[img]1|left|||no_popup[/img] “After eight years, some of those years in which we did not have, I think, either the resources or the strategy to get the job done, it is my intention to finish the job.”
Parachute into a random schoolyard anywhere in America this afternoon and ask the first 10 teenagers you encounter the author of the preceding statement. At least 9 will correctly answer Swish Obama.
The over-arching clue is that the speaker immediately absolved himself of blame and slickly draped fault on the shoulders of his predecessor, former President Bush.
After 55 weeks in office — Swish effectively took over the government the day after last year’s election —the most petulant President of modern times still can’t help himself and accept responsibility. He remains addicted to shoveling all blame on all issues on his predecessor, whom he viscerally loathes, although heaven knows why.
Swish never has come to terms with the historical fact, his weakest area, that every President inherits a messy slate.
Between his puerile attitude and his remarkable record of failing at every single major initiative he has undertaken, Swish’s onetime passionate supporters are flying off his creaking bandwagon in teams. He must have succeeded on one try, but I cannot find any — the Middle East, Guantanamo, fiscal crisis, jobs, healthcare reform, climate change.
Barely 25 percent of the way into his term, only Swish’s thought-free Amen corner is remaining impressively loyal to him. The latest Gallup says that 91 percent of blacks and 70 percent of Hispanics approve of his performance are clinging to the seat of Swish’s britches. In all other categories, the President is below 50 percent. It may yet be necessary for him, ala Honduras, to change the Constitution and move up the next Presidential election before his ratings take the same route as one of his most ignorant pledges: “I will save or create 3 1/2 million jobs.”
Failure in the Numbers
It is surprising that the bulk of the President’s approval ratings are below 50 percent, since he was not confronted with a single sudden crisis to blame it on.
After lecturing us his whole campaign that we needed to start taking responsibility for our actions, Swish has niftily served as the Before model.
Culled from a variety of sources, here is a sampling of President Obama’s deadly descent into the blame game:
Washington Times: “Although Mr. Obama's effort is subtle, his rhetoric is clear. On his first trip overseas, Mr. Obama referred to Mr. Bush's foreign policy and said the United States has ‘shown arrogance’ and been ‘dismissive, even derisive.’ He said decisions of the past had ‘lowered our standing in the world.’”
Washington Times: “At a town-hall meeting in Michigan — the state with the nation's highest jobless rate — Mr. Obama said that fixing the economy is ‘a job I gladly accept.’ But he added, ‘I love these folks who helped get us in this mess. And then suddenly say, ‘Oh, this is Obama's economy.’”
Washington Post (early in his term): “Over the past month, Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems ‘inherited’ from the Bush administration, using increasingly bracing language to describe the challenges his administration is up against. The ‘deepening economic crisis’ that the president described six days after taking office became ‘a big mess’ in remarks (in March) to graduating police cadets in Columbus, Ohio. ‘By any measure,’ he said, ‘my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster.’”
Politico.com: “As President Barack Obama convened a high-level summit pledging to set the country on a more responsible fiscal course, he blamed the government’s financial straits on his predecessor, President George W. Bush, and on gimmicks used to keep hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending off the books. “This administration has inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit — the largest in our nation’s history, and our investments to rescue the nation’s economy will add to that deficit,” Obama said as he convened a fiscal responsibility summit at the White House on Monday. “We cannot and will not sustain deficits like these without end. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration or the next generation.”
