Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Education, Energy, Health Care, Law, National Security | Tags: A Truly Tragic Figure, Every Program a Winner, Ten Million Unemployed
Barack Obama has been, as president, a very private person, in spite of his constant presence wherever there is a camera. .He doesn’t pal around with Congressional Democrats, nor with much of anybody else. Somebody actually called him “a man of mystery” a few days ago.
He does not reveal much of himself; and according to aides, associates with only a very few close allies, and keeps much to himself. He avoids meetings, and prefers that advisers present their ideas in writing, with three options for him to choose from, which he tackles late at night. Yet he loves large crowds, the cheering and applause — which explains the constant campaign.
Because he reveals so little of himself, people are quick to attempt to categorize him. He has made no secret of being drawn to radicals, and of seeking out the more radical teachers, advisers and mentors. Is he then a communist, as many have claimed, or a socialist? I think not, though he leans towards communitarianism and is concerned with “fairness” as an ideal.
I think Barack Obama is a truly tragic figure. Shuffled around from one country to another, from parent to grandparent, always the odd one out, the different one. He took his story and made it a triumph of the exotic and the different that destined him for something truly special. It came when he spoke to the Democrat Convention in 2004. A promising state legislator, and a candidate for the U.S. Senate, he was invited to give the keynote address. He stood before 4,322 Democrat delegates in the Fleet Center in Boston, and told them the story of his life, and they cheered and applauded.
Obama noted his unlikely presence on the convention stage. His father was a foreign student, born and raised in Kenya. He grew up herding goats. Obama’s mother was born in Kansas to a father who served with Patton and a mother who worked in a bomber factory. …I stand here today grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, That I owe a debt to all who came before me and that, in no other country on earth is my story even possible.
The media were enchanted. To Obama it was the moment when he said to himself “I can do this.” His term in the United States Senate was extremely boring to him; he believed he was destined for bigger things. So he ran for President.
Michelle, according to reports, had doubts. He hadn’t done anything yet. She was right. He had no executive experience, no management experience, and no understanding of the private sector. But he really enjoyed being on the campaign trail, doing and saying whatever it takes to get elected, including lying shamelessly about his opponent, the nation and the world.
Supplied with vast political theatrics, from songs for children to a podium with an almost-presidential seal, and the infamous Greek Columns, it was a campaign such as Americans had never before seen.. He promised much, but the promises were empty. They were only designed to please.
Governing was something else again. Obama was an amateur. Confronted with a recession as so many other new presidents have been, he proclaimed it the worst since the Great Depression, the worst trouble ever left by a former president, and quickly rammed a Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) through Congress with the help of that former president, who went to great lengths to make the transfer of power easy.
So Obama embarked on a massive stimulus, $860 billion flooded into the economy only to learn that there weren’t any shovel-ready jobs. Much went to government agencies who sat on it, and the rest was simply wasted. The Auto Industry had to be saved from normal bankruptcy with another $63 billion, the bondholders were illegally shafted, a third of the company was given to the unions who were the reason the companies were bankrupt, and auto dealers (private businesses) were abruptly put out of business.
The federal government made a huge effort, behind closed doors, to take over the world’s best health care system to imitate instead the world’s worst health care system — Britain’s NHS. ObamaCare is an unworkable, unbelievable mess that will ruin lives, kill patients and destroy the medical industry. It is unaffordable, and its nature and its costs are not yet apparent to most people who think they are getting “free” health care.
The facts on climate science have changed, but no one in the administration has noticed. There has been no warming for over 15 years. CO2 continues to rise in the atmosphere and is greening the world, as CO2 is a natural fertilizer for plants. Fracking has changed the earth’s energy picture and the United States has exceeded Saudi Arabia in oil production; but the President is still trying to protect us from our “dependence” on “foreign oil.”And federal subsidies for wind farms and solar arrays continue to multiply although both only exist with constant support from fossil fuel fired power plants, and represent only a miniscule portion of electricity produced
The U.S. National Debt is $16,809,211,500,878 and climbing too fast to count. Our Gross Domestic Product is $15,692,319,919,688 and not climbing nearly as fast as the national debt. We have ten million Americans looking for work, and a president who has no idea how jobs are created.
The president’s narcissism and self-regard do not allow him to consider criticism as meaningful. After this morning’s temper tantrum in the Rose Garden, he will undoubtedly go out campaigning again. He “has a gift,” as he has told us. He can move crowds with the magic of his baritone voice, and he tells people what he believes they want to hear.
He is a tragic figure. Not a tragic hero. When he secured the presidential nomination, he said: “If we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless. This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. This was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last best hope on Earth.” Looking back on that— it’s only words.
Many Democrats remain enthralled. He is theirs, the first black President of the United States of America, and he is their absolution. They have been burdened with guilt. Slavery and segregation are the history of the Democratic Party. Their parents and grandparents fought against the Civil Rights bill. Racism is the worst, the greatest sin of the modern world, and electing the first black President proves that they are no longer racist. They are absolved. That leaves them free to call everybody else “racist.”
Will the rules continue to be different for this president? I don’t know. Will the media continue to absolve Obama of every failure? Obama wants to bury the deficit, raise more taxes so he can “invest” taxpayer money in new projects.
When he demands a new entitlement of national preschool for every four-year-old to be paid for by raising the tax on cigarettes as a solution to America’s unemployment problem — does no one notice the absurdity?
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American Elephants 
And the biggest reason why he going to be a failure and remain one is actually quite simple:
Imagine you are running a race. Now imagine that no one has told you where the finish line is, or even how to recognize it when you see it, and there is no way to tell when you’ve crossed it.
That is the dilemma of Obama and the modern Democrat Party. They have goals… “fairness”, just to pick one (Raise taxes on the rich to a more “fair” level? What specific number is “fair”? (crickets chirping))… but they have no specific plan on how achieve them (indeed, Obama shuns being specific-don’t believe? name one policy goal of Obama’s from the past election that was actually broken down into a recognizable plan), and on the few that they does know what they want, they won’t talk specifics because that will be the end of them politically.
It has gotten so bad that Democrats no longer measure their success as a party by their policies (almost all of which are bad, poorly thought out caricatures of legislation), but by the simple idea that they are ahead in the race somehow. Politics is no longer a process of getting things done anymore… it has become an end to itself. Obama thinks he is a success because he won the election. He doesn’t understand (or seem to care) that being a success in office depends on the strength of your accomplishments and the recognition that you must be President for ALL the people… not just blue states, not just Democrats, not just people who agree with you.
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Comment by Lon Mead April 18, 2013 @ 6:28 pmI don’t particularly dislike Obama, I just detest his policies. There is no excuse for having ten million out of work. I detest his regular claims of jobs created, when he neglects to subtract those who have given up on the search for work. Are there any successes? Any policies that work? Anywhere? Richard Epstein, who I think is a careful and dispassionate observer, says that Obama’s ideas are “fixed in concrete” — that he does not change his mind. At Univ. Chicago Obama would not participate in the lunchtime argumentation. When you won’t put your ideas out there to be shot down, Epstein said, you never find out where you have gone wrong. Obama’s budget carefully eliminates any funding for the DC Opportunity Scholarship program, in favor of universal pre-school for all four-year-olds. Reinventing the failed Head Start. The rationale is (via Arne Duncan) that if some improve their graduation rate by 20% (which is huge) If the graduation rate for all DC kids is not improved that much, it isn’t fair, or something like that. Teacher’s Union objections probably. Lots of claimed successes, but I can’t think of any in real life.
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Comment by The Elephant's Child April 18, 2013 @ 7:28 pm