In Obama's leftist fantasy, progress is marked by illusory successes and infuriated voters

In the fantasy that plays out between Barack Obama's ears, Vladimir Lenin's health care aspirations are taking shape, against all odds, in America as smoke-spewing corporations and evil Wall Street tycoons await the harsh discipline of a righteous White House.

The Obama-friendly Politico puts it this way:

"During protracted negotiations over the health care bill, Obama was criticized for giving congressional leaders too much leeway and too little direction, and for bending too easily to the timetables of Capitol Hill.

No more. Aides say that with the momentum from the most complex domestic bill to pass Congress in 45 years, Obama now will push Congress to close campaign-finance loopholes opened by the Citizens United case, adopt his overhaul of the No Child Left Behind education bill, and perhaps even tackle a clean-energy bill.

'He goes into these into these negotiations, and into these legislative battles, with a stronger hand because people understand that he’s going to fight for what he believes in,' White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said in an interview. 'Congress proved to itself that it’s well within their power to do the big things that’ll bring about the type of change that they were elected to bring.'"

At this point, Politico might have asked, "What real changes are you talking about?" but passed up the opportunity.

What we have is a carefully honed image of a forceful leader setting things right in a hurry. An unschooled oberver might miss the fact that, 14 months into the Obama presidency, few things have changed in the real world.

Obama has doubled down on George Bush's misbegotten effort to transform Afghanistan into a rational democracy, with a corresponding rise in bloodshed by American troops.

AP:

The number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan has roughly doubled in the first three months of 2010 compared to the same period last year as Washington has added tens of thousands of additional soldiers to reverse the Taliban's momentum.


Those deaths have been accompanied by a dramatic spike in the number of wounded, with injuries more than tripling in the first two months of the year and trending in the same direction based on the latest available data for March.

Effective leaders end ill-advised wars; they don't perpetuate them.

Yes, Obama and his Democrat allies have enacted Obamacare, making good on Lenin's observation: "Medicine is the keystone of the socialist arch." In doing so, however, they also magnified the instrusiveness of government against the wishes of a majority of Americans and used borrrowed federal money to bribe and coerce Democrat members of Congress into voting for the so-called reform.

As a result, U.S. corporations are taking a financial hit immediately at a time when the economy is struggling to recover from a nasty recession and unemployment remains stubbornly high.

While the pain inflicted by Obamacare is immediate, the benefits, if there are any, don't kick in for several years. Given the voter fury ignited by the Obamacare battle, it is likely that Republicans, who opposed Obamacare, will retake the House in the November election while unseating some Democrats in the Senate.

Subsequently, some aspects of Obamacare are likely to be repealed before they take effect. While Obama may veto any repeals, that will fuel the fury of Republican and Democrat opponents of Obamacare, reducing Obama's chance of reelection in 2012.

Some aspects of Obamacare also may be struck down on appeal to the courts.

After 14 months, Obama and the Democrats have little to boast about and much to fear from an aroused electorate.

But things can get worse, and probably will.

Coming soon: a renewed effort at cap and trade, a social engineering project designed to force consumers to buy  cars they don't want and pursue lifestyles that will enrich leftist-friendly investors in green technology while preserving oil fields off U.S. shores and in Alaska for whoever picks up the remnants of a once-powerful country.

Yes, the science behind the green revolution has been thoroughly discredited almost everywhere. In the fantasyland between Obama's ears, however, it's still persuasive and compelling.

So compelling that the White House will now try to enact rules and regulations that will drive up the costs of U.S. manufacturers and hinder their ability to compete in international markets.

The resulting downturn undoubtedly will be perceived by the White House as justification for a new stimulus package.