Author John L. Mason wrote a book back in 2006 called “An Enemy Called Average,” and more recently a follow-up called “Conquering an Enemy Called Average.” In both books he deals with this “just get through it” “C-average” mentality and launches an all-out attack against mediocrity.
I think the mantra of many on the left is “just get by,” and if that doesn’t work – lie.
In years gone by, I have had a California’s contractor’s license, my pilot’s license, and have been a real estate agent. In preparing for each, the instructors repeatedly told us the bare-minimum number of questions we had to get correct to get the license. There was no push to be top in my class. No push to be better than the next person. I passed all three with no real excitement about any of them and no real feeling of accomplishment.
Until recently, California schools “taught to the test” that all California students are required to pass in order to graduate. They weren’t taught “past” the test or to “be the best,” but simply “to get by” and just pass it.
This is frightening.
President Obama seems to subscribe to this same kind of thinking. He has surrounded himself with people who think, like him, that average, mis-speaking (lying), and just getting by (“getting away with it”) equate to excellence.
Timothy Geithner, former Secretary of the Treasury, didn’t know he had cheated on his taxes. He called it a “software” issue and never worked to fix it until he was slated to become part of the administration. Sounds like an Obama success story to me.
Kathleen Sebelius did such a great job as governor of Kansas that she had to suspend tax refunds by the state because of a lack of revenue. She proposed raising sales, property and income taxes but was eventually pressured to make deep and uncomfortable spending cuts to get the state back on track.
She is now your Health and Human Services secretary. Sebelius is pro-abortion, receiving considerable sums from abortion doctors, even to the point of erroneously reporting moneys received from Dr. George Tiller, who was said to have performed more than 60,000 abortions. She paid fines for “under reporting” those receipts.
Sebelius also ignored warnings by the FDA and ordered the morning-after pill to be made available over the counter to children under the age of 17 who felt they needed it. Thankfully, a judge with a brain struck this down.
Now, with debilitating glitches in the Obamacare rollout, Secretary Sebelius refuses to come and answer questions directly to Congress, the body she is charged with answering to. Yet another Obama success story.
And let’s not forget Lois Lerner, former director of the IRS Exempt Organizations division, who purposely targeted freedom groups such as the Tea Party and any group with suspicious words like freedom, Constitution, liberty or patriot in their names. She also mis-spoke (lied) and blamed it on two rogue agents in Ohio. When everything started to unravel, she finally came before Congress, assured us of her innocence, and then promptly pleaded the 5th Amendment.
Then, former IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman mis-spoke (lied) when he testified that his 118 visits to the White House were for non-business things such as the Easter Egg Roll. Just let that sink in for a moment.
Sarah Hall Ingram, another IRS commissioner who headed up the division that targeted the above-mentioned groups, showed emails proving information was shared (against the law) with White House officials about these groups for direction.
And with all of that going on, U.S. Rep. Gerry Connolly, Democrat from Virginia, said it was all just a joke and a misunderstanding.
To steal a phrase from Uncle Joe Biden, “What a bunch of malarkey.”
Every one of these, and many more, were and continue to be failures. No corrections will be made to behavior or changes in personnel because to this administration, failure is success.
The president ascribed his $600 million failure of a healthcare website (outsourced to a Canadian firm – another US failure) to minor glitches and likened it to Apple Corp.’s recent iPhone software issue.
Apple makes money. You don’t. Apple lives within its budget. You don’t. Apple immediately stops products from failing by canning them or revamping them. You don’t.
Mr. President, with all due respect, your ignorance and lack of experience are showing. You believe you are creating jobs. Congratulations, you are. Part-time jobs. All the while losing full-time jobs. Eighty-eight of the jobs created last year were part-time, while many full-time jobs simply went away.
You are definitely keeping your promise to fundamentally change this country. It’s rapidly changing from a country of success and promise to a country of failure and hopelessness, and to a country where words no longer have meaning and failure will be the new success.
Joe Messina is host of The Real Side (TheRealSide.com), a nationally syndicated talk show that runs on AM-1220 KHTS radio and SCVTV [here]. He is also the current president of the Hart School Board. His commentary publishes Mondays.
Failure - The New Measure of Success | Commentary by Joe Messina
