Have you had any history lessons that weren't crammed into you in high school?

Look, I realize that Americans get fed garbage for history when it doesn't involve either England, the US or the leftist country du jour, but you're spouting junk that hasn't been relevant in historical thought since the 1970s.

Bad childhood? Obama was poor; Louis was actively hunted by people eager to take the throne. I guess that is the same–Obama's feelings got hurt, which is identical to having someone shoot at you.

But let's drop that and really start thinking. There is no way Obama is going to be a patron of the arts on the samer scale. Will he make rap popular? No, it's already there. Louis however made modern comedy, opera, ballet & dance into the forms still enjoyed today.

What great thinkers surround Obama? There's no Cassini or Bernini there, but we do get Joe Biden. Is Obama working with the very best people in the country, especially for foreign affaiors? Well, he does have Nancy Pelosi. She's definitely top drawer material.

Now, in case you slept in economics, you will recall that Louis plowed money into key industries, the ones which, at the time, were the most technologically advanced; and into industries with tremendous sappeal to the foreign market. At the time that was glass, mirrors, and textiles. Obama won't do that–he'd rather run GM into the ground. But someone learned that lesson–Japan. Or have you forgotten *why* Obama seized GM? Something about Japan putting money & expertise into key industries. Obama is dumping it into banks.

So let's take a different look, shall we? Obama won't write the first laws allowing women to form their own guilds and be free of male dominance, and he won't be the first to ban witch-burnings, either; Louis was able to do those first. Like Louis, though, he will encourage women's education. What he won't do is honor the men who served in the military by securing their future and guaranteeing them a new life if disabled by war. We have the VA for that, and they're a modern version of Louis' Invalides.

If you want to look at larger economics, Versailles was a tourist trap that generated a fortune in travellers visiting and copying it. It's closest modern equivalent is probably the space program, where thousands of highly-trained, specialized people worked. Oh yeah–Obama wants us out of space. Oh well!

And then there's gay rights. Louis fought endlessly with the Church and society in general over the treatment of gays, because his own brother was flamboyantly gay. How does Obama treat gays? They're bodies to vote for him, not humans to be treated as equals or whose rights need to be enforced.

Is Obama our Louis XIV? No. We're not that lucky.