Let me begin by saying that this is not schadenfreude. I am truly disturbed by what I see, and how we got here on so many levels. When I, along with about 20% of my fellow Americans stated in November of 2008 that I wanted the President elect to fail to enact his agenda, I meant just that. It was never about wishing that President Obama would eventually fail, it was wishing the best for the country and the American people as a whole. I felt passionately that Obama’s agenda, if passed would bring disaster to this wonderful nation. During Obama’s first two years in office, his agenda was inflicted upon us, and the result has been unmitigated disaster. Once he lost his legislative mojo, he used the executive fiat tactic which had served 43 prior chief executives so well during our nation’s history to continue inflicting his agenda upon us. The result has been making the previous disaster so much worse. So now that President Obama, who for better or worse, owns this economy, owns the state of our involvement in world affairs, faces the reality of the consequences of his decision making, I am seeing an Obama who stands in stark contrast to the Obama presented to us by the alphabet media during the 2008 campaign.
Yesterday, Barack Obama committed the ultimate sin that can be committed by any person who wishes to be elected to any political office, and he did so in the most public manner possible. Our President threw an old fashioned temper tantrum. During the 2008 campaign, we were told by an adoring press that only Barack Obama would be able to reach across the aisle and work with both parties to attend to the business of the nation. Only Barack Obama was level headed enough to see both sides of every issue and be able to hold our elected leaders to the task of the big picture, and that he was the pragmatic, charismatic, great leader we had been waiting for since the days of Reagan, who would save us from our own ideologies. Americans, 52% of them anyhow, showed up in droves to vote in hopety change, and the idea of an above it all post partisan leader who would heal whatever national pain we were feeling. Since you are reading this, and not listening to it on tape, the 48% of you who saw through the Snake Oil Sales Pitch are free to take a break and vomit.
Reality, often times has a habit of standing in contrast with the legend spun during a political campaign. From the outset of this Administration we have seen very real signs of a leader who was not level headed, very thin skinned, petty, vindictive, corrupt, hypocritical, arrogant, clueless, and more interested in producing Kabuki Theater than in offering up leadership. Literally, the list of examples to support this assertion is too large to print in one article. I’ll just hit the highlights. He saw fit to call the Cambridge Ma. Police Department stupid and racist, he did so seconds after admitting that he did not know any of the pertinent facts about the incident on which he was pontificating. This commentary was offered on the most mundane of domestic police calls which occur in communities all over the country. During the Health Care debate, he singled out a U.S. Senator whom he invited to the White House to discuss the issue and told him flat out that his concerns held no validity since that Senator in fact lost the U.S. Presidential Election. He scolded the U.S. Supreme Court for a decision he did not agree with during a State of the Union Address. In commenting on this at all, he showed his misunderstanding the Constitutional concept of coequal branches of government, while he has been presented to us all as a Constitutional Scholar. He has traveled to border states and decried the objections over a complete lack of border security as being somehow beneath the deserved attentions of a busy nation. He even suggested that the childish inhabitants who are tired of being warned that our own sovereign territory may not be safe for us to inhabit probably wanted a moat with alligators in it, and by objecting to the complete disregard for his sworn Constitutional duty of providing for the security of our citizens, we were all just being unreasonable. He put the Dali Lama out the back door of the White House past the trash, and held a State Dinner for his jailer. He made the Prime Minister of Israel, one of our staunches allies wait for him in a White House meeting room during the middle of the meeting while he went to dine with his family. He invited a U.S. Congressman to a press conference, and then proceeded to single him out for ridicule, on national television, and did so in such a manner where his charges could not be addressed in open debate. The sin of the Congressman? Well, as it turns out the sin was the presentation of a national budget, the first such presentation in 4 years time.
For years, we conservatives have known that the word compromise to liberals simply means capitulate to our demands, and give up completely on your principles. I guess, after decades of seeing this be the result of the political discourse, President Obama really can not be blamed for wishing this to be the case once again. There is a difference however between previous times of compromise and today’s reality. Not only are we at a national crossroads of philosophy today, but we quite literally are stretched to the very limits of what our national economy can handle. During this latest meeting of attempted compromise our President stood up from the table, said, “don’t call my bluff Eric, or I’ll take this directly to the American People.” This literally has me bursting at the seems, so I’ll try to hit it all.
- Take your case directly to the American People. 37% of them feel as though your leadership on the economy is what they agree with. 63% of them feel that your economic policies need to be stopped, and in fact issued a national restraining order against your economic agenda in November of 2010.
- Perhaps you had some sort of Reaganesque vision of yourself, possibly comparing Reagan’s meeting in Iceland with Yuri Andropov during the earliest days of his Presidency getting up from the table and refusing to sign the deal which would have forfeited SDI as a result of moving forward. Today’s situation is different in at least this way, you are not sitting down with the leader of a national enemy, but with the opposition party of your own country who is attempting in good faith to insure the continued survival of our country.
- You are no where near being Reagan. It is getting old seeing you compare yourself to the man who you never missed an opportunity to insult every day of your life prior to being President. His policies were diametrically opposed to everything you have enacted or talked about enacting. He took an economic situation which was far worse than the one you took the reigns on and vastly improved the situation, thus improving the lives of every American. You have taken an economy in a recession, which if left alone would have corrected itself in about a year’s time and created a situation that is far worse, while creating greater hardship for every American.
- Standing up from the table to leave because the other side will not blindly accede to your insane demands is not leadership. You can give all of the verbal lashings you want about how the GOP is not living up to your personal standards of leadership simply because they refuse to cave in, but the fact is that there are very real philosophical differences between you and them. They were elected for the express purpose of stopping your agenda from continuing. Leadership, or eating your peas as you so eloquently put it, would be having this debate and finding a way to iron out a deal which will serve the American People, and doing so in a manner which would live up to your lofty campaign promises.
The President has had a rough year. Between Pigford, the slow burning scandal in which he and other members of his Administration have been implicated in the outright fraud of about $100 Billion, Fast and Furious, the explosive scandal in which he and members of his Administration have been implicated in the deaths of innocent American and Mexican citizens, the days being spent in the White House must be getting tense indeed. It is starting to show though. Losing one’s temper is not a good sign. It means the beginning of the end. Sales people know to never allow a prospective buyer see you lose your cool. Politicians also know that allowing the electorate see you obviously out of control means you will not be elected. If American voters see Obama not be able to withstand the unwavering belief in his position of little Eric Cantor, one of 435 Congressmen, how on Earth will he stand up to America’s enemies? Being President is a tough job, and requires a strong person to do it well. Barack Obama does not instill a feeling of confidence nor a feeling of trust in anyone. His habit of throwing people under his bus has become a national joke, and one which will cost him politically when he can least afford it. People who’ve been tossed under the bus so to speak may take it for a little while, but once he appears vulnerable, they will pay him back, in kind. That vulnerability has already been noticed by David Ogden, and he went and testified to Congress in a secret closed session on the 4th of July. Don’t blink, this implosion will be quick.
