Hit the Road Barack: Newsweek cover calls out president on policy promises

Daily Mail ^ | 7-20-14 | Emily Anne Epstein

[SJackson]

Hit the Road Barack: Newsweek cover calls out president on policy promises and proclaims all-but-certain Republican victory

Niall Ferguson, a British professor of history at Harvard University, relies heavily on the idea of promises to lampoon Barack Obama into submission - a surprising argument for the historically liberal, and pro-Obama publication.

It is urgent, he argues, to lose the rhetoric and spring for reform.

'I was a good loser four years ago,' he writes. As a 'full disclosure' adviser to John McCain, his sentiments are hardly surprising, but he does not rely on opinion to make his case.

Drawing heavily on unemployment numbers, stagnant growth on the economy and expert dissatisfaction, he presents Mr Obama as a lame duck.

'It is five years since the financial crisis began, but the central problems—excessive financial concentration and excessive financial leverage—have not been addressed,' Mr Ferguson writes.

But more than just his policies are the problem, Mr Ferguson says, it's his decision making abilities.

'After the imperial presidency of the Bush era, there was something more like parliamentary government in the first two years of Obama’s administration,' Mr Ferguson writes.

'The president proposed; Congress disposed.'

'The voters now face a stark choice,' Mr Ferguson says.

'They can let Barack Obama’s rambling, solipsistic narrative continue until they find themselves living in some American version of Europe, with low growth, high unemployment, even higher debt—and real geopolitical decline.'

The nail in the coffin will be Paul Ryan, Mr Ferguson argues. The two met in 2010 at a fundraising dinner.

'Ryan blew me away. I have wanted to see him in the White House ever since,' Mr Ferguson writes.

[Oratam]

What’s your secret formula? Is it enlarging his head or shrinking his body? Whatever it is . . . I love it!