I have to admit that my opinion of Barack Obama has changed slightly from his candidacy to when he first took office to now. At the beginning of his campaign, I viewed him as an inexperienced, but articulate and charismatic man who had no resume that would recommend him to the highest office in the land. I was of the same opinion as his primary adversary, Joe Biden when he said, "the presidency is no place for on-the-job training." The man had no applicable experience.As the campaign wore on and Obama seemed to unexplainably gain the momentum, I began to learn about his mentors and associations: Bill Ayers, Tony Rezko, Reverend Wright to name a few. Any one of these guys could have sunk another candidacy...but Obama seemed untouchable. His campaign was also a cash machine. He was raising money at a record pace. It turned out that much of the money came from left-wing organizations with ties to billionaire George Soros, a man known for making his money by manipulating markets and devaluating currency. Now I began to wonder if Obama was a "Manchurian Candidate."
Then, when he was unbelievably elected and took office, he came on strong, moving at a record pace to try to bring about sweeping change. Bail-outs, payoffs, czars and health care...hurry, hurry, hurry, he want's it done right away. No time to waste. Wow, I thought, maybe he is really a dangerous ideologue. He does have a lot of radical learning in his background. He has made statements about the Constitution being flawed because it is "a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf.." He bemoans the fact that the Supreme Court "never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society." Maybe he really was the ring leader, the one with the plan.
In recent months Obama seems to lost his momentum and direction. He seems to keep himself busy in constant campaign mode while Pelosi, Reid, his cabinet and czars seem to do all the heavy lifting. Even the decision to bring the Guantanamo terrorists to New York City for trial doesn't seem to have been his. His Attorney General, Eric Holder, claims that he made the decision and just informed the president of it. Obama has spent his time on TV, jetting around the world and bringing lavish parties back to the White House. He has played more golf in 10 months than Bush played in eight years. But he is not leading the nation. He has not offered any solid plans of his own, and seems to be lost when he goes off the teleprompter. One of his most important duties, that of Commander-in-Chief, seems only to get limited attention. While our troops are in harm's way and the generals are asking for more troops, the president takes months to "deliberate"and has hardly any time to meet with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. Commander in Afghanistan.
In the prologue of his book he writes "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." He also says "my treatment of the issues is often partial and incomplete." He never ran a state, a company or even a committee. He has no experience in leadership...in making hard decisions. So I have to wonder, is this the ultimate example of the Peter Principle, where this charismatic guy gets promoted well beyond his competency level? Or, is he simply the right puppet for the job? In the primaries, Joe Biden said Obama was "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a storybook, man." Was he just the right sort of "blank screen" that certain political factions believed could get elected? Was he the young, good looking family man that would make a good figurehead for their leftist agendas? Either way, I think, the results are the same.
