Barack Obama -- Blunders

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Above His Pay Grade

Dave Macy says that in little more than a year of "presiding" over the United States, Barack Hussein Obama has proven that most issues he must deal with are above his pay grade. Whether it is terrorism, the economy, unemployment, Wall Street, the banks, military decisions, reactions to the Supreme Court decisions, or letting the buck stop at the desk he occupies in the Oval Office, Obama has shown that leadership is an attribute sorely missing from his resume.

Of course there are other items we cannot ascertain from BHO’s past either. Starting with his birth certificate, school records, association with Marxist backers, and moving on to his love affair with the teleprompter -- Obama is really a simple man clothed in rhetoric that resonates in dulcet tones but really says nothing.

The Hope and Change of 2008 is long gone. Maybe it was never there. The MSM’s complete destruction of George W. Bush and their deification of the guy squatting in the White House are beginning to subside. Slowly, like awaking from a drug induced coma, the media is starting to enjoy peeling back the layers of incompetence. And what they are starting to see is what many Americans already knew. We have placed a man in charge of our military, our economy, and our traditions, who is now hard at work tearing down everything America has stood for.

There are still some defenders of the Teleprompter in Chief -- Keith Olberman who sucked as a sports commentator and is even more irritating as a political hack for the Democrats. Bill Maher, whose cable show exposes a little man with a big ego and a hatred for God and anything Republican. But let’s not fret too much -- if ratings of CNN and other liberal media outlets mean anything -- America has tuned out the cheerleading. Real Americans were never fooled by the con of Global Warming. Red blooded Americans have been shaken back to the roots of what made this country great -- shaken by a man who has shown time and time again that just about everything is "above his pay grade".

Team Obama Grows Stupid

Michael Barone says with absolute power, Team Obama is growing stupid.

How could such smart people do so many stupid things? That question, or variations on it, is being asked in Washington and around the country about the Obama administration.

The same people who directed the campaign that defeated Hillary Clinton and routed John McCain, a campaign that raised far more money and attracted far more volunteers than any before it, have within a year come up with a legislative program that is crashing in ruins and that, to judge from recent polls, has left the Democratic Party weaker than I have seen it in almost 50 years of closely following politics.

The 2008 campaign was an impressive achievement. So, in a negative way, is the 2009 legislative program that has left the Democrats in such woeful shape in 2010.

Some in Washington say that the problem is that Barack Obama has chosen to rely on his campaign staff rather than the wise old heads in Washington. But Obama and his team have had the benefit of advice from those wise old heads and from the smartest political strategist the Democratic party has produced in the past half-century, Bill Clinton.

A truly wise Washington analyst, National Journal's Jonathan Rauch, says the problem is one-party government. Presidents lead better, he argues, when they are constrained by the need to get bipartisan support.

There's something to that.

Continue reading here . . .

The Official Unraveling Of Obama

Thomas Del Beccaro makes the observation that it's no secret by now that Obama did not have a signature achievement his first year in office. Of all his major initiatives, health care, cap and trade, civilian trials for terrorists and the "stimulus" bill -- only the so-called stimulus bill was enacted. Hardly a success, as more Americans than not know what Paul Krugman and E.J. Dionne do not -- that it was a bad idea. Worse for the Democrats -- none of those efforts have produced a greater consensus or momentum for them or Obama. To the contrary, the Democrats lost key races in 2009, a Democrat House Member defected to the Republicans, the nation is more divided than ever and the Democrat Party is in disarray -- as is the Obama presidency.

Not to be out-done by 2009, in 2010, Obama has endured:

(1) the loss of the Kennedy seat (which is how the Democrats view that race) even though Obama stumped for the Democrats’ candidate;

(2) Obama’s deficit commission was shot down;

(3) The unions are warning the Democrats that they are "going to have a hard time getting members out to vote";

(4) Democrats are slowly signing onto a bill to defeat Obama’s civilian trial for terrorists,

(5) Obama’s TSA nomination died before a vote;

(6) Obama’s NLRB nomination died after a vote;

(7) Nancy Pelosi is openly criticizing Obama’s plans for a job bill;

(8) Some Democrats are openly worrying about the political effect of the expiration of the Bush tax cuts;

(9) the Left, in general, is openly criticizing Obama on a host of issues from the wars to his comments on Wall Street bonuses.

