Obama’s Real Report Card
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By Daniel Greenfield
Sunday, December 27, 2009
As Obama’s first year in office approaches, his long calendar of
corruption and failure flutters its windblown leaves into the abyss of
the past. Let us take a brief look back at the full unmitigated
ugliness of the Sham in Chief’s first year in office… for a proper
report card.
The Economy
Obama campaigned on promises to help create jobs and fix the economy.
Instead he ballooned the deficit to record levels, failed to create
jobs and then lied about it, implemented the same policies he had
criticized under Bush, lied about them too, and by the end of the year
not only is the economy worse off than it had been under Bush, but the
national debt is far higher, the dollar is weaker and America’s
economic prospects look bleak.
Obama promised to help working class families, instead he burdened
them with generations of debt, forced them to make mandatory payments
to insurance companies and kept down job growth by promoting “green”
projects over shovel ready infrastructure projects. No wonder that
Obama’s fall has been hardest among working class families and even
black leaders are protesting against his abandonment of the black
community.
While Obama has shoveled untold billions of dollars into Wall Street
brokerages, green tech companies with no real business model and
insurance companies—the same working class families he has promised to
help have been left behind and lied to, and worse yet forced to bear
the burden of his corporate welfare.
While Obama’s Democratic congress had 192 million to spend on rum
factories in the Virgin Islands, 20 million for the Edward M. Kennedy
Institute for the Senate, and almost half a billion for Tesla Motors,
a company which has currently sold around only 700 cars… there was no
money for school vouchers for Washington DC’s kids.
This is par for the course in a chain of spending bills that primarily
benefited Obama’s corporate backers and ladled out congressional pork
earmarks with all the self-restraint of a herd of pigs guzzling from a
mud puddle.
While the dollar has fallen almost 20 percent over Obama’s term in
office, and many American businesses are looking for a way out of a
political system that has destroyed the economy with out of control
tax and spend policies… the bailouts keep on coming. And so do the
lies.
The same Democratic congress that has preserved and protected felons
like Congressman Rangel and Senator Dodd, reached into the depths of
hysteria to attack Senator Lieberman for having the gall to block
their plan for a Public Option, a plan that even the Congressional
Budget Office admitted we can’t pay for. The resulting battles turned
political bribery into a new low with 100 million dollar earmarks
being thrown around to win the favor of Senators like confetti.
And the final bill as always goes to the American worker.
D-
War on Terror
On the war, Obama promised to use multilateralism to create a new
alliance using soft power. 12 months later, his multilateralism has
failed, and his Afghanistan policy looks a lot like Bush’s Iraq
policy, except it comes with a built in 18th month deadline that Barry
Hussein helpfully announced to the Taliban ahead of time.
Despite a year of global criss-crossing, Obama has not achieved a
single meaningful result for all that effort. Genocide continues in
Sudan, China continues to repress its citizens, Iran and North Korea
are continuing their nuclear programs, and none of America’s allies
have offered front line troops for Afghanistan.
For all his rhetoric, Obama has demonstrated that he has nothing new
to offer in the War on Terror that Bush was not already doing… except
for his willingness to appease terrorists and the far left by treating
the butchers of 9/11 like ordinary criminals, instead of as mass
murderers.
When it comes to the War on Terror, just like the economy, it is clear
that Obama has nothing new to offer except rebranding, snow jobs and
cowardice.
C-
Bipartisanship
Obama promised a new era of bipartisanship and inclusiveness, but as
it turns out he can hardly even tolerate conservative Democrats, let
alone Republicans, aside from the easily bought off kind. Not only did
his White House launch repeated smear campaigns against critics such
as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, but the attacks on Lieberman recently
are outright reminiscent of 1984’s Two Minute Hate.
And each time Obama demonstrates his blatant intolerance for any
dissent from the party line, the results help poison the national
dialogue and increase opposition to his policies.
F-
International Diplomacy
Well over a year ago, Obama assured his gullible audience that they
were witness to the moment when the oceans stopped rising. But all of
Obama’s diplomatic clout couldn’t even get an actual binding agreement
out of Copenhagen. If Obama couldn’t even sell global warming
internationally, it’s quite clear that he can’t sell anything.
Diplomatically, Obama’s high profile trips around the world have
resulted in a lot of publicity and a lot of humiliation as the man
occupying what had once been the office of the leader of the free
world, instead went around the world pleading for change, and getting
laughed at instead. It’s not just the sight of Obama crawling to the
Japanese Emperor and the Saudi King that’s contemptible, but the sight
of him penned in on his visit to China, and being mocked in Turkey.
With his constant trips, Obama has managed to keep himself constantly
in the news, while completely devaluing the mystique of the office.
Unsurprisingly his visits have accomplished nothing except to create a
long stream of photographs of Obama around the world.
Meanwhile traditional allies who tried to visit America had those same
visits turn into diplomatic disasters as the White House did its best
to show its contempt for them. As a result America is now more
isolated than ever, and America’s enemies are openly taunting the
White House at every occasion.
F
Instead of the B+ that Obama ever so generously gave himself, a real
report card might read F+. And that is being very generous indeed. But
really it might be better to settle for incomplete, just like Obama’s
policies.
.o0o.
Daniel Greenfield is a New York City based writer and freelance
commentator. “Daniel comments on political affairs with a special
focus on the War on Terror and the rising threat to Western
Civilization. He maintains a blog at Sultanknish.blogspot.com.
Daniel can be reached at: sulta...@yahoo.com