Thursday, July 01, 2010

President Obama: Rise To Your Office

It is well past time for President Obama to rise to his position. He simply has to stop this non-stop, petty, childish, unabashed bullying speeches on the campaign trail and act like the President of the United States, not the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He demeans himself and does himself no favors by continuing to finger point and look backward as he claims to look forward.

The speech delivered in Racine, Wisconsin is the latest of the Obama temper tantrums on display. This event was billed as a town hall meeting. It was surreal to listen to the President of all the people bash the opposition party - a true minority in numbers in Washington - and place the blame of his policy failures on Republicans voting against his agenda. How ridiculous. It is hardly breaking news that the loyal opposition is, well, loyal opposition. It is the job of the GOP to say no to his out of control spending and historically wrong-headed ideas of big government control and huge government programs. His huge stimulus/spending bill passed immediately after taking office has failed miserably. It has failed not because Republicans voted against it, it has failed because he and the Democratic leadership in Congress shut out the Republicans in the writing of the legislation and the monstrosity of a bill is not conducive to turning the economy around. The only jobs being created are government jobs and that is an economy killer.

Barack Obama was sworn into office amidst a huge tide of goodwill and well wishes. Many of us, myself included, said that he was our president. We didn't succumb to thinking he would not be in our disappointment in the election outcome. Republicans were willing to give him a chance and they were shut out from the beginning. Then, as every vote is a struggle as he advances his far left agenda, he blames those shut out for objecting to the legislation. He continues to claim the GOP offers no alternatives or solutions. This is a lie, an outright lie. Policy solutions have been online and in town hall meetings and stump speeches from Republicans all along. If they were allowed into meetings, the Democratic leadership and the president would know that.

This is not the hope and change America was promised. Obama promised to be a post-partisan, post-racial, transparent president. He said we are not a nation of red states and blue states, but the united states. Passing huge bills in the dead of night without fulfilling the promise of the public reading the bills online for 72 hours before a vote is not transparent.

Some excerpts from Politico :

-- The unemployment rate, though higher than what the White House predicted, is still lower than it would be if the Recovery Act had not passed, Obama said. Acting as a critic, he said, “unemployment’s at 9.6” percent, and then answered himself: “Yes, but it's not 12 or 13. Or 15.” Similarly, he responded to concerns about the stock market by saying it’s “recovered more than people expected last year.” Except, the unemployment rate is 15% in Racine. Oops. His bad.

-- Obama said his efforts to disrupt the status quo – like his push for new financial regulations – are meeting the same “fearmongering” that Republicans employed in the health care debate. “All of you were told, you know, you were going to lose your health care,” he said. “Death panels are going to be set up. Remember that? And now we're about three, four months into it, and everybody's looking around.” Perhaps Obama has forgotten all the 'fearmongering' by Democrats, including himself, over the reforms to Social Security and Medicare that President Bush tried to pass.

-- Republicans have “pretty much the same” approach for solving problems, Obama said: “cut taxes for the wealthy, cut rules for corporations, and cut working folks loose to fend for themselves.” He said their strategy of opposing him to “get more votes” makes people “pretty cynical about politics.” This hypocrisy from the Chicago politician still campaigning instead of leading.

Obama enjoyed mocking Minority Leader Boehner for a remark he made over the financial reform bill. It was not a particularly prudent remark on Boehner's part but nonetheless, this is the president calling out the Minority Leader in a campaign style speech. He also took a swipe to Rep Joe Barton, by name, as he continued on with his schtick.

America needs strong leadership as we move forward to solve problems. Enough with the complaining and ridicule.

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