by
Greg MuellerPosted 09/17/2009 ET
Updated 09/17/2009 ET
The first nine months of the Obama presidency have demonstrated a hard tack left on economic and domestic issues. The President's domestic agenda has amounted to a new definition of Big Government including trillions in spending, bailouts, corporate takeovers, the firing of a CEO and huge increases in government regulation. And, as we celebrate Constitution day today, there has been much controversy surrounding the over 30 policy czars that have amassed unchecked power without Congressional confirmation and have the ability to work around the Constitution. Even Democrats are now growing concerned.
Politically, this has been a disaster for the President. His approval ratings have tanked in a very short period of time. The trillions in spending he has proposed, and his plans for a government takeover of health care have backfired and the administration is clearly shell shocked. Their recourse has been to attack protesters, launch verbal attacks on those that disagree with them and ignore the hundreds of thousands, many new to politics, who marched on Washington this past Saturday. This has also led to a growing number of Independents who supported or "leaned-Obama Democrat" to move away from support and questioning what is happening -- this was not what they had in mind when they voted for change.
Many conservatives have started to invoke President Carter when describing Obama's domestic agenda. Then he appeared to come to Obama's aid suggesting that the "you lie" comments made by Representative Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) were race based, igniting a national debate over racism after the country just elected the first African American president. Not so presidential from a former President. On the heels of Carter's Obama defense, President Obama seems to be headed more and more in a Jimmy Carter direction. The President's announcement that he will walk back support for a defense shield in Europe for Poland and Czechoslovakia has shocked the world. Reports suggest that the President is weaning the free world's defenses to appease Russia so that they can help pressure Iran from developing nuclear weapons. I do not understand the logic -- appease Russia because the administration's appeasement of Iran is not working? Is President Obama becoming Jimmy Carter on steroids? Is the President's foreign policy amounting to an Obama Appeasement Doctrine?
The Obama administration is doing a tremendous job of bringing about a resurgence of the old Reagan coalition that so many political pundits have proclaimed dead and buried. By pushing farther and farther left on both domestic and foreign policy, the President has opened up himself and his party to a position as big government, deficit spending out of touch politicians at home and weak on national defense and national security abroad, positions that have not been very successful in mid-term or Presidential year elections in past history. Rather than making history, Obama might be on track to repeat it.
| Greg Mueller is President of CRC Public Relations, and former senior aide to Republican Presidential Candidates Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes. Mueller also spearheaded communications for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
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