Obama still lacks substance

Bursting the expanding balloon of euphoria over the ascension of Barack Obama should not be so difficult as Hillary Clinton makes it appear. All that is required is the gentle, but decisive pinprick of reality. Hillary herself has not been pierced, insulated as she is by thick layers of political celebrity and leftist abstractions, but that should not be the case with the rest of us, particularly with regard to Obama.

Consider his economic plan, brandished recently in response to the small but audible crescendo of voices calling for the celestial Democratic frontrunner to extend his oratory beyond an ostensibly endless repertoire of buzz words and feel-good euphemisms about change and hope.

Obama promises to spend $150 billion over 10 years on what he calls "a green energy sector" that will produce as many as 5 million new jobs and another $60 billion over the same period on infrastructure. Naturally, universal health care figures into Obama's economic vision. He vows, typically with little in the way of facts to validate the assertion, that he can shrink average family insurance premiums by $2,500 annually. That, by the way, would cost an additional $50 billion to $65 billion a year.

Most two-earner families would get a $1,000 tax cut, while singles would reap $500 in annual savings. People paying for college would get a $4,000 refundable tuition tax credit. The 7 million or so retirees making less than $50,000 annually would be exempt from income tax. The Social Security payroll tax ceiling would be raised somewhere above the current $102,000.

How to pay for all this is the pinprick element of the equation. The short answer is long on pain and rich in contemptuous familiarity: federal confiscators would plunge their sticky mits further into taxpayers' pockets. The concept of money as matter, that is, something finite, long has been lost on the learned left and appears not less so on Obama.

His plan, with its extravagant subtitles (such as "National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank") is not so extraordinary, even in that strange, wonderful world known as progressivism. In fact, Hillary, recognizing the similarity between Obama's tax proposals and her own, has accused her frustratingly impervious foil of plagiarism. The charge has been made before — remember, Obama last week acknolwedged that he lifted phrases for a speech from the words of a Democratic ally, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Obama's far-reaching appeal is understandable. No candidate so far has matched his skill as a public speaker, both in his use of the language and his presence as one who commands a room with ease. He understands, as did President Reagan before him, that his task is to extend his reach beyond partisan boundaries. And like Reagan, Obama is uniquely able to carry out that mission.

But the attraction appears so far to be largely superficial, the sort people feel for a pretty face. Obama has shown us remarkable dexterity in lining up legions to follow him. The reality that should stab anyone willing to consider it is that for all the stirring rhetoric, the place where Obama would lead us appears to be far less appealing than the man himself.