Posted on 04/30/2012 4:28:16 AM PDT by Kaslin
On April 30th in 1789, at Federal Hall in New York City, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first president of the United States. He took that oath amidst a widespread surge of popularity and consensual respect that has yet to be replicated in any subsequent presidential election in this country. For two terms, Washington was able to govern, and govern well, because even before he won the election as president of the United States, through his deeds, Washington had won the respect and trust of all of colonial America. If measured against that high standard, Barack Obama, whether he is elected in November 2012 or not, will be unable to govern effectively, if at all.
Whether the standard to measure Barack Obama is legislative, fiscal, foreign policy, managerial or personal, Obama ranks among the lowest of the low in presidential ability.
Legislatively, Obama’s signature piece of legislation, Obamacare, is tied up in a Supreme Court challenge which has exposed the shameful short cuts, side dealings and horse-trading that Team Obama was forced to implement in order to have the legislation scrape past the Senate. Billions of dollars of “incentives” to Senators and congressmen can be done once or twice. But, if congress requires these kinds of tawdry incentives to advance Obama’s presidential agenda, it is hard to imagine Obama has any ability to implement future legislation.
Consider some of Obama’s other signature efforts--a JOBS bills that doesn’t create jobs, an energy policy that increases the price of gas at the pump and increases America’s dependence on foreign oil. An insistence of subsidies, for failed “green” endeavors, that waste billions of taxpayer dollars on ill-thought Solar and wind schemes that advance the agendas of Obama’s political allies.
Fiscally, Obama has been the most irresponsible president in the history of the United States (and that is saying something!). Obama’s spend, spend, spend agenda has kept the economy from growing, has created new generations of citizens dependent upon the government dole and has resulted in the slowest growth in GDP in three years. And for what? Obama has not been able to create the jobs he promised because Obama doesn’t understand that business, not government, creates jobs in a free economy.
Entitlement spending has ballooned to outrageous levels wherein over 50% of Americans do not work, nor do they look likely to do so in the future. Obama has put in place trillions of taxpayer dollars as spending intended to stimulate the economy. But the economy has not been “stimulated”, though the pockets of Obama’s political allies have been generously lined with taxpayer dollars.
The president has not even been able to produce a federal budget that can be debated seriously by congress. His last such pathetic attempt was unanimously voted down (0-414), showing that Obama has been abandoned by his own party. Could congress, in a bi-partisan effort, be sending the president an indisputable message about what they think of Obama’s stewardship of the economy?
What does it say that Obama can’t even get one vote on an issue as important as the federal budget? There seems to be universal, bi-partisan agreement that in matters financial, the president is irrelevant.
Obama’s international shenanigans, from his bowing and scraping his way across Asia during his first year in office, to his hugs and handshakes for charlatans and brutish dictators, has been a public embarrassment. Obama’s off-mike comments to Medvedev show the president to be an anxious schoolboy, lackey-like and eager to be all things to all people, desperate for praise and willing to sacrifice American values to achieve.
The story of George Washington and the cherry tree may be apocryphal; merely a tale emblematic of George Washington’s propensity for truthfulness, but Obama spawns no such legend. He has told too many falsehoods, taken too many short cuts, and appointed as his spokespersons and surrogates, too many who do the same, and hence, Obama has lost the trust of the American people. What Obama has lost is what Americans value most—integrity.
And then there is the personal. It is turning out that Obama is actually not very likeable. At every opportunity, Obama seems to jump into controversies that should be solved at a state or local level (Gates affair in Cambridge, MA or Trayvon Martin in FL), before he has all the facts. Obama is showing himself to be a race-baiter, citing directly, or through his surrogates, that any who disagree with his policies or opinions must somehow be racist. Or there’s the class-warfare mongering. Repeatedly, Americans hear Obama blaming “millionaires and billionaires”, claiming that they haven’t paid their “fair share”, though Obama is a multi-millionaire and he, too, takes advantage of every tax loophole.
Barack Obama has been so fixated on his re-election (another of his falsehoods since he has often stated he didn’t care if he was a one-term president) and consumed with building winning “issues-based” coalitions, that he has lost the trust and respect and confidence of most Americans. Even if Obama, by some sleight of hand, were to win in November, he has no mandate; he lost consumer confidence, and he can’t govern.
John Marshall once said that a statesmen is a “a person that loves the people enough to tell them the truth". Barack Obama is clearly no statesmen and has repeatedly refused to deal honestly with the nation’s problems as he ceaselessly maneuvers for short term political gain. Even if he wins the election, it’ll be the longest lame duck session in the nation’s history. Barack Obama cannot govern. The nation is wiser and demands a statesman.
And who was allowed to vote in 1789? Yeah, sure, tell me Obama has already lost.
