METAPHOR ALERT: Strong winds blow away red carpet laid out for Obamas’ send-off.

REMEMBER WHEN HE PROMISED A MORE HUMBLE AMERICA?

Probably not since the days of the Pharaohs or the more ludicrous Roman Emperors has a head of state travelled in such pomp and expensive grandeur as the President of the United States of America.

While lesser mortals – the Pope, Queen Elizabeth and so on – are usually happy to let their hosts handle most of the security and transport arrangements when they venture beyond their home shores, the United States creates a mini-America on the move to ensure that nothing is left to chance.

If he were a Republican, we’d be hearing about the “Imperial Presidency” in the American press. Instead, such criticism is left to the British.

DON BOUDREAUX: “PRO-BUSINESS.”

There are two ways for a government to be ‘pro-business.’ The first way is to avoid interfering in capitalist acts among consenting adults – that is, to keep taxes low, regulations few, and subsidies non-existent. This ‘pro-business’ stance promotes widespread prosperity because in reality it isn’t so much pro-business as it is pro-consumer. When this way is pursued, businesses are rewarded for pleasing consumers, and only for pleasing consumers.

The second, and very different, way for government to be pro-business is to bestow favors and privileges on politically connected firms. These favors and privileges, such as tariffs and export subsidies, invariably oblige consumers to pay more – either directly in the form of higher prices, or indirectly in the form of higher taxes – for goods and services. This way of being pro-business reduces the nation’s prosperity by relieving businesses of the need to satisfy consumers. When this second way is pursued, businesses are rewarded for pleasing politicians. Competition for consumers’ dollars is replaced by competition for political favors.

The fact that more than 200 American business executives are in India with the President is cause to fear that any pro-business policies he might adopt will be of the second, impoverishing sort.

Wall Street and corporations, generally, are likely to prefer the second version, but taxpayers and consumers should not.

Plus, from the comments: “Does anyone doubt that an effort is being made to create a private sector employment bubble that it is hoped will not pop until after the 2012 election? The Fed is pumping and Obama is angling for export dumping; Hell, these guys think that cash-for-clunkers was great, so why would anyone be surprised if they started advocating subsidized exporting (de facto or de jure).” Not that it’s working for them so far.

THE GOVERNMENT-SHUTDOWN BOGEYMAN: “First, Cantor didn’t threaten a shutdown. He was answering a question. Secondly I wonder if the author of this dribble remembered that our Federal government is currently operating without a budget and there isn’t any party gridlock. Third, the President not Congress, decides the scope of any shutdown. Cantor can’t shut the government down, only the Chief Executive can do that. Fourth, Cantor’s ‘petty demands’ are precisely the reason why Republicans were swept to power in the House and made huge gains in the Senate. People want fiscal sanity back and if Republicans don’t deliver then they’ll likely be sent packing. People want spending cuts and the growth of government scaled back, not just arrested.”

BARBARIANS: Look Who Tried To Stop Rescue Of An Arab Boy.

FROM CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS, a guide to cancer etiquette.

ED DRISCOLL: “MSNBC’s Chris Matthews seems determined to live out Groucho’s famous quip that he has his principles, and if you don’t like them…well, he has others.”

CHANGE: World Bank Chief Calls For A New Global Gold Standard.

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “If Obama can’t see this for the problem that it will be for him he is a horribly stupid man.”

KEITH OLBERMANN will be back on the air Tuesday. I promise to watch him as much as I did before he was suspended.

UPDATE: Related thoughts:

The act is not at all what Olbermann says it is. It’s a very old act: The fire and brimstone preacher.

The left has become horrifically sanctimonious. They have become what they hated in the right back in the 60s.

Every issue for the left is a moral issue on the level of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement. So, their opponents are always wicked devils consumed with sin.

And, it’s their job to save us from eternal damnation.

Olbermann is just the secular version of the fire and brimstone preacher.

Just nowhere near as attractive or moving.

Oh, I don’t know. I saw Olbermann drinking a Pina Colada at Trader Vic’s. His hair was perfect.

TIM CAVANAUGH: Why Is Ron Paul Supporting Spendthrift Spencer Bachus for Committee Chair? “Bachus is not just an out of control spender. He is directly implicated in the most important domestic failure of the last decade: the refusal to rein in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the fight over the 2005 Federal Housing Finance Reform.”

HOWARD NEMEROV LOOKS AT the election and the Second Amendment.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Outlet Sale.

CHANGE: Janet Daley: The West is turning against big government – but what comes next? “So a generation after the collapse of totalitarian socialism, its democratic form is finally crumbling as well. And, oddly enough, the latter may take longer than the former to unravel.”

ERIC SCHEIE: “I don’t like to gloat. But if I did, I’d be pretty happy about what happened here in Michigan on Tuesday.”

Plus, a warning: “It has to be remembered that the voters weren’t voting for Republicans so much as they were voting against arrogant, entrenched, power which has been wielded these recent years by Democrats.”

CLARITY, NOT COMPROMISE: Ed Morrissey has some further thoughts in response to my Sunday Washington Examiner column.

U.S. AND EUROPE renew vows on nuclear security.

COPYRIGHT AND CULTURE: Newly enemies.

25-50% OFF OF Kids’ Toys For Christmas.

BARRY RUBIN: My son’s soccer team loses every game because his coach tries to force equality. So I took over the coaching duties for a day …

HERE COME the drones.

A CAUSE FOR WORRY: “Whoever invented the ‘laptop’ probably didn’t worry too much about male reproductive health.”

JOE BIDEN WANTS “to seize the power of the patriarch.”

JAMES JOYNER ON UNWED MOTHERHOOD: “I’m not sure what’s shocking: That the rate for blacks has tripled in my lifetime or that whites have now surpassed the level of pathology Moynihan described.”

COMING SOON FROM MY FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE BEN BARTON: The Lawyer-Judge Bias in the American Legal System, being published by Cambridge University Press. “Virtually all American judges are former lawyers. This book argues that these lawyer-judges instinctively favor the legal profession in their decisions and that this bias has far-reaching and deleterious effects on American law.”

IN THE MAIL: Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America.