National Change the Subject Day

There are a few hundred people who are protesting in the Occupy Wall Street movement in downtown New York City. There are SMALLER protests in cities and towns around the country. All together there may be between 3000 and 5000 folk who are part of this movement. Simply put, there are more people stuck in traffic at this moment than are taking part in the Occupy movement. Despite the tiny size of the protest movement, it is receiving enormous coverage from the media. In the last three days, I heard about fifteen newscasts which ranged from local news in the New York City market to national radio network news and national network television news. During that time, all but one of the newscasts began with coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The enormous coverage of this tiny movement has me wondering why the media is so enfatuated with these protests. The reason is obviously partly due to the leftist orientation of the protest movement. Many in the liberal media feel a kinship with the protester. Another reason is nostalgia by some for the protest movements of the past. These two reasons would explain an initial burst of positive coverage, but not the continuing onslaught of stories that we are seeing. It has to be something more, and I think that I realize what that reason is. This coverage is a way to change the subject. Indeed, it seems like we are discovering a new holiday: National Change the Subject Day.

Think of it this way: the economy is in terrible shape. Unemployment is not going down. Economic growth is paltry and we will be lucky to avoid another recession. One of president Obama's big initiatives to create jobs, green energy, is failing, and America is discovering that Obama used the green energy initiative to shovel billions of dollars to his supporters like those at Solyndra. The Justice Department is totally politicized and the Attorney General seems to be lying to Congress. The public is not buying into Obama's so called "jobs bill". Nor is the public accepting Obama's push to blame Republicans for the mess that Obama himself made of the economy. Obama's poll numbers are heading lower than the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Simply put, unless the attention of the public could be changed to something else, Obama's days as president were clearly numbered.

Bringing forth a protest like Occupy Wall Street was a perfect answer to Obama's problem. Here is a movement that has no announced goals. That allows people to put their own ideas in as the supposed goals to be achieved. It is a move very similar to Obama's own 2008 campaign. Obama did not set forth detailed explanations of what he proposed to do. He was just bringing hope and change. He was only spouting new age nonsense like "We are the ones we have been waiting for." That lack of detail allowed potential supporters with different aspirations to ascribe their own ideas to the Obama campaign; he was all things to all people. Now, Occupy Wall Street can be all protests to all people. So having a vague protest movement lets some folks think that something is being done about the issue they care about.

There is underemployment at a rate around 17%. So what! We do not need to focus on that. Instead, we can focus on people marching around New York beating on drums. Forget for the moment that no amount of drum beating will reduce unemployment. Forget for the moment that Obama has done nothing to reduce unemployment during his term in office. Forget for the moment that Obama's latest "jobs" plan is basically a one year tax cut paid for with a long term tax increase, in other words, the mortgaging of our children's futures for a one year fix, something like mortgaging the house in order to buy heroin.

We have spent this entire year watching Obama jump from position to position in an effort to find one that the folks will like. 2011 is only nine and a half months gone and we have already seen Obama as 1) the president who wanted to increase spending over the next 10 years while doing nothing to reduce the federal deficit (Obama's budget proposal put forward in February); 2) the president who insists that we have to cut the federal deficit by at least 4 trillion dollars (Obama's announced position right before the deal to raise the debt ceiling; 3) the president who said that raising any taxes in poor economic times was counter productive (Obama's position in January right after agreeing to extension of the Bush tax rates); 4) the president who insists that we have to raise the taxes on milliionaires and billionaires who are not paying their fair share (Obama's current position); 5) the president who insisted that his jobs bill needed an up or down vote without amendment and who said he would veto any bill that did not pass the program in its entirety (Obama's position about three weeks ago); 6) the president who says he is fine with the senate junking his entire tax increase structure in the jobs bill and replacing it with a different scheme; 7) the president who wants the House and Senate to break apart his jobs bill and consider the proposals it contains individually (the current position). There are many more examples of Obama's clear inability to govern or lead, but these shifting positions should illustrate the point well enough.

Well, now there is something to focus on other than Obama's failures. We have Occupy Wall Street and the media could not be happier. It gives them a chance to try to save Obama from himself. Strangely, the media thinks that if it does not focus on Obama's inability to govern, the people will just forget about it. I don't think so. but we will see the truth soon enough.