Posted by
flagwaver on Friday, March 13, 2009 12:13:33 PM
A couple of years ago after a loss in which his Arizona Cardinals allowed a Chicago Bears team up off the canvas and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, former coach Dennis Green gave us a line that became an instant classic, "We are who we thought they were!" That exclaimation was true for that game and it is even more appropriate for the novice we have in the White House.
During the campaign conservatives were bellowing from the rooftops that Obama had no experience and that he would be in over his head if elected President. But his followers countered with a claim that his experience as a community organizer was more important than any real executive experience, and the candidate himself claimed that the experience of running a campaign was invaluable and should basically count toward any experience deficit that he had. Some people bought it hook, line, and sinker because they had effectively suspended any logical examination of the man in favor of a purely emotional outlook on his candidacy. But the people looking at it from a non-emotional standpoint could see that trouble was brewing if we elected this man to run the country,
But in all honesty, it seems that Obama is even worse than we thought he would be. This man is so far in over his head that it is literally scary. And for the first time in my life I have started to succumb to a bit of fear as I watch Obama driving us towards the cliff, and worry that no one is going to be able to stop the bus. Just look at what 50 days of the Obama era have given us:
- As the stock market tanked, the President informed us that he didn't worry mcuh about the "daily gyrations" of the market because it is nothing more than the equivalent of a daily tracking poll.
- Again, as the market was dropping like a hot rock, President Obama went out and encouraged people to buy stock!
- We have a Treasury Secretary who cannot fogure out how to use Turbo-Tax and cheated the government out of taxes he obviously owed, who defrauded his employer of the stipend they gave him to pay the taxes, and whose "plan" to stabilize the banking sector had the markets running for the hills.
- We have a Secretary of State who is giving out stupid gifts to the Russians, even as they continue to try to remake the old Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. She also declined to even mention the human rights abuse that are rampant in China and has signalled her willingness to engage in "diplomacy" with the terrorist sponsoring state of Syria.
- We have a Homeland Security Secretary who has an open borders attitude and allowed the city of Phoenix to become one of the kidnapping capitals of the Americas. Yet the drug fueled violence on the borders that have spilled over into our nation are only seen as "concerns" for us to be aware of.
- In the space of 50 short days, we have seen an orgy of spending that makes the Republican Congress of the Bush years look like Scrooge McDuck hoarding money. In the space of 50 days a deficit of $500 billion (pre-TARP) has had well over $1 trillion added to it...with more to come.
And worst of all, when anyone challenges the Novice-in-Chief on anything, he has tended to resort to the elementary school-level yelling of "I won!", as if that settles all disputes. But even that would not seem so bad if there were even a simple feeling that the man knew what the hell he was doing. However, as you watch his performance in the face of the challanges that face this nation, it is hard to shake the feeling that he is winging it; that he doesn't have a plan and is making it up as he goes along.
Which makes another famous sports quote appropro as the ending lines of this little missive. During the 1980s the New York Knicks had a supremely talented, yet extremely troubled young point guard on the team by the name of Micheal Ray Richardson. As the team was heading down the pathway towards a dismal season a reporter asked Richardson what the state of the team was, to which Richardson replied, "The ship be sinking." Asked a follow-up question on how bad the season could become, Richardson famously replied, "The sky's the limit."
And under Obama's watch, the sky is indeed the limit.