RSS Feed MenuAdmittedly, I was one of the moderate conservatives who was wooed by Obama during his PR campaign to become the country’s next president. Sadly, even though I was still unsure of my vote until the week before the election, I know better now. I truly had no idea he would turn out to be the radical tax and spend liberal he’s revealed. Since the beginning of his presidency, Obama seems more interested in making policies and decisions that grab headlines than those in the best interests of the country. The announcement of his whopping $3 trillion budget, trailing the $800 billion bank bailout, was shocking and yet the media seemed to rally around him. The president wants to do everything at one time, national healthcare, economy, taxes (wealth redistribution), clean energy, infrastructure, education and more. He acts very king-like, expecting Congress to endorse everything he floats their way, but his high octane PR strategy–loaded with smiles and good oratory may be fading.
Mr. Obama spends money like its coming out of his own piggy bank and expects Congress to rubber stamp his agenda at every turn, which they have been doing except when it came to the closing of Guantanamo Bay prison. This is when the pie in the sky headline grabbing Obama style of governing met reality. Mr. Obama asked Congress for $80 million to build a new prison (it’s just more money to pile on the ginormous debt) but they paused, scratched their heads and couldn’t just go along with this brazen request without more details from King Obama. Even more hilarious was when the administration said it would just relocate these terrorists to state prisons but governors stopped that bad idea — “not in my back yard.” Even FBI Director Mueller nixed the idea as highly risky because terrorists could easily plot attacks on the US from within prison, recruiting other terrorists, organizing, fundraising etc.
Before this miscalculation, the President listened to his faithful servant Rahm Emanuel and released CIA memos about harsh interrogation tactics used on terrorists under the Bush administration. Many people including Defense Secretary Gates thought this was a bad idea and would endanger our troops needlessly not to mention reveal interrogation methods to our enemies. Once again, the president got great headlines from the partisan press which bashed President Bush and the interrogation methods he endorsed during his administration.
But as the reality of keeping this headline grabbing story going began to sink into President Obama’s head, he started walking backwards on the topic weighing the risk in the reality of the situation. This is when the administration had Attorney General Eric Holder tell the media that the Justice Department wasn’t going to prosecute former Bush officials. Shortly after this, the president announced he wouldn’t release photos of detainees being interrogated. Why engage in any of this in the first place? Releasing interrogation memos and detainee photos only harms our intelligence community and puts American’s at risk. Incidentally, the Wall Street Journal was the only paper to relentlessly criticize the administration about taking this action.
These recent events, the planned closing of Gitmo and “CIA-gate”, have made the president look very inexperienced and unpolished in his ability to lead the nation and only widened the partisan bickering in Washington. Oh, yeah and Speaker Pelosi’s memory lapse over when and what she knew about waterboarding looks sloppy, as if she’s trying to hide the truth. It doesn’t help the president and certainly doesn’t look like change we can believe in or need.
On a side note the president’s comments about his nominee to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, are also cause for pause. He said he picked her because she would show empathy. While Supreme Court justices are human and bring experience to their work, they’re tasked with finely reviewing cases, considering the Constitution and using their intellect to arrive at rulings. Emotion isn’t part of the job. Even more disturbing are Judge Sotomayor’s comments that judges make policy.
It seems like the president’s image is unraveling in recent months and we’re getting a look at the real Obama underneath the PR, razzle, dazzle veneer he sports so well. I think Americans are growing weary of the sparkle, shine and high-spending policies this president is selling and want to see something more. Every week he is on TV holding a press conference for this or that announcement on funding, bailouts or programs to expand government exponentially. As my father exclaimed recently, “when does he have time to run the country, if he’s on television everyday.” This is a question to be pondered. Team Obama may have won the presidency through an innovative public relations campaign but winning over the confidence of Americans and setting the country on the right course will require careful thought, temperance and bipartisan collaboration.
A smile and eloquent speech won’t make it all right.
sinz54 // May 30, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Oops, Bruce Bartlett didn’t help write the Contract. It was another noted conservative, Larry Hunter, who helped write the Contract with America–and in 2008, he endorsed Obama. Same reason. He didn’t like Bush’s policies.
greg_barton // May 30, 2009 at 1:16 pm
So Bush spends like a drunken sailor and it’s OK? Bush suggests that Gitmo should be closed and it’s OK? But Obama does the same things and it’s somehow wrong?
bens // May 30, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Welcome aboard Crystal- one more for the good guys!
WINDe // May 30, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Re: NotFooled”No conservative of any stripe, with enough intelligence to graduate eighth grade could be taken in by the affirmative action Kenyan.”This statement is so vague and generalized, so beleaguered by bigoted linguistic earmarks, that it’s impossible to agree with unless you’re just as bigoted as NotFooled is.if you had said “any conservative who thought Obama was going to cut taxes for the wealthiest 5% and enact a spending freeze on all facets of government isn’t much of an attentive conservative” I could have agreed with you. Of course, it’s a pointlessly obvious statement to make, but good work NotFooled, way to point out the obvious with such bigoted vitriol that even another conservative can’t agree with you.
jjv // May 31, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Welcome, back. As for the comments Christopher Buckley is not an idiot and he voted for Obama. Bush fatigue was real. Young people want to be new and inclusive and Obama embodies “the United Colors of Benneton.”
Hamiltonian // May 31, 2009 at 10:30 pm
We shouldn’t give up on Obama, yet. The fact that he’s taking so much flack from the activist left suggests that he’s doing something right. Although we should complain about the stimulus, huge deficits as far as the eye can see, and a very questionable cap and trade scheme, we also have a lot to be thankful for: troop increases in Afghanistan, modest (and necessary) tax increases, sensible policies concerning detainees, a let-sleeping-dogs-lie attitude toward abortion and gun control, and a general lack of hard-left policy pushes. Again, if the lefty bloggers adnd activists are whining, then we should be reassured.
palomino70 // May 31, 2009 at 11:52 pm
“As my father exclaimed recently, “when does Obama have time to run the country, if he’s on television everyday.” This is a question to be pondered.” The only question to be pondered here is how a media consultant with 15 years of experience could write such drivel. Like him or not, Obama clearly has the intellect and skill to give a weekly presser AND carry out the rest of his duties, i.e., walk and chew gum simultaneously. (Remember, he’s not clearing brush or getting fellated in his office, so he can “waste” some of his valuable time to communicate with the public.)That Ms. Wright would posit this “argument” as the conclusion to a long post suggests a lack of seriousness and/or depth. Some commenters here want her axed for ideological impurity; but it’s simpler than that–just give her the boot for crappy writing.
sinz54 // Jun 1, 2009 at 8:09 am
Hamiltonian: A couple other things: Obama has endorsed military commissions to try terrorists (though with different rules than Bush). And he actually accepts the principle of preventive detention: If it comes down to keeping a terrorist locked up vs. freeing him on grounds of illegally obtained evidence, Obama will keep him locked up.For this, he has gotten slammed by the ACLU and the left-wing blogosphere.Obama hasn’t exactly gone to Gitmo and freed all the detainees there. He’s at least *trying* to thread the needle on them, which I do give him credit for.I disagree with Obama’s handling of economic stimulus. But I do *NOT* think Obama is some kind of American Josef Stalin, a Marxist dictator plotting to take away all our freedoms, as RedState.com and the Freepers seem to think. Rather, this is just life under a liberal administration, like the LBJ or FDR administrations.