That’s an awful royal statement. Too many here project their own specialized worldview onto larger America. Larger America, in the meantime, is already polling a virtual tie with the incumbent and a Mitt who hasn’t even gotten the official GOP nod. Historical experience says this is extremely bad juju for the incumbent.
We’ll know in November, HTRN.
Go to this link and play with this interactive electoral map of the US.
If nothing else, it’s a good link to have. (If you don’t already have it.)
“Washington had won the respect and trust of all of colonial America.”
Washington and most all of colonial America were made up of honorable men who were self reliant. Obama and his entitlement voters(about half the nation) are anything but honorable and seek to destroy the values this country was founded upon.
My reading of the US Constitution, its founders' intent, and the many instances of each amendment stipulating that the Federal Government shall not.......et al, just reinforces my belief that the intent was to give STATES the power to decide their will, with many, many safeguards to them by capping and restraining the power of the Federal Government to infringe on the rights of states.
That said, if the blue blue state of Massachusetts wanted to hogtie their residents and cripple their futures, it is that state's right, provided they can pass muster through the USOC on review. It is not, however, Hussein's right to inflict that rights abortion on the rest of us without collective states rights' consent
I thought that was Supertramp from “Even In the Quietest Moments”.
The idea of Barack Obama prevailing, map or no, would require a larger masking perfume factory than any chemical plant owned by the Army. Barack STINKS and in a very crucial area that Mitt has a ready made case — the role of business in the economy. Barack was never a business man. It won’t be hard for Mitt to convince the great unwashed that as a business man, he knows. Most people now know that most jobs come from business.
I’ll stop here lest I be perceived as waxing poetic on Mitt’s behalf. Mitt is very troublesome and worrisome in many areas. He snuggles up to gays way too easily. But as a businessman, people will believe he knows business.
It’ll take many years to recover from the damage he and his minions have wreaked.
Understood; he’s hard to support.
But since 90+% of voters know which way they’re voting regardless of candidates, he need only sway less than 5% of voters ... or votes.
Remember, this is a guy who can, does, and will write very large checks with no concern about where the money is coming from. Anyone concerned about long-lasting egg will be handed a billion-dollar check to wipe it off with.
“And who was allowed to vote in 1789?”
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I think that is the real elephant in the living room that so many ignore. Any 18 year old, even one who is still trying to make it through high school or has dropped out and is dependent on his parents to put food on his plate and furnish a bed for him to sleep on is allowed to vote! This is the height of absurdity.
Some fear that, while being willing to derail Obamacare per se, Mitt will try to get Congress to replace it with inducements for states to duplicate from their end what Massachusetts did. That sounds like a hard sell to me, because it would only be replacing one profligate spending package with another, but never say never.
I’m sure they won’t care if the bribe is big enough, but the egg is still visible to the public. You ruin your credibility by going in the tank for a loser who shoots himself in the foot at every chance.
That’s all.
That blade cuts both ways, at least in principle. Too much dependency can snuff out the hope of bettering your circumstances, but the smoke that Obama was blowing about a bright America that never came might help to keep that hope alive.
“Obama Has Already Lost”
Pipe dream.
He is not going to lose any Catholics, the so-called Independents will travel in left circles at the polls, and the ethnic groups who sniff at the hicks in flyover country will vote for The One in droves. (The Progressives are not a threat; it’s the members of the electorate who instantly become brilliant and superior when they think and vote Progressive.)
IMHO
I mean the rhetorical you (actually those who would be bought into boosting Obama).
Obama has 95% of blacks and at worst 70% of white women. That’s at least 42% of the total electorate locked up in his favor and campaign fear-mongering will keep it that way. Not including Dem voter fraud and intimidation, he just needs to win over 8-9% of the remainder—which includes other minorities, x-gens/millenials and homo/metrosexual white males. Seems like that’s enough right there.
Unmarried/divorced (the left made divorce easy on purpose) women vote overwhelmingly for the “daddy state”.
How does that demographic compare, in voting percentages, to the general under-21 crowd?
Historically, fence sitters have broken heavily for the challenger to the incumbent. The smallest caucus in the world are people who voted for McCain who now want to cast a ballot directly for Barack Obama.
Too many here are projecting their point of view upon larger America, which doggedly follows other political trends.
Thank you Gaffer, for pointing that out. Mitt had every right as a STATE Governor to pass such BS, so Obama can sure try to say “same thing” but it isn’t. Mitt can say “mine was Constitutional, yours isn’t.” That argument disappears.
I want to give my LAST CHOICE CANDIDATE Mitt one more accolade, but without my pompoms. We always complain we cannot get anyone to fight on our side, to really shove it. Newt was bringing it, but didn’t get there. Mitt has shown a hunger for the fight. If we can shove him to the right (assuming, of course he gains the nomination), he can de-pants Obama and even provide a sliver of coat tail, IF he’ll pick someone staunchly conservative as a Veep.
Please don’t ban me, Jim!
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