He is, at heart, an ardent believer that the wealth of a nation’s citizenry is in the end the property of their government into which the haves pay and bureaucrats then distribute out as social justice in the form or largess to the have-nots.  His increasing vibe of anger, that seems to conversely rise as his poll numbers fall, reveals to me a rather petulant man, unable to grasp the notion that he may not actually be the smartest guy in the room (despite the assurances of his orbiting satellites of sycophants in and out of  the MSM media) and that there are those who disagree with him not because they haven’t heard his message, but rather because they have and have found it wanting.

I found myself listening to his speech and thinking that I’d heard most of it before.  Most but not all.  One new tact that the historian in me found fascinating, and quite cynical, was his reaching down into the soil of Mount Vernon to summon the ghost of our most esteemed first president, George Washington, to help make his case.  Mr. Obama offered up this snippet from Washington’s September 19, 1796 Farwell Address to the nation to bolster his tax raising stance:

“…towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; and no taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.”

Here is how Mr. Obama’s speech-writers interpreted our first president’s advice,   Said our current president:

“It’s always more popular to promise the moon and leave the bill for after the next election or the election after that.  That’s been true since our founding.  George Washington grappled with this problem.  He understood that dealing with the debt is — these are his words – ‘always a choice of difficulties.’  But he also knew that public servants weren’t elected to do what was easy; they weren’t elected to do what was politically advantageous.”

I wonder if anyone in the Obama administration studied history because to reach back to Washington to support, in effect, raising already burdensome income taxes to sustain a massive federal bureaucracy and social welfare state is about as far a reach as one can stretch before toppling over into the abyss of utter nonsense.

In 1796 the federal government over which Washington presided was infinitesimally small when juxtaposed against today’s behemoth in size, power and scope of responsibilities—as the Framers originally intended—especially Washington who was quite leery of a powerful state, having just waged war against a distant yet overbearing central authority in London.

Interestingly, Mr. Obama never mentions that in Washington’s day there was no income tax as we know it.  The revenues to which Mr. Washington referred were in the form of, as explicitly stated the Article I, Section 8, Clause I, “taxes, duties, imposts and excises…but all duties [explicitly defined by contemporary Luther Martin as ‘duties on stamps, parchment, and vellum’], imposts [customs], and excises [consumption, such as wines, manufactured goods] shall be uniform throughout the United States.”  In short, tariffs and consumption taxes provided the federal government what it needed.

Although the idea of what may loosely resemble our post-1913 concept of an income tax had been floated for many years (as deemed “necessary and proper” by Hamilton in Federalist 33) and could be excused in the generic “taxes” language cited, Washington was most probably loathe to the idea of direct taxes on the wealthy (like himself) levied by a powerful central authority to then be used to sustain a multi-trillion dollar entitlement state trillions in the red and getting worse.  Such a notion I think would have been as impossible for him and his peers to imagine as space travel…even for statists like Hamilton.

Let’s take a look at Washington’s entire paragraph from which Obama’s speech-writers cherry-picked soothing words…under the assumption I guess that most Americans would take his “Washington was pro-taxes too” stance at face value.  Washington’s full quote is hardly an endorsement of either the president’s stimulus policies or even his vision of the role of government in our lives.  Here is what Washington said first:

“As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit.  One method of preserving it, is to use it sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense, by cultivating peace, but remembering also, that timely disbursements, to prepare for dangers, frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it;  avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous assertions, in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidably wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden, which we ourselves ought to bear.”

So what we see is Washington’s vision of a federal government whose primary role is national defense; it certainly was not the redistribution of wealth through the machine of a massive federal government.  For the Framers, the U.S. tax code (what there was of it then) existed to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.  It was not to be an engine from which detached bureaucrats could use the public treasure to mete out their vision of social justice through income and benefits redistribution.

Also we see from Washington’s (omitted) remarks a man who would have been appalled by Obama’s spending spree over the past two years–and, to be fair, other presidents’ before him.  And, in all likelihood, even more repelled by a confiscatory income tax apparatus, imposed by a hectoring IRS, through which to pay for it.

