Munchausen by Obama

It was just a typical, hum-drum Tuesday at a Burlington Coat Factory in Columbus, Ohio. Then an unnamed woman rolled up in a limousine and said, "Hey everybody! Free coats!"



In the video, that cop's nervousness is palpable when he has to go in front of that crowd and tell them, "sorry, but...scram." It's not clear whether this was before or after the point where the angry mob on the inside of the store trashed the place and looted merchandise.

There was a TV news crew on the scene when the woman announced the shopping spree and started writing rubber checks to people for their rent. Why is her face pixeled out? I smell a conspiracy. Was this Elvis in blackface and a high-pitched voice? Obama in a fat suit and fright wig?

Well, no. It was just a crazy lady who has a history of phony 911 calls and creating disturbances.




"She's not a crazy type of person who goes out and causes trouble," said the lady's daughter. Wait a minute. I mean no disrespect, and I have all the compassion in the world for crazy people, but isn't "a crazy type of person who goes out and causes trouble" specifically what your mom has been for quite a long time, according to your own account and by the eyewitness testimony of Burlington Coat Factory employees and the angry mob who trashed and looted the store? If the camera crew had bothered to ask a customer his opinion of your mother as he put a coat rack through a plate glass window, he might well have said "she's a crazy type of person who goes out and causes trouble!" SMASH!!

This woman will, in all likelihood, face jail time and/or confinement in a mental institution. Her supposed good intentions ("she wanted to help people, she just didn't have the means to help") won't matter a bit to the state of Ohio or to Burlington Coat Factory's attorneys.

But this poor lady was just following the lead of another great philanthropist, who never let a lack of "the means to help" stop him.

Of course, some might say that his methods of helping (particularly given that his favored engine of charity lacks the means) don't really help. Some might even say that he has no real interest in helping people to begin with. They might even say that his desire to "help" has more to do with a disordered impulse toward self-aggrandizement and need for attention and approval, even if such attention and approval can only be had on borrowed time, until everyone realizes that he didn't really win the lottery.

And that's really the point. What happens when some of these same people realize that the government doesn't have any money after all, and that their coats aren't free?



I guess it's likely that they won't ever know, which, under the circumstances, isn't all bad. I suppose if our schools had any interest in producing free citizens (as opposed to cowed and compliant proles), the uprisings would take place a lot sooner. And they wouldn't have the nearest inanimate object (like the Burlington Coat Factory) as their target.