure every American knew that the Republicans shut down the government in an attempt to defund ObamaCare.  As the ACA touches the lives of every American and the anger builds, they will remember who tried to stop it.

The nail in the coffin of progressivism is ObamaCare.  After all, it is a law that penalizes almost everyone, while simultaneously ruining the nation's healthcare system.  So staggering will its failure be, and its failure is inevitable, Hillary Clinton may be forced to run in 2016 as a small-government conservative.

  Kudlow says it's the end of the entitlement dream.
  Henninger at the WSJ says yes, that's true.
  Ponnaru at NRO says conservatives need to take advantage of the moment, not just bewail the state of affairs but rather working at "persuading and electioneering."

Effective political movements create the conditions for their own success. Conservatism has not done enough of that, but when it has prospered it has never been moved by despair. The apocalyptic style of politics holds that the future of the country is at stake. That is true, which is why conservatives need to get to the work of persuading and electioneering — and drop the fantasy of a shortcut.

  I ran into an old soldier the other day, a prominent local businessman. We discussed the sad state of politics which concluded with his comment that a lot of hurt was going to happen for a lot of people before they figure out reality and what's right.
  That part is already happening; as Gensert says, it was Jimmy Carter who ushered in the Ronald Reagan.
   Maybe then, as he says, we can "stick a fork in Obama.
  And it's the impact of the Puppet Presidency that will reverberate for years to come. 
UPDATE: And right on cue, David Gregory chides Axelrod for not keeping Obama from lying making such a tactical error by lying  making a pledge he couldn't keep, as if Obama doesn't have a mind of his own.

eet the Press host David Gregory went after former Obama advisor David Axelrod Sunday morning, asking why he didn’t stop President Barack Obama from making the “if you like your health care you can keep it” pledge, as he was a crucial White House figure at the time.

“You were in the White House,” Gregory said. “You were advising the president on the kinds of things he should say. Why did not you, or somebody else, say, ‘Mr. President, don’t say no matter what you’re going to keep your health care.’ That’s why you’re there!”

  The editors at the New York Times, otoh, won't even admit Obama lied, but rather chides the public for ever even owning such tawdry insurance policies.
  One can almost even see the turned up noses and curled lips of the elite even now, as they conferred over the subject of the inadequacy of our insurance policies.
  Wonder if those editors have figured out they may not be exempt from insurance policy cancellations.