Obviously the world has turned over many times since Washington offered his sage advice to the nation in 1796, and what was once considered unimaginable federal overreach in his day has become entitlement and, for many, the accepted role, even duty, of the centralizes state in our daily lives.  But nonetheless the debate as to how broad or narrow the government’s power and influence should be within these new parameters still rages.  Mr. Obama clearly sees an America in which the federal government continues to play the central role in delivering social justice, and it is the wealthy’s duty to support his vision by turning over an even larger portion of the fruits of their labor, the percentage to be set by him, over to Washington for proper dispensation.   Whether or not this vision will come to pass I do not know.  But one thing I believe I can say with utter confidence is that the first man to occupy the office would certainly not support Mr. Obama’s efforts to perpetuate his failing presidency and stubborn adherence to a failed economic and political dogma, financed on the backs of the very people this country needs most to pull us out of this economic morass.  Perhaps he should study Washington more before offering him up as a supporter of redistribution of wealth and running up the credit card even more to support his next stimulus and financially ruinous welfare state.   Washington’s memory deserves better than this.

Earlier this year, a lightning strike just missed the White House and then one did make direct contact at the president’s favorite local golf course at Andrews Air Force Base. Fortunately, the Golfer-in-Chief and his 9-iron were not on the course.

There have been flies in the East Room landing on the President’s lip and a rat in the Rose Garden stealing the show at a press conference. Now, as the Obama family prepares to head back to Blue Heron Farm, a lavish $20 million, 28.5-acre compound in Chilmark, on Martha’s Vineyard, a wall backing the farmhouse porch caught fire and required emergency attention from local firefighters.

This is the third year the Obamas will stay at Blue Heron manor.  The lush property has a pool, apple orchard, basketball court and private beach. Last year the Obamas rented the home for $50,000 a week, up from the prior year’s $35,000 a week.

It’s odd that the President and his family would choose Chilmark, named the most expensive small town in all of America by Business Week back in 2007.  You’d think the last group of people Obama would want to spend time with are private jet owners, snooty yachtsmen and privileged Vineyard dwellers who look for ways to avoid sharing their good fortune with others.

The secluded property is privately owned by a couple who purchased it after the previous owners died in a plane crash.  Dead former owners of property on an island famous for Chappaquiddick are creepy omens and may explain why, after paying $100,000 for two weeks worth of lodging, it seems that each year there is some sort of furlough-wrecking issue that puts a damper on the president’s vacation.

In 2010, the Obamas’ Martha’s Vineyard ice cream and golf plans were rained out. “Strong thunderstorms … lashed the island off Massachusetts …causing power outages, curtailing air transportation and forcing ferry cancellations. They also triggered traffic jams and long lines at movie theaters, restaurants and other indoor venues.”

As a result of the Nor’easter blowing around various and sundry material, “portions of Tisbury Great Pond, the salt-water lagoon fronting the first family’s vacation estate Blue Heron Farm,” was closed “due to high levels of enterococci, an indicator that the water is contaminated with fecal coliform bacteria.”

Last year the obstacles to holiday fun were moisture, dampness and putridity – this year fire threatened to be the spoiler.

With the Obama family’s scheduled arrival weeks away, a wall in the main house near the porch went up in flames.  Chilmark fire Chief David Norton said the automatic fire alarm in the farmhouse alerted two first responders who live nearby.  The dedicated firefighters quickly responded and rushed to the scene. According to Norton, the cause of the fire was not spontaneous combustion, but a faulty gas grill.

For the Obamas, not being able to take a dip in the pond is one thing, but a broken grill could be even more problematic, especially for the President winding down after the much anticipated “Let’s Pretend We’re Listening” taxpayer-funded battleground state bus tour. Anxious to be amongst the people, while on the road America’s self-sacrificial President will be subjected to the smell of diesel fuel and diner food, which could inspire him to put on his barbeque chef hat, hunker down, and rustle up some home cooking.

If he’s planning to grill up homemade chilidogs or trying to replicate a vacation rendition of Michelle’s favorite Shake Shack Burger, the last thing the President needs is to squander quality family time fanning charcoal soaked with Kingsford® lighter fluid.

What could complicate matters for the Obama family is if another Nor’easter should happen to blow through the Vineyard and the gas grill on the porch should happen to act up again, because then they’d be hesitant to dive into the sewage infested lagoon to escape the conflagration.

It remains to be seen whether Barack Obama, who has managed to apportion his time to fit in high-end fundraising and Ramadan dinners, will “cut his vacation short to deal with fiscal and economic issues.”

Maybe instead, the President will decide to  grab a rabbit’s foot, head to Martha’s Vineyard, and seize the opportunity to finally “heal the planet” by slowing the “rising ocean” and addressing the pressing elemental issues at hand – fire, driving rain, and free floating fecal coliform bacteria.

