Has President Obama lost the one skill he has relied upon so heavily?  Has the magic oratory suddenly gone leaden as indicated by his campaign speech for Martha Coakley?

“Here’s my assessment of not just the vote in Massachusetts but the mood around the country — the same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office,” Mr. Obama said. “People are angry and they are frustrated. Not just because of what’s happened in the last year or two years, but what’s happened over the last eight years.” — New York Times, “Obama Trying to Turn Around his Presidency.” – 1/21/2010

Really?  “…what’s happened over the last eight years.”  Is he kidding me?  Does he not remember that Bush was reelected four years ago.  Is this just one more elitist swipe at the “stupid” American people who are so dumb that they don’t even know things are bad for four years such that they reelect their president? When is he going to get off the campaign trail and start governing?  When, with one-fourth of his term over, is he going  to realize this is his gig now, and stop crying about Bush?  The anti-Bush attacks against Scott Brown by Coakley in the closing days of the campaign fell flat.  That doesn’t work any more.  This isn’t about the last eight years, but about the last twelve months.  The American people are sick of the Democrats trying to spend us into oblivion.

It seems that he may be betting the ranch on the State of the Union address, which runs the risk of Obama fatigue.  President Obama seems to confuse speeches with leadership.  Coming into office with zero executive experience, he let the inmates (Pelosi and Reid) run the asylum.  With the election of Scott Brown, Reid just lost his iron grip and Pelosi may not be far behind.  So what does Obama do?  Give another speech?  He has given more speeches than any president in memory, but there is time for talk and time for action.  But he seems to avoid holding another press conference as the fawning press may be finding its backbone and he doesn’t have an answer for his C-Span promises on the health care debate.

Boxed In

Reid is losing control of the Senate.  He no longer has  a filibuster proof majority and he will probably not get reelected.  He is one very lame duck.  Many of Pelosi’s party in the House see Brown’s stunning victory as a major wake up call.  Any Democrat in the House who is not planning on retiring, will not be eager to sign on to any more far left government takeovers.  So without Reid and Pelosi setting his agenda, and him still stuck in the anti-Bush mode, what can he do?  As charming as he may be, he promised bipartisanship but really wasn’t serious about it, he hasn’t cultivated any  relationships with conservatives.  As Dennis Miller put it on O’Reilly last night, “I hope he’s an ideologue.  If not, it means we have a dolt in the White House.”

President Obama has to realize that the job entails more than him just strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage, and get down to work and that means following Clinton’s lead and working with the Republicans.  There are a lot of ways to improve Health Care without spending  a trillion dollars (e.g., tort reform), stop bashing business when you need business to create jobs, drop cap and trade to fix global warming when oranges are freezing in Florida.

His inexperience continues to glow brightly.  He better figure out what the job entails, quickly, and get busy with it.  The referee just fired the gun signaling the end of the first quarter and Team Obama looks dazed and confused.  Not a good sign, sports fans.

Brothers in Arms

When I first heard the news of a “coup d’etat” in Honduras I thought, “This isn’t good.”  America cannot be a champion of democracy if we only support democracies where we like the outcome.  Recall the coup in Venezuela that ousted Hugo Chavez for a couple of days, and we got behind it.  But he was elected and to avoid being hypocrites we have to support the process.

Not So Fast

As more news came out about exactly what happened in Honduras, it became clearer that the military was following the democratic process not subverting it.  The bad news is that while President Obama kept silent or tepid at best regarding Iran, he came out forcefully on the side of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez condemning the military’s action in Honduras.

Here is a rundown on what is going on in Honduras as reported in the Wall Street Journal on June 29 and June 30:

• Honduran President Manuel Zalaya is term limited.  He wanted to put a referendum on the ballot to change the constitution and lift the limits on his term so that he could be re-elected.
• While Honduran law allows for a re-write of the constitution the power to do that does not lie with the president but with its Congress.
• Zalaya declared the vote on his own and got the ballots to distribute from Hugo Chavez in Venezuela
• The Honduran Supreme Court ruled that the referendum was illegal because such referendums are forbidden by the constitution within six months of an election.
• The military followed the Supreme Court ruling and refused to distribute the ballots which is its usual role
• Zalaya fired the chief of the army and planned to proceed with the referendum against the Supreme Court ruling
• The Supreme Court ordered the general be reinstated, Zalaya refused
• The Honduran Attorney General and the Supreme Court said Mr. Zalaya would be prosecuted if he followed through
• Zalaya decided to proceed.  Supporters broke into where the ballots were being held and distributed them against the Supreme Court order
• Zalaya was arrested and is in exile in Costa Rica
• The Honduran Congress met in emergency session and named the President of Congress as the interim president of the country.  They further stated that the elections would proceed on schedule in November. The military was no longer in control.  The Supreme Court said the military acted on its orders

A Disturbing Pattern

Maybe it’s just me, but I see a disturbing pattern here.  In Iran where democracy is being clearly trashed, President Obama was extraordinarily restrained in criticizing the mullahs, while they shot their people in cold blood for exercising free speech and free assembly.  In Honduras, the government is carefully following the rule of law and its constitution while its president tries turn it into a dictatorship along the lines of Venezuela, and they are roundly condemned by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton.  President Obama lines up with Ahminedinjad, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, and against democracy.

