This campaign video highlights Obama’s lack of experience:
Candidate Barack Obama’s glaring weakness was his exceedingly thin resume, a vulnerability exploited by Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton long before John McCain took aim at Obama’s inexperience. Barack’s featherweight credentials made Sarah Palin look positively Jeffersonian. Nevertheless, Americans took the bait, swallowed hard and voted for change. Now, a disturbing uneasiness is rumbling through the nation. Could it be that we’ve elected someone who is truly not ready to lead?
Threatened from without and within, Americans increasingly look to the President in troubled times for guidance, reassurance, and competence in dealing with pressing issues. Just short of two months into his administration, our young Commander-in-Chief has demonstrated a remarkable penchant for missteps that are anything but comforting. Americans across the political spectrum are wondering whether President Obama is up to the considerable challenges he faces.
Obama’s selections for various cabinet posts have been a source of well-earned derision. Americans have lost count of the number of nominees who have withdrawn because of income tax problems – is it four or five? In addition to the tax embarrassments, several high-profile appointments have voluntarily stepped down, including proposed Surgeon General Dr. Sanjay Gupta and Obama’s choice for Secretary of Commerce, Republican Senator Judd Gregg. The administration’s vetting process is an abject failure.
Other problems persist within Obama’s cabinet. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner faces a bona fide economic nightmare with virtually no one to help him. After Obama’s choice for Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Annette Nazareth abruptly withdrew her hat from the ring, poor Secretary Geithner was left to battle “the worst economist crisis since the Great Depression with none of his 17 deputies even named,” lamented The Daily Telegraph. At last report Mr. Geithner was working around the clock, a happenstance not conducive to clear thinking. Yikes.
President Kennedy famously contrasted domestic and foreign policy by saying, “Domestic policy can hurt you, but foreign policy can kill you.” Which brings us to Obama’s choice for Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Back in the day, State Secretaries were chosen for their extensive experience and accomplishments in the foreign policy arena. Hillary’s qualifications for the job are virtually non-existent. Bill sent her around the world after the demise of Hillarycare, but she was never given a top secret security clearance and traveled as a V.I.P., not as an official representative of the United States. Hillary’s Senate career was unremarkable. She is now embarrassing America on every continent she touches.
Perhaps the most glaring example of Obama’s greenness is his refusal to delay implementation of what even he concedes is a far-reaching effort to redefine “the role of government in our economy and society,” as quoted by Michael Boskin. Obama’s radicalism has intimidated business investors who are now sitting on the sidelines awaiting the outcome of new, untested policies. His scare tactics employed to force passage of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act have caused average Americans to hoard cash at the very time consumer spending is sorely needed. Nothing the President has said recently has been able to overcome his earlier pronouncements of impending doom.
Finally, raising taxes, increasing the capital gains tax rate, impeding charitable giving, and promising to run up record-breaking deficits in the face of an economic downturn is so wrong-headed, so 180 degrees off course even those on the far left are beginning to complain. The liberal Paul Krugman recently concluded that Obama’s administration is “dithering,” either unwilling or unable to correctly deal with the banking crisis that is ground zero of our current troubles. This is no time for a President who must learn by trial and error. If Obama really is in over his head, America is in for a long four years.
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Obama Presidency, Video