Dr. Benjamin Carson receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Yet one of the nation’s top surgeons, with credibility and acclaim the world over for the pioneering surgeries he has and his personal story of overcoming hardship, recently ripped the dominant health care legislation before Congress in a critique similar to that of conservatives and libertarians. Benjamin Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md., and recipient of numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, criticized in a recent interview the approach of the current bills for their mandate, creation of a “public option,” and lack of malpractice liability reform. 

“My biggest problem is I feel it’s going in the wrong direction,” Carson told reporters at TV station WLOS in Asheville, N.C. (Video here.)“It’s giving us more government and less autonomy. And I think we should be going in exactly the opposite direction. We should be having more autonomy and less government. And that is the kind of thing that brings the prices down.” 

Considered one of the best neurosurgeons in the world, Carson gained acclaim in the ’80s and ‘90s for his pioneering operations separating conjoined twins joined at the head and other procedures that have saved children from epilepsy and brain cancer.  But Carson is also celebrated for his personal story of overcoming poverty and prejudice. An African-American, Carson grew up in a single-parent home Detroit ghetto, but his mother pushed him and his brother to achieve excellence. He is the author of the popular autobiography “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story,” which was made into a TV movie this year with Cuba Gooding Jr. portraying Carson. And he does much philanthropic work through charities such as his “Carson Scholars” fund.

Over the past few years, Carson has been writing and speaking more about public policy, including health care reform. He has railed against excessive litigation, pointing out how much malpractice insurance and other forms of “defensive medicine” to protect against lawsuits add to medical costs. In the interview with WLOS, Carson insisted that tort reform must go “hand in hand” as part of any true health care reform.

“We have to bring a rational approach to medical litigation,” he said. “We’re the only nation in the world that really has this problem. Why is it that everybody else has been able to solve this problem but us? Simple. Special interest groups like the trial lawyers’ association. They don’t want a solution.”

Carson also blasted proposals backed by Obama and most Democrats that would create a government-backed “public option,” saying it would inevitably lead to a “single payer” system like that of Canada, in which the government as the sole insurer would end up calling all the shots for patients. He pointed to how the Canadian government itself crowded out private insurance.  “What happened to the private insurance companies in Canada? Just like that, they were gone, because they couldn’t compete with it (the government). Now, why would it be any different here? That’s one of the things that disappoints me about the lack of honesty … We can’t really debate when there’s all this subterfuge.”

Carson said that despite the problems with American health care, Canada and European countries were not models to emulate in their health insurance financing systems. “All we have to do is go to other places and see what’s going on. See how long people have to wait. Very, very long waiting periods. Why do you think so many people from Canada come here when they have a problem? I know a young man in England who has a problem with his knee. He needs an operation, and the waiting list is so long. … These are the kind of things that people in this country are not used to. But more importantly, it’s something that we don’t have to get used to. We can fix this without going to that kind of system that causes those kinds of long waits.” 

As his main “fix”, Carson proposes a system of patient empowerment in which “individuals and families can own their own insurance; it doesn’t have to be through their employer.”  Not all of Carson’s ideas expressed in the interview were free-market, though. He did propose that the government set insurance rates, and cover patients’ catastrophic costs above $250,000

Above all, Carson was adamant that there transparency and deliberation, rather than a rush to force through a health care bill that no one had read. In fact, he proposed bringing health care to a national vote of the American people “I would say we should have a national referendum on it. People should be able to vote.  That would really work, because now, people would have to explain it. They would have to know what was in it. When we do these big sweeping national things and just sort of jam them through and nobody even knows what’s in it, that’s not democracy. At some point, someone has lost their ideal of what democracy is.”

Carson’s colleagues at Hopkins – ranked by U.S. News and World Report for 19 years as the nation’s best overall hospital and lauded for the millions it spends on charity care for the poor –have also voiced concerns about the direction that health care legislation is going. Citing the cuts to hospitals to pay for the goal of universal coverage – cuts of more than $150 billion in Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals, according to the Congressional Budget office “preliminary analysis” of the Max Baucus’ Senate Finance Committee bill –  the Hopkins officials have been warning about severe stress on Hopkins and other hospitals that Hopkins and other hospitals would face.

At a Sept. 18 “town meeting” on the campus of the main hospital in Baltimore, Md., Johns Hopkins Institutions Director of Federal Relations Beth Felder was blunt about the cuts in reimbursements. “That is going to come out of hospitals and health systems,” she said. “I think that’s not a good thing for us.” Similarly, Johns Hopkins Medicine health system CEO Edward Miller told C-Span on Sept. 16 that cuts in the reimbursement rates for Medicare and Medicaid, “There are going to be less physicians that will care for these patients.”

(Research Assistant Jonathan Moore contributed to this article.)