Like most man-made disasters, the Obama Presidency started with astonishingly high expectations that had nowhere to go but crashing toward the Earth. Think Hindenburg, think Titanic, think Snakes on a Plane. Obama painted himself a savior, what the nation got was George Bush in even more socialist and befuddled clothing.
Think about Obama’s list of accomplishments. The president ran on cutting waste and changing Washington. He then promoted and signed a massive stimulus bill written by the most corrupt institution on Earth, the US Congress. The bill was sold as a job creator but unemployment actually went up. Worse for the Obama administration, waste and the inability to do basic accounting have only added to its failures, leaving the president in the final weeks of 2009 taking credit for a dip in unemployment from 10.2% to 10%. Break out the champagne!
Next up, Obama won a Nobel prize for doing nothing. Well, great. The problem? His prize for peace was accepted a week or so after announcing the escalation of War in Afghanistan, ouch! He at least scored points with the left for trying to end the war in Iraq. Bad news is that a fresh wave of terrorist attacks are starting to make us wonder about the future of that nation. Oh, plus Mr. Peace has also been bombing Pakistan since early on in his presidency, but who pays attention to stuff like that? I am all for bombing Pakistan, but no one is willing to give me a prize for it.
Since no other legislative accomplishments were had, Cap & Trade is dead, Health Care seems shaky at best but most likely dead for now, let’s go back to that peace prize. Obama also won for nuclear non proliferation. Woops, there is that whole Iran thing.
The President promised to close Gitmo in a year, but that doesn’t seem likely. He lifted the ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. That pleased the left but since we have no real money to fund stem cell research or much else, who cares?
He did pay an enormous amount of money for old cars. These cars were then destroyed. A temporary rise in car sales was met with a giant bottoming out. So… yeah. We own clunkers and we didn’t even scrap them to the bone for parts. Way to go!
In year one of the Obama presidency, it took the President longer to pick out a dog than decide on wasting trillions of taxpayer dollars. He continued most of the policies of the Bush administration that liberals hate like the Patriot Act, domestic spying, and the War in Afghanistan. He took the massive spending that contributed to our financial mess and turbo charged it. He appointed an assortment of Czars who are basically insane and have only further destroyed his credibility.
The nation in financial ruin, corporations both benefiting wildly while at the same time being consumed by the government, and lobbyists in the White House after promising throughout the campaign there wouldn’t be, all round out a pretty terrible presidency so far. There are still a few weeks left but with the Congress ready for vacation and Obama no doubt ready to play even more golf, I don’t see much hope or change coming out of the White House as we close off his first year.
