Just over a year ago the world was buzzing with Obama Mania. As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama had used persuasive speeches to win the votes of an American population that, for the most part, bought his sales pitch hook, line and sinker. Now, just a year after his inauguration President Obama has dropped from a cult like rock star status to the voice that turns people the other way. In fact, Obama’s trust level has fallen so far that if you’re looking promote, sell or campaign anything this year he should be dead last on your list of pitchmen.
In September President Obama flew to Copenhagen, Denmark in an effort to bring the 2016 Olympic Games to his hometown Chicago. Days later the city of Chicago was one of the first cities removed from consideration as a host for the 2016 games. Strike one!
Last fall also saw the president personally campaign for democratic candidates in the New Jersey and Virginia governor races. Speaking on behalf of Creigh Deeds (Virginia) and Jon Corzine (New Jersey) President Obama attempted to use his political “swag” to keep the Democratic Party’s grip firm in the north east. The problem is that both Deeds and Corzine lost to Republicans. Strikes two and three!
Then in December President Obama outlined his climate goals at the global warming summit in Copenhagen. Possibly recognizing the irony of world leaders arriving in 1,200 limos and 140 private airplanes caused a leaders from the African nations to walkout. Ultimately the summit ended in failure with progress targets lowered and goals dropped as a collective agreement couldn’t be reached. Strike four!
The latest chapter in this saga came just a few weeks ago when President Obama flew to Massachusetts in an effort to help Martha Coakley win the senate seat that was last occupied by Ted Kennedy. Bashing Coakley’s opponent for “driving his truck” and saying that, if elected, he may take the people someplace they don’t want to go. He made the point clear that electing a guy like Scott Brown would be a step backwards and not forward. The result? Scott Brown won by a near landslide giving republicans the much needed 41st vote against Obama’s health care reform. Strike five!
Yeah, I know. You’re only supposed to have three strikes but the way our president understands things he’d tell you that he doesn’t even have enough strikes for his first out. The spin coming out of the White House is that a record national deficit is actually progress, four million lost jobs is actually saving jobs and that the people of Massachusetts actually voted in favor of the Obama Administration when they elected Scott Brown even though he was, “a step backwards.” I don’t know, you figure it out.
Here’s what I do know. King Midas had the magic touch of turning the things he touches into gold. President Obama seems to have the touch of making golden opportunities go away. I’m really curious to see how his State of the Union Address is received because it seems that, at least for now, that the only thing stopping the Obama agenda is Obama himself.
The state of Massachusetts fired a shot heard around the world today by electing republican Scott Brown to a U.S. Senate seat that’s been held by democrats for nearly sixty years. In a stunning set of events that has democratic senators across the nation perking up to the fact that they’d better start listing to their constituents instead of following their own agendas the American people have made it crystal clear that they do not approve the direction this current administration is taking our country. We may not currently have a government that’s for the people but Massachusetts showed today that it is still a government by the people and the rest of the voting public will show in November that no one is irreplaceable if the other democratic senators don’t start backing down from the Obama agenda. Way to go Massachusetts! America is proud of you!
Just about every president in the history of our great nation has struggled to fulfill all the promises made my campaigning for the votes of the people. However, seldom do we find a person who fails as miserably as President Barack Obama has in his first year of office. When you consider that he has a democratic congress at his side the lack of accomplishments made by the president should be alarming. It literally appears that he went through great lengths to mislead the American people of his intentions in an effort to gain their votes. After all, had he said from his campaign platform that he was going to triple the nation’s deficit to a record $1.4 trillion, cram healthcare reform down the throats of an American public that isn’t wanting it and drive our country towards socialism, ALL IN JUST HIS FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE, would you have voted for him? He knew you wouldn’t so he sold you a line of hope and change. Now with a plummeting approval rating it appears that Americans are hoping he’s not successful in the type of change he’s trying to bring. Here’s a look at what Obama said while campaigning as opposed to what he actually did during his first year in office.
* To President Obama’s credit he did inherit an economy that was already in a downward spiral. To help sway votes Obama states in a Dover, N.H. campaign stop that, "no family making less than $250,000 will see their taxes increase - not your income taxes, not your payroll taxes, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." What he failed to add was, “unless you’re a smoker!”
Obama signed into law a 159% increase in the tax on a pack of cigarettes. Other tobacco products were dealt a similar or much steeper increase to help pay for a children's health initiative, enabling him to keep another promise to make sure all kids have health insurance. So now we’re breaking one promise to fulfill another, a sign of things to come. While I’m not a smoker myself statistics show that that the majority of smokers are in tax brackets well below $250,000 and Obama knew that.
* Obama promised to cut the federal budget deficit by more than half in his first term. He’s really behind the 8-ball on this because, as we’ve already discussed, the record deficit hit in his first year. So far the first two months of the 2010 fiscal year was almost 6% higher than the first two months of 2009.
