Presidential Placebo

A placebo is a pharmacologically inert substance – generally in the form of a tablet – that is given to a medical patient either for the patient’s mental benefit or in lieu of an actual drug when testing the effectiveness of a pharmaceutical. Often times, the placebo is a sugar pill; the patient believes that he or she is being given an actual medication and, in some cases, said patient realizes relief from the symptoms of his or her affliction.

So it is with our nation’s first “placebo president”. President Obama ran in 2008 on a platform promising “hope & change”. Unfortunately for America, the aforementioned hope and change amounted to nothing more than a political sugar pill. The nation took the pill and eagerly anticipated its curative effects. Nearly three years after first being administered the placebo, Americans are no better off than they were prior to being given the pill. In fact, it could be argued that the nation is, in fact, far WORSE off due to the fact that trillions of dollars have been borrowed in an attempt to cure the economic malaise for which the patient was being treated. In pharmaceutical testing, a given percentage of a group of patients is intentionally given a placebo while the remainder of the test group is administered the actual medication being evaluated. It is not unusual for a patient receiving the placebo to realize at least a partial abatement of symptoms merely from the psychosomatic effects of the placebo. In other words, the afflicted patient believes that he or she is being given a drug that will make him or her feel better and he or she does, in fact, see an improvement.

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So it is with the forty percent or so of Americans that give President Obama a positive evaluation insofar as his performance as president is concerned. The steadfast Obama supporters were suffering from an affliction. They eagerly anticipated a dose of the new political medication known as “hope & change”. What they actually received was a placebo with a “Hope & Change” label on the bottle. The Obama sugar pill has had no discernible pharmacological effect upon the nation – certainly not a positive effect anyway. Yet the Obama supporters continue to believe that they are being cured of their malady. A few more doses and they just KNOW that they will be completely cured. Unfortunately, holding out hope only goes so far. At some point, the sugar pills will be all used up, the patient will still have the disease (and it will have progressed in severity), and vast sums of money will have been expended in the process. If only the nation had been able to see through Doctor Obama’s sales pitch and had had the wisdom to ask to see his medical qualifications before allowing him to administer his medication.