Obama's rhetoric is keyed to the election cycle

With an array of voices from which to choose, President Obama has opted for the apocalytic approach.

"This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse," Obama wrote in a newspaper piece titled, "The Action Americans Need."

His urgency is understandable. With every day that passes, more and more Americans find out what's in his pork-laden $900 billion payoff bill for the Democrat party's clients, laughingly referred to as an economic stimulus package. The more pressure he can exert on Congress to pass it sooner, rather than later, the better the chance it will pass.

Another consideration also may be coming into play. His presidency so far has been marked by one pratfall after another. A long recession might be a deal-breaker that makes him a one-term president. If the economy has failed to recover two years from now, his party may look for another candidate for the 2012 election.

A sustained recovery might, in fact, be the best course for most Americans. The economy, in all likelihood, would cure itself as it works off the distortions created by the government-inspired boom, and subsequent bust, in the housing market.

But that course does not serve the interests of the Democrat Party, which lie in a government-stimulated recovery that serves the election cycle. If the past is prologue, the party in power will over-stimulate, resulting in a spike in inflation.

Inflation, however, is less lethal to the incumbent party than recession.

Presidential rhetoric coincides more closely with the demands of the election cycle than with the obective condition of the economy. Nothwithstanding the apocalyptic rhetoric, it is Obama's presidency, more than the economy, that is headed for the ditch.