Posted on 07/24/2012 6:40:55 AM PDT by NCjim
Editor's note: It's a presidential election year, so we thought we'd weigh in with our list of the five worst presidents. We start with, yes, the current incumbent. See our other choices at U-T Opinion online.
He took office at a time when the U.S. economy was on its worst slide in 75 years, but pushed policies using borrowed money that were more meant to preserve government jobs than broadly help the private sector where the great majority of Americans work, ensuring the jobs crisis continued.
He railed against the heavy spending and big deficits of his predecessor, but blithely backed budgets that had triple the deficits ever seen in American history.
He promised a smart, sweeping overhaul of the U.S. health care system, but ended up giving us a Byzantine mess promoted to the public with myths: that offering subsidized care to tens of millions of people would save money; that people would keep their own doctors; that access to care wouldn’t change; and that rationing would never happen.
He promised a more sophisticated approach to the economy than that of his predecessor, but had so little common sense that his health law actually gave businesses a big financial incentive to discontinue providing health insurance to their employees.
He offered hosannas to genius entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs in his prepared remarks, but when speaking off the cuff betrayed his faculty-lounge view of the world, saying of businesspeople, “if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own.”
He swore to bring overdue oversight and honest accounting to the corporate world, but made flagrantly dishonest claims about General Motors paying back its government loans that would have triggered a criminal fraud investigation in the private sector.
He promised to set a high new standard for ethics in the White House, but used a baffling claim of executive privilege to shield his embattled attorney general from the repercussions of a cover-up involving the death of a federal law enforcement officer.
He denounced his predecessor for permitting harsh interrogation tactics with suspected terrorists, but once in office somehow concluded that a better, more moral approach would just be to use drones to assassinate such suspects without getting any information from them.
He presented himself as a shrewd student of Washington politics, but once in office displayed a counterproductive standoffishness to many Democratic lawmakers eager to embrace him, never developing the broad range of personal relationships that often mark a successful presidency.
He ran as a unifying force who would bring in a new era of civility and racial healing to Washington, but once in office embraced ugly, Chicago-style political hardball that saw nothing wrong with his supporters’ loathsome practice of depicting opposition to his policies as being driven by racism.
He constantly offered praise for the wisdom and insights of the American public, but reacted to the broad discontent over Obamacare, high unemployment and vast deficits by saying it was a failure of his administration to properly explain its glorious record to a confused populace – not a predictable reaction to his struggles and ineffectiveness.
And in December 2011 – at a time in which one-quarter of American adults who wanted full-time work couldn’t find it, after a year in which the federal deficit was a staggering $1.3 trillion – here was what Barack Obama had to say for himself in a CBS interview: “I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president, with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR and Lincoln.”
Unbelievable. If self-reverence were a crime, our current president would be facing a life sentence. For the good of America, let’s pray we have someone else in charge of the federal government come Jan. 20, 2013.
Bump
It’s so funny that the people complaining about the article in the comments section NEVER refute even 1 of the facts presented. All they can do is rail like little children. Facts mean nothing to these emotionally stunted imbeciles! They just blindly follow evil over the cliff. A shame, really.
There were time in the Roanoke Va speech he was flailing his arms. It reminded me of Fred Sanford when he talked to Elizabeth.
wow. A California newspaper no less
“wow. A California newspaper no less”
They will still endorse Obama.
Great article.
Seriously, Obama has truly become the worst POTUS in the history of the United States. He has failed on every front, except one. That one, is his planned and determined mission to destroy the United States of America!!! In that vein, he has been successful more, then even he could have imagined.
As the first elected Black POTUS, he had a golden opportunity to take Black Americans, once and for all, into the general fiber of American society, where they would finally assimilate as other ethnics have so successfully done. However, he decided to play his beloved “race” card and pit American against American in his sustained “Class Warfare”.
He then launched out upon the destructuion of the American economy, culture and downgrading of our society. He joined forces overseas with the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood, our enemies, thus lowered our status as a free nation leader worldwide.
The outcome: Obama will lose his re-election bid in a landslide defeat!!! In doing so, he will take a good size portion of the Democrat Party with him. The Democrats had their chance to broom Obama, by forcing him to resign or impeaching him. But.....they chose to hang with him, for obvious, selfish, political reasons. Shame on them!!!
Both Obama and the entire Democrat Party need to be destroyed politically, if America and “all” her people are to remain free, at liberty, with opportunity, good education and a bright future for all of our citizens, especially our children.
It's the hive mind of progressivism.
One for the emails. Thanks
I don't quite agree. First, Buchanan still holds the lead because he produced an actual shooting civil war, and Obama needs another term to get there. Second, I'm not willing to grant the communist in our White House the title held by every White House occupant before the current usurper, not until he opens his records and proves that he is as claimed a natural born citizen of the United States. Otherwise, we see things similarly.
I refer to BO as an occupier.
They'll support Romney as they supported McCain and W before him.
Still, I'm surprised this came out of that editorial board but it's been owned by a conservative businessman (Doug Manchester) since 2009.
The site was down for a while (it is up now), 503 Service Unavailable.
Lots of people want to read with interests. Bwahahahhaaa....
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