In other words, far from standing with Obama, Democrats have no fear of Obama anymore and all of that is playing almost daily in the nation’s newspapers, TV and the internet. Obama’s troubles are coming far too fast for even the mainstream media to ignore. Highlighting all of those problems is the fact that Obama’s poll numbers have reached new lows.

As bad as that anti-momentum is (and I use the word "anti-momentum" because Republicans still need to positively turn this to their favor with a "Republican Plan for America’s Renewal"), Obama’s troubles are going to get worse -- much worse.

Obama is now open to tax increases on the middle class ("agnostic" is the word he used). Anyone with a memory of longer than 15 years can tell you how successful Bill Clinton was in his first midterm elections after breaking his promise of a middle class tax cut or at least 54 lost House seats and the Speakership well remember.

Amidst so much Democrat blood in the water, it is no wonder Congressional Democrats are distancing themselves from Obama. If Obama pushes that middle class tax hike, rather than backing away from Obama, they will turn and run and the Obama presidency will have officially unraveled.

Obama Shows The Dalai Lama The (Back) Door

From Getty Images: Exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama (L) walks out the doors of the Palm Room of the White House by trash bags waiting to be picked up.

That Barack! He's a class act. Ivy League, you know. Très très!

Obama's Final Betrayal

Jeffrey T. Kuhner says Obama has made a fatal political mistake: He has shattered his progressive base -- perhaps permanently. His liberal hour is over. This is the real meaning of the White House's tax deal with Republicans.

Contrary to the administration's spin, the agreement is not a "compromise." It is a surrender -- an ideological betrayal of the Democrats' central economic principles. For nearly 10 years, the Democratic Party has railed against the Bush tax cuts -- especially, those for the "rich." Class warfare and income redistribution have been at the heart of Obamanomics. Obama has repeatedly vowed to repeal the Bush tax rates for those making above $250,000 a year. For liberals, it has become gospel, a sacred blueprint for creating a more just, equal society.

Obama is now an apostate. The deal calls for an extension of current tax rates -- on all income levels -- for two years. It also proposes temporary reductions in Social Security payroll taxes and provides business tax breaks. The estate tax will be temporarily set at 35 percent, excluding the first $5 million. In exchange, the GOP agreed to extend jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed for 13 months. The White House is touting this as a major GOP concession. It isn't. The Republicans would have agreed to it, anyway.

Hence, Obama sold out his allies for nothing meaningful in return -- and they know it. Progressives are seething. Many House Democrats are in revolt. The New York Times' Paul Krugman and Frank Rich have denounced him. MSNBC host Keith Olbermann has compared Obama's capitulation to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's "appeasement" of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Obama is losing his left flank -- the very people who propelled him to the presidency.

Liberals are finally discovering what most Americans already know: Obama cannot be trusted. He is a narcissist who believes that everyone and everything -- including his own country -- must be subordinated to serve his needs. His messiah complex threatens to tear America apart.

This follows a pattern of betrayal. His administration's massive deficits have betrayed Middle America, putting us on the path to economic ruin and national bankruptcy. The passage of ObamaCare was a betrayal of our democracy, creating the ominous precedent that sweeping legislation can be enacted without anyone in Congress knowing or even being able to read fully what's in a bill before it becomes law. This is dangerously close to ruling by decree. His foreign policy -- apologizing to the Muslim world, pressuring Israel to negotiate with the Palestinians, withdrawing missile--defense sites from Eastern Europe, coddling Vladimir Putin's Russia, refusing to confront North Korea and Iran -- has betrayed our international allies and friends. His strict rules of engagement, combined with a troop surge that has no plan for victory, has betrayed our military in Afghanistan.

He has now betrayed the socialist progressives. Closing Guantanamo Bay, making the public option the centerpiece of the health care overhaul, pulling all U.S. forces out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and repealing the hated Bush tax cuts -- the list of his failed promises keeps growing.

Obama is sacrificing his leftist supporters in the hopes of winning re-election in 2012

Continue reading here . . .