Ok, I've been sitting on this all morning, contemplating how best to approach the subject of the Obama campaign's newest effort to woo women voters. Apparently the best they could come up with is "The Life of Julia," an interactive set of slides documenting the fictitious life of a hypothetical female and how Obama's policies will help her while Mitt Romney's would ultimately hurt her. Sounds completely legit, right?
I have to say, I'm insulted. I'm insulted to think the Obama administration honestly thinks such a simplistic scenario accurately reflects the life of a modern woman. Instead of being the champion of women he claims to be, it seems pretty clear to me that Barack Obama knows nothing about us. "The Life of Julia" tells the story not of a strong, independent woman, but of a completely helpless and hopeless cretin who depends on government assistance to function. Uh, no thanks.
The second thing that struck me about this lame new campaign is how blatantly false & misleading most of its assertions are. Take for instance Julia at age 3:
The young toddler enrolls in HeadStart, a program to "help get her ready" for school. "Because of steps President Obama has taken to improve programs like this one, Julia joins thousands of students across the country who will start kindergarten ready to learn and succeed." That sounds nice, but it's a load of bull. As my friend Ben Shapiro notes, HeadStart has been a huge failure:
The Department of Health and Human Services itself found that the government has invested $150 billion in Head Start since 1965 … and that has yielded precisely zero impact for the kids involved.
Darn that Mitt Romney for wanting to cut 20% of the funding for a failing program!
According to Obama, the next age at which the government re-enters Julia's life is 17 -- an interesting notion since government-run public schools will have failed to help her realize her full potential for the past 14 years. But apparently Obama's not worried about improving basic education. Instead, he inflates the college bubble further by pouring funds into his "Race to the Top" program to help Julia prepare for life at one of America's universities. But mean old Mitt Romney would cut funding from the education budget “to pay for tax cuts to millionaires.” You know, because all America's education system needs is more money.
Before you know it, Julia is off to college. Unfortunately for her, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. According to Obama's scenario, Julia requires surgery. Hee-haw, big government to the rescue! "[The surgery] is thankfully covered by her insurance due to a provision in health care reform that lets her stay on her parents' coverage until she turns 26." Because nothing fixes a boo-boo like complete dependence on your parents and the government when you're 26. (At this point, I'm truly beginning to wonder if Julia has figured out how to wipe her own butt without assistance.)
Apparently Julia recovered quickly because she manages to graduate with her degree, pay off her student loans (thanks, Uncle Sam!) and get a job as a web designer. "Because of steps like the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Julia is one of millions of women across the country who knows she'll always be able to stand up for her right to equal pay," Obama boasts. Let's just hope Julia's new job isn't in the Obama administration -- a place where women earn considerably less than their male counterparts.
At 27, Julia is a young professional and doesn't want to be punished with a baby worried about her health, so she signs up for the birth control Obama forced her insurance company to pay for. Missing from the sequence, however, are the years during college where she "experimented" with sexuality and managed a number of pregnancy scares with quickie abortions at her local Planned Parenthood -- thanks to funding from the Obama administration, of course.
Eventually, Julia has a child (somehow without a man ever entering the picture), sends her kid off to another failing public school so he can continue the cycle of dependence and starts her own web design business. Since we are speaking hypothetically here, I feel it's important to point out that if Julia were a smart businesswoman, she would undoubtedly notice how expensive it is to do business in the United States. Thanks to crippling corporate taxes levied by the Obama administration, Julia exports her company's jobs overseas.
She retires and happily receives her Social Security benefits, the Obama camp says, except they fail to mention how Julia only receives $.50/month because the SS trust fund went bankrupt 60 years earlier. Also unfortunately for Julia, her dreams of passing on her successful business to her son are dashed since the Obama campaign failed to predict that her son would be forced to sell off the business altogether to pay the hefty federal tax levied on her remaining estate after she dies. As Jim Geraghty predicts, "at age 68, death panels finally catch up with Julia."
RIP, Julia.
Julia's hypothetical life story has been making the rounds on the internet and the Twitterverse has also pointed out key items missing from Obama's timeline:
#Julia is bummed. Her share of the national debt went up $16,345 under Obama.#Julia, about to graduate, can’t find a job in the Obama economy
#Julia the commuter has to pay double for gas from what she paid 4 years ago.
What other perils do you foresee in Julia's pathetic government-run life? Let us know in the comments!
----------------
Related: David Harsanyi asks, "Who the hell is Julia and why am I paying for her whole life?"