* While campaigning, Obama pledged to pull all U.S. combat troops out within 16 months. Now, as president, he’s pushed that deadline back two months, to August 2010. After that, he will leave 35,000 to 50,000 military personnel in Iraq through 2011 to train, equip and advise Iraqi security forces, and to help in counterterrorism missions.
* While campaigning, Obama said that he would close GuantanamoBay, which he called "a recruiting tool for our enemies." Obama did order the purchase of an Illinois prison to house up to 100 Guantanamo detainees. Still, Guantanamo cannot be closed until the disposition of more than 200 remaining detainees is resolved. Congress won’t fund bringing them to the U.S. and other countries don’t want them on their soil either.
* While campaigning, Obama vowed to use "tough, direct diplomacy" to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Now that he’s in office Iran is laughing at him as they are ignoring his diplomacy and building towards nuclear capability.
* On his 2008 campaign Web site, Obama declared that "we must redouble our efforts to determine if the measures implemented since 9/11 are adequately addressing the threats our nation continues to face from airplane-based terrorism," including screening all passengers against "a comprehensive terrorist watch list."
In December a man on the terrorist watch list boarded an airplane bound for Detroit, MI with a bomb in his pants.
* As far as healthcare goes I can’t remember a bigger scandal in Washington than what we’ve seen from this congress. Billions of dollars have been spent buying votes to push this through and the voice of the American people has been greatly ignored. While campaigning Obama said, "We'll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN, so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." The problem is that the constituents don’t want this healthcare reform and Obama’s administration isn’t arguing on their behalf. Instead secret deals are being made behind closed doors and the constitution is being ripped to shreds in the process. As for C-SPAN, they haven’t been a part of the process.
* While campaigning Obama promised to be a good steward of our money. "When I'm president, I will go line by line to make sure that we are not spending money unwisely," Obama.
As president, Obama hasn't been willing to veto bills approved by his fellow Democratics on Capitol Hill. He signed a $410 billion spending bill that included 7,991 so-called "earmarks" totaling $5.5 billion. He had also promised to require lawmakers seeking money for earmarks to justify their requests in writing 72 hours before they're voted on in Congress. Nope, that hasn’t happened yet either.
Other things that haven’t happened yet are a pledge to post legislation online for five days before acting on it (this promise was broken with his very first bill) and a pan on lobbyists serving in his administration hasn’t been fulfilled either as he currently has some included.
What we’ve seen over that past twelve months is either blatant lying to the American people, in order to win votes, with no intention on coming through on those promises or complete incompetence by President Obama in having no idea how to get done what he said he would. I really don’t know which one is worse. Who wants to step up and chose the lesser of these two evils?
Let’s see here. If you are a financial institution that refused to take any TARP money you could now be faced with a tax to help replace the money given out in TARP. If you’re a financial institution that took the TARP money and paid it back then you are now being faced with a tax to help recover the money from the institutions that didn’t repay their bailout money. However, if you’re a failed organization like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or the auto industry you don’t have to pay a dime despite the Obama administration funneling millions upon millions into these failed companies. Thus is life under the hope and change of the Obama era.
Borrow money and pay it back and you’re fined. Actually be a responsible business and not need a government bailout because you’re doing things the right way. Yep, you’re going to be fined as well. Why, you ask? Because someone has to cover for the idiots in Washington who made bad loans to people who took the money without paying it back and still ran their businesses into the ground. Do you actually think that someone in Washington is going to be held accountable for this? Nooooooooo! You and I are the ones who’ll pay for their mistakes through higher banking fees and interest rates.
Perhaps if Obama would pursue the terrorists with the same fervor and passion he has for killing capitalism then we wouldn’t have planes nearly blowing up over Detroit on Christmas Day. But then again that would require him doing something that actually looks out for the best interest of the American people which is something that we can all see isn’t going to happen with this administration.
You know, sometimes you have to take your lumps with those that are lumped in with you....
Unfortunately, Pat Robertson's comments get critiqued as "Christian Views." While there is a wealth of wisdom in Scripture that could "back up" prinicples behind the comments made by Pat Robertson, it is very insensitive and really quite detrimental to Christians ... and even Americans ... for the world community to hear a comment like this, from a man a surveyed as Pat Robertson, amidst such a tragedy as in Haiti. It is statements and posturing such as this that just do not help the situation...
I will not waste many words on it as there are many out there. But I do want to say that on behalf of most Christian, God-fearing and loving individuals - God Loves Haitians. Further, it is easy for "arm-chair quarterback-style" comments when one is not in the thick of such disaster. So, I end with the following:
My prayers go out to those in Haiti - and this morning, I spent time specifically praying for those that will directly and indirectly help; for their protection, strength, care and service. I also echo the blog comments of Donald Miller (recently introduced to me by a friend):
"The appropriate response to Haiti: "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you took me in..."