Here at home he is orchestrating a massive expansion of government power and intrusion into every last detail of our lives.  Our liberty to live our lives as we choose is draining away.  I’m concerned.  Are you?

I’ll see you at the Tea Party tonight in New York.

Republicans: Don't Fall Into This Trap

Republicans lose elections when they act counter to what people expect of them.  When President Clinton was undergoing impeachment, too many Republicans focused on what happened in the Oval office, leading Democrats to tut tut, “Republicans are just a bunch of prudes.”  In France, where taking a mistress and siring a brood is a way of life, were baffled at the commotion over here.  The argument should have focused on women’s rights and how Clinton, by his lying, was denying Paula Jones her day in court on a legitimate claim of sexual harassment.  If that was the gravamen of the discussion, the Republicans would have one on either the impeachment claim or by discrediting the left wing of the women’s movement by starkly painting them as choosing abortion as the sine qua non of their existence, rather than supporting the rights of a solitary woman against a powerful man.  Alas, the Democrats successfully dragged the fight into the mud, smearing everyone in the process.  When it was all done, you couldn’t tell a muddy Clinton, from a spattered Ken Starr, from a slime covered Republican Congressman.

Take the High Road

Today there was a news release from the Republican National Committee trying to make hay out of President Obama taking his wife to a Broadway play on the eve of GM filing bankruptcy, the state of the economy, etc., etc.  PLEASE!  Let the man take his wife to a play.  Barack Obama will have the Secret Service following him for the rest of his life.  It costs money to protect him.  What do we expect our President to do, stay home and bowl for the rest of his term?  The man still has very high approval ratings.  Trying to make these kinds of points is counterproductive and will probably raise his numbers and the Republicans negative numbers at the same time.  Instead of asking why he was doing that, ask him how he liked the play.

With the confirmation hearings approaching for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the Republicans have to be on guard for the same things.  Get off the “she’s a racist” bandwagon.  You’re playing right into the Democrats hands.  They are the party of class warfare and nothing would please them more than ad hominem attacks on a Puerto Rican woman.

Treat it just like any job interview.  Is she qualified to do the job? Don’t bring up any questions about race, sex, age, disabilities, or anything else you couldn’t ask on a job interview.  Instead of saying she is a racist for saying a Latina woman would arrive at better decisions than a white man, ask her to explain her thinking behind the statement and then follow it up with a line of questions about judicial activism.  On the Ricci case, ask her what would be the remedy that would pass muster in her court.  How many blacks would have to pass the test to allow the promotions to go through?  How many Hispanics? How many Asians?  Ask her if a white male wanted to sue the National Basketball Association because whites are disproportionally represented in the NBA, what would she rule?

Set the Table

Judge Sotomayor probably has the votes to make it to the Supreme Court.  At the same time most Americans are opposed to judicial activism.  If the Republicans stay on message and take this as an opportunity to point to another instance of this Administration taking away more and more of our liberties, they can head to the production studios and start making the commercials for 2010.  If they accept the left’s invitation to step into the mud pit, then when it is all over all anyone will see is the mud dripping from every participant.  Just say no.  No ad hominem attacks.  No inflated claims on small points.  Just a steady, consistent focus on whether on not Judge Sotomayor is an activist judge.  Here is the speech that we should hear from any Republican senator when the nomination comes up for a vote:

“Judge Sotomayor has a great American story.  It is a story that all Americans should admire.  She seems like a truly warm and caring individual, which are qualities than anyone should embrace.  However, in her judical philosophy she doesn’t seem to be able to separate her personal feelings from the law.  Her passion would make her a wonderful legislator, but a judge does not make the rules.  Like an umpire in a baseball game, the judge calls balls and strikes, safe and out.  The umpire doesn’t directly influence the outcome for one team or the other, neither the underdog nor the favorite.  Justice should be blind.  Judge Sotomayor doesn’t believe that.  Therefore, regretfully, I will be voting against her.”

