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Obama's Future Seen In UK's Past

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By KEVIN WALKER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 1, 2009

"Welcome to Obamaland," by James Delingpole (Regnery, $27.95)

For the conservative you know and love - or the one that resides in you - here's a gift from maybe the last place you'd expect it: Great Britain.

Long a country controlled by the more liberal Labour Party, Great Britain is usually a country American conservatives turn to show how not to do things. Want to see a health care system that doesn't work? Check out the government-controlled one in Britain. Want to see how government welfare doesn't work? Check out Europe!

And so on. However, James Delingpole has an (often funny) message for American conservatives who think this way: He agrees with you, and he wants to warn you that with President Obama in charge, America is going to look a lot like Europe. The subtitle of the book is: "I have seen your future and it doesn't work." He means it. Here's a sample from the book's introduction:

"I am afraid I have a terrible message to impart. I have just seen the future. Your future. And I'm sorry to say it sucks."

By seeing the future, Delingpole, who writes for The Times of London, means he has seen what happened in Britain when people elected a young, smart, liberal leader who everyone thought would improve the country. The year was 1997 and the man was Tony Blair. Delingpole writes: "Twelve years on, and we're so screwed we might as well be Burkina Faso. Our economy is in ruins. We're very afraid, and understandably so, for of all the G7 nations, our economy has officially been famed the feeblest, the most out-of-control, and the one least likely to make a quick recovery from the global depression."

(Aside: Burkina Faso is a landlocked, sub-Saharan nation not exactly known as an economic powerhouse).

Delingpole uses humor throughout the book, but his message is serious. He even chastises conservatives who secretly hope Obama will do well. He won't, Delingpole warns. He offers this consolation: "Someday your beliefs will be vindicated ... reality will win out."

Right or wrong, Delingpole is often very funny. Some of the chapter titles alone are worth a chuckle. "Never Trust a Hippie," for example, or "Why Socialists Have No Class." Although "Barbecue the Polar Bears" might offend more than it amuses.

And that's the thing with this book. Although Delingpole presents his arguments using humor, one wonders how that will go over here in the United States, where (unfortunately) most political debate is deadly serious, and, not coincidentally, deadly dull.

Delingpole takes on the topics conservatives usually take on - global warming, diversity, big government - but does so in often interesting new ways. For example, his chapter on race, "The Great White Liberal Death Wish," speculates that many white people are having problems with their own ethnicity because they are bombarded by the message that being white is, well, bad. He blames this cultural phenomenon primarily on "self-hating white guys" (he puts Michael Moore on this list, for instance).

Still, Delingpole falls into the same trap as many political commentators on both sides of the aisle by spending too much time attacking people on the other side rather than addressing the issues. At least he's funny about it, and he's one of the few book authors questioning Obama rather than praising him, which alone makes this book worthy of mention.

Kevin Walker edits Friday Extra and the books pages for the Tribune.

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