Posted by
flagwaver on Wednesday, September 08, 2010 11:20:48 AM
Once upon a time, still basking in the glory of "Hope and Change" and "Yes We Can!" President Obama went on television and said that he would rather be a really good one term president than a mediocre two termer. Now, as he said this I am sure that El Presidente never thought that his poll numbers would drop through the floor and make his overconfident boast look like a self fulfilling prophecy, but he has worked very hard to make the "one term" part of his statement become a reality.
Now, I have seen some bad political moves in my day, and Jimmy Carter's presidency take a cliff dive, but nothing this spectacular. I have never seen a president do so much to turn his constituents against him in such a short amount of time. Hell, even George W. Bush was relatively popular until the country started to get war fatigue, combined with his push for amnesty and creating new entitlement programs! But Obama has managed in the space of a little less than two years to futher alienate his opponents, while simultaneously hacking off his Party base, and constitutent groups that can usually be relied on by the Democrats come hell or high water.
So how does a "historic" president manage to fall from the heights of popularity to near congressional job approval rates? Stay with me and I'll give you a few quick examples.
1. Drive the economy off the cliff...and press the accelerator on the way over!
At the end of the Bush administration, even with TARP and all the war funding over the eight years of the administration, the US faced a deficit of $482 billion, accounting for 3.3% of GDP. That was a record level for the US and had everyone howling, and rightly so, about the profligate spending by the Bush administration. But what followed under Obama has been even worse: the 2009 deficit rose by $960 billion to $1.42 trillion...a whopping 12.3% of GDP! In one year under Obama we went from a troubling deficit to an unmanageable one, with deficits in the trillions of dollars as far as the eye can see. Couple that with the nationalization of GM and several banks, and a continued lust to spend money we do not have, and you can see how this issue alone can be the keystone of a one term presidency.
2. Fail to defend and protect the US.
If there is one issue outside of the economy that always polls high with the American people, it is national security. And on this issue Obama is nearly as bad as he is on the economy. During the Bush years, post 9/11, there was not one terrorist action that was launched against us on our shores. The policies and actions of the Bush administration let it be known to terrorists both abroad and here at home that justice and retribution would be swift in the event of an attack. We toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, removed Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and scared Qadaffi in Libya into abandoning his WMD programs lest he be removed as well. In the nearly two years of the Obama regime, we have had an attempted attack on a flight over Detroit, a failed car-bombing in Times Square, and a successful attack at Fort Bliss, Texas...all while the Obama administration bends over backwards to avoid waging the war on terror or even acknowledging that it still exists. Couple that with their seeming belief that the Tea Party is more of a threat than al-Qaeda and their stubborn refusal to address the chaos around our southern border with Mexico, and the American people get the message that Obama is more interested in building a domestic political legacy than defending the country he was elected to lead!
3. Ignore the people at every turn.
From the very beginning of his term, Obama made it clear that his would be an immature and tin eared presidency. He and his minions forced through a horrendous "stimulus" package that ballooned the national deficit, a bill that the American people rejected at every turn. And what was the rationale of the president when people dared to question the need for such a bill? His answer was one I would expect from my six year old, "I won." As if winning an election makes you right on every issue! Yet that is how he justified spending us into near insolvency as a nation..."I won". Then he followed that up with a montrous health care overhaul that gets more unpopular by the day; one that is so unpopular that they had to get Andy Griffith out of mothballs to sell it to seniors...as if old Andy is actually using Medicare for his health care needs. Further, this is a president who has politicized the Department of Justice so that black thugs are allowed to intimidate voters with no reprecussions and a terrorist mastermind (who tried to plead guilty) has been virtually promised a trial in the heart of Manhattan...even as the people scream bloody murder about it. Most polticians at least pretend to listen to the voters, but this clown hasn't even figured that out yet...and that will get you stopped at the polls quicker than anything.
4. Declare total war...on one of your own states!
The Obama administration really has it in for the people of the state of Arizona and has not let an opportunity pass to try to stick it to them. Early on in the administration the DoJ launched a civil rights investigation into Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County for having the temerity to check the immigration status of the criminals he was arresting. Not that there's a law against that or anything, but by doing that Sheriff Arpaio brought some unwanted attention to the Obama administration's dereliction of duty on enforcing immigration laws. Then the state, after begging for help from the feds and seeing a rancher murdered on his own property by illegal aliens, took the step of passing SB1070 into law. As we all know, all the law did was make it a state crime to be in the country illegally, which allowed local law enforcement to detain and turn over illegal aliens to ICE for processing. So how did the Obama administration react to this common sense approach by the duly elected state lawmakers in Arizona? It launched a lawsuit against the state and Gov. Jan Brewer to force them to stand down...which would have the effect of allowing the federal government to continue its non-enforcement of immigration laws. And the cherry on top of this crap sundae is that the State Department included SB1070 in a report to the UN Human Rights Council to show how America is committing human rights violations! This is a council that has had such august members as Libya, Cuba, China, and North Korea as a part of the body...yet a state law that mirrors federal law is deemed to be worthy of inclusion in a report on human rights violations that these thugs can point to as evidence that we are as bad as they are! If the Obama administration spent half as much time attempting to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon as they have in waging war on Arizona, the world would probably be a much safer place. But in the Bizarro World of the Obama administration, SB1070 is a greater threat than a nuclear Iran!
And people, this is the short list of Obama's missteps and screw ups! Hopefully, in 2012 the people will end this farce and make Obama more than a secular messiah, but a prophet as well!