Something We Can All Look Forward To

President Obama announces His Budget Plan and the Stock Market Craters

President Obama got his $800 billion stimulus package off the launching pad and now we eagerly await the massive stimulus to come when people start seeing their taxes reduced in April by $8-$16 per week.  Stand back, the crowds could be euphoric and out of control.

With the ink barely dry on that package, President Obama rolls out the next attack on future generations of Americans.  His plan calls for the addition of debt so staggering that it may destroy the U.S. economy.  How long before the additional interest on the national debt starts growing so fast that we cannot pay it, let alone the principal?  In his budget he plans to add half a trillion to the national debt every year, and all of this is with some very rosy forecasts of 5% and 6% GDP growth.  Will someone please tell the rookie, that when you slam the most productive earners with more taxes, they tend to react by producing less.

“The budget that President Obama proposed on Thursday is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters.”

The Reagan policies produced 25 years of unprecedented growth.  So the inexperienced President Obama is going to undo this because…?  The Democrats love to point to the economy during the Clinton years, but you have to look a bit more closely.  During the first two years of the Clinton’s time in office the economy was basically flat.  The economy didn’t really start moving until 1995.  What coincided with that?  Oh, yeah, the Republicans took control of Congress.  Taxes were cut and the economy took off like a rocket.

If you look at the term of George W. Bush, after 9/11 and the recession he inherited, he again cut taxes and the economy took off.  The stock market didn’t start it’s downward spiral until about six months into 2007.  What coincided with that?  Oh, yeah, the Democrats took control of Congress.  Coincidence?  You decide.

So now we have the new president deciding to trash the policies that have successfully grown the economy under Reagan, Clinton, and Bush.  At the same time he is going to saddle future generations with massive debt on top of a looming Social Security and Medicare bill coming due.

I consider myself an optimist, but for the first time in my life I am actually fearful that one man could destroy the U.S. economy in his first 100 days and rush this in under the guise of an emergency, where there is no debate, no time to read what is getting put into law, just slam it in and trust the the most inexperienced president in the last century that it will be all right.  Do you feel better now?

Can We Dump this Canard Over the Side?

More than anything else, the proposals seek to reverse the rapid increase in economic inequality over the last 30 years.

This economic inequality hogwash is dishonesty at it’s peak.  The so-called economic inequality is a sign of the success of the economy.  Think about it, the economy has a floor but not a ceiling.  That is, your income cannot go below zero, but there is no limit to how high it can grow.  So as incomes rise higher and higher, yes, they are going to move further from zero.  This is like saying that air travel is worse today than when the Wright Brothers flew because planes fly higher now than they did in 1903!  So let’s pass a law that says airplanes can’t fly higher than 2,000 feet so we don’t have a great inequality in altitudes.

There is nothing stopping anyone from having that high income if they work hard, use their talents, and succeed.  America is not about punishing the successful.  Many who start out at the bottom move up.  Many who came here as immigrants start at the bottom.  If the Democrats want to improve the numbers, let them control the illegal immigration that is probably inflating the numbers on the bottom.  Let’s stop turning success into failure.  How many people would like to be like Bill Gates?  How many people think America would be better off if we were all like Willy Loman?

The Big Flameout

The Productive Ones Set Sail to More Favorable Tax Climates

Let’s suppose for a moment that the stimulus works and the economy takes off.  With what President Obama has in the works, and the massive taxes that he plans to impose on the top earners, and the carbon taxes he plans to levy on businesses that weill be passed along to the consumers in higher prices (there goes your $8 tax break), and the masive debt he is loading on future generations, the stimulus will soon flameout, and a bigger recession will follow.  This time we won’t able to borrow and spend our way out of it.  Tax cuts won’t matter because there will be no one earning anything to tax.  The wealthy will have packed up and moved to more favorable tax climates and Barack Obama’s historic presidency will have flamed out as well.

President Barack Obama, took office with historically high approval ratings.  Congress ended its last session with historically low approval ratings.  So why is Barack Obama, the head of the Democratic Party, taking a back seat on the economic stimulus bill while Nancy Pelosi calls the shots?

President Obama campaigned on ending the divisiveness in Washington, as did George Bush, but bipartanship is far more than dinner parties with conservative columnists, cocktails with leaders of Congress, welcoming ideas from Republicans that will eventually be ignored by Speaker Pelosi.  If bipartanship was one of your themes, pay attention, there was bipartanship on the stimulus vote, it was bipartisan opposition.

Taking family planning and some sod for the Washinton Mall out of the package, does not magically turn this turkey into a stimulus.  It’s time for President Obama to do some arm twisting within his own party or his critical first 100 days will be a flameout.  Take a lesson from history, Presidents Carter and Clinton both took office with large Democratic majorities in Congress and tried to please them and neither could.  Clinton had a Republican Congress two years later and