[img]1997|right|George W. Obama?||no_popup[/img]Following revelations of the Obama administration spying on the telephone phone records and internet activity by millions of Americans, the Christian Science Monitor ran this headline: “George W. Obama? With NSA spying, Obama feels wrath of the left.”
An ally of anything Left-leaning, with little left for the well-thinking right to contemplate, The Huffington Post huffed and puffed condemnation, ashamed anyone would demean the current President.
Of course, the betrayal felt by the Left for anyone in higher office is nothing new. From the moment an executive steps into office, he will without fail feel the wrath of the left. From Oakland to Portland, liberal city leaders have to play the adult, maintaining order when riots Occupy and tax revenues fall. New Mayor Eric Garcetti chided previous leaders for throwing frustration in the face of prospective business interests. “It should not be easier to get a meeting with the governor of Texas than the mayor of Los Angeles,” Mr. Garcetti announced in his first speech.
How Much They Act Alike
In the same manner, President Obama has played the adult on terrorism, a role former President Bush formerly fulfilled. President Obama, admit it or not, has relied extensively on the previous administration’s counter-terrorism network. Drones are driving over terrorist wastelands in the Middle East. Guantanamo Bay remains open. The War on Terror is in full-swing in Afghanistan, although the administration is drawing down troops for a quicker withdrawal. Five terrorist attacks on American soil, including the Boston Marathon massacre and the Ft. Hood shooting, prove that President Obama is not Bushie enough.
President Obama had to be a centrist on foreign policy, as any chief executive will. As state and U.S. senator, he could play pacifist to placate his constituents. Now, even a President so “I” centered cannot remain silent while terrorists decry America as the Great Satan. They attack our troops, embolden our enemies, intimidate our allies. The spying on potential terrorists has not stopped under this administration, and not just foreign calls into our country. Domestic callers are being spied on.
President Obama is acting more like President Bush, no matter how much the former has derided the latter. Weatherman domestic terrorist Bill Ayers has turned on his formerly beloved protégé, raining down on his President, since Mr. Obama has gone to the right on terrorism and national defense. “George W. Obama” sits in the Oval Office. No one should be surprised since this President carried on the same state-sponsored policies of the previous administration.
The Bush Downside
Following the attacks on the World Trade Center, President Bush expanded homeland security, which has not secured the homeland from domestic/bond-holder rumblings in Asia, with no money for outrageous contractual obligations. In 2003, Mr. Bush amassed a massive entitlement expansion, Medicare Part D, which then-House Speaker Denny Hastert promoted across the country. Who was going to pay for this? You and me, the younger generation, the ones who were not sick, old, seeking orthopedic therapy.
Moral forays into private matters are not new, but they are greater under President Obama. In 2005, President Bush wanted to keep bedridden Terry Schiavo on life-support, against judicial ruling. Ms. Schiavo’s husband still pulled the plug. Voters should have pulled the plug on a party and a nation working contrary to its own principles, spending the principal amount of our wealth and prosperity on wars, entitlements and national security. President Bush signed into law a federal minimum wage increase in 2007, and President Obama wants to raise it again. Conservative columnist George Will repeatedly reminded his television Roundtable rowdies that the Bush administration already had fashioned one stimulus (2008) before President Obama was releasing another.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush share much in common. Both elites from private schooling, Harvard educated, with a penchant to make big government bigger, committed to a vision of more state power as statecraft, both handing out billions to stimulate special interests, whether to bailout banks or buy unions. As President Bush tarnished the Republican brand with subsidies, wars overseas, and Big Government getting bigger, President Obama is trying to do more damage to the Democratic Party brand. His vision of a dominant welfare government has offended left and right, from the invasion of privacy to the raping of our future.
Comparing their similar legacies, is anyone surprised to read by George W. Obama? As for me, I told ya so.
Arthur Christopher Schaper is a teacher-turned-writer on topics both timeless and timely; political, cultural, and eternal. A life-long Southern California resident, Arthur currently lives in Torrance.
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