I think it has now become clear that the current administration's policies have been a disaster for the American economy. Never in my lifetime have I seen such a vacuum of leadership at the top in Washington. Only the lamentable presidency of Jimmy Carter comes close. As I watch President Obama attempting, pathetically, to assign blame for his failures to George Bush, earthquakes, tsunamis, drought, fires, the Arab Spring and the economic crisis in Europe, I wonder when he will simply chalk everything up to the idea that God hates the United States. I have never witnessed such a despicable attempt on the part of a chief executive to shirk responsibility and deny that his policies, driven by an inane and futile ideology, have failed. His behavior is a disgrace, and in face of it, it is no wonder that the credit rating of the U.S. has been downgraded.
In watching this farce of a presidency, I notice that Obama more and more quotes from and refers to Ronald Reagan. This, I think, is telling. When Reagan was elected president, left-wing pundits pontificated that he was nothing but an actor playing the role of president. History has proved them wrong. But as I have watched Obama, whose miserable failure to lead the nation becomes clearer with each passing day, I began to wonder whether he actually wants to be president.
Then it occurred to me that the truth is that all he wants is to be president. He does not want to lead and he does not want to govern, simply because he is incapable of doing so. Whereas Reagan was accused of being an actor who merely wanted play the role of president, Obama is, in fact, merely playing that role. He is the actor-in-chief, incapable of actually exercising the duties of the presidency, concerned only with his re-election. He looks the part, he reads well from teleprompters, but when he is obliged to speak on his own, he is confused, uninformed, nearly incoherent. This is the man who claimed that he had campaigned in "fifty-seven states," who wrote in the guest book at Windsor Palace that the year was 2008, and who could not remember his own daughter's age. This is the president who submitted his budget to the Senate only to see it defeated 97 to 0. During the critical debt reduction debate, he presented no plan of his own, was largely absent, and when, briefly, he intervened, he only made matters worse, blowing the deal he had himself made with Speaker Boehner. Mr. Obama has proved amply that he cannot govern; he knows only how to campaign.
At Tucson, after the tragic shootings there, he delivered a campaign speech. In the wake of the so-called debt-ceiling deal, he delivered a campaign speech. After the downgrading by S&P he delivered a campaign speech. Now he is on a "jobs" bus tour - paid for by the taxpayers - delivering one campaign speech after another. He does not have a clue what it means to be an executive, let alone the chief executive. Before being elected to the presidency, he ran nothing, was the executive officer of nothing, governed nothing. He is not an authentic leader, nor an authentic president, but merely a political shill whose only skill lies in running for office.
In the meantime, as he poses for photo-ops and delivers the same pointless, prepared speech over and over ("Americans voted for divided government, not dysfunctional government"), American servicemen are being killed in the Middle East (30 were killed yesterday), the deficit grows by billions each day, the jobless rate remains above nine percent, the nation's credit rating is downgraded for the first time in history, and all Mr. Obama can think to do is to go on a bus tour, celebrate his birthday, and play golf.
(Just now, this evening, I see that today Obama suggested that the federal government should pay unemployed construction workers to repair the nation's aging infrastructure. Where will the money come from? We are broke, and he still does not seem to understand that. But, further, the federal government does not create jobs - only the private sector can do that, and so how does making unemployed construction workers de facto employees of the government help solve the unemployment problem? Better for the government to get out of the way, as Reagan said, and let the private sector do what it does best - create jobs and produce wealth. Lower taxes, relax regulations, and provide incentive which translates into opportunity. But Obama and his cronies on the left cannot or will not see this, because they believe in the power of government and not in the power of the private sector and of individuals.)
I ask you: Who wants four more years of this? Who will vote again for this man, regardless of the color of his skin? Who has confidence in his "leadership"? When are even his most ardent supporters on the left going to admit that Obama and his pseudo-socialist agenda have failed, and failed miserably?
Never, I suspect, just as Obama himself will not admit it since he is incapable, ideologically, of facing the fact that he has failed. Treasury Secretary Geithner and all of his ivory-tower economic advisers should be fired. Attorney General Holder and his corrupt Justice Department staff who refuse to enforce the laws of the United States should be fired. But they will not be, because this administration is not driven by concern for the long-term interests of the United States, nor for the near-term welfare of its citizens, nor even by reality. It is driven by a left-wing ideology which, even in the face of its own failure, insists upon the correctness of its policies. And Obama is driven, apparently, by nothing more than his desire to be re-elected. This is madness, of which even Richard Nixon in the depths of Watergate would not have been capable.
