Hope and Obama's Presidency

Tomorrow we inaugurate Barack Hussein Obama our 44th President. And all I have right now is hope.

I hope Obama is not as economically radical as his associations suggest he is. Which is to say, I hope he only happened to associate with Marxists and that he is in fact not one.

I hope that Obama's presence in his church in Chicago was in fact nothing more than a cynical act of political expediency and in no way reflects either his religious beliefs or general ideology.

I hope that Obama has very, very wise advisors when it comes to international affairs.

I hope (and, yet, cannot hope) that nobody on the international scene decides to test Obama.

I hope that Obama's economic "recovery" bill won't put this economy into a depression. Unfortunately, economist John Lott isn't hopeful.

I hope that Obama's tax cuts pass -- any tax cuts are better than none.

I hope Obama supports Israel over Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran.

I hope Obama does in fact have a successful, uneventful Presidency. He will do so if he abandons his redistributionist ideology and embraced free market economics. Perhaps someone will be able to communicate to him that reality works, and replacing the spontaneous order economy with ideology has not, does not, and will not work.

And, if none of my hopes come true, I at least hope that the Emerson Institute will receive the funding it needs to fight for the free market by supporting the right artists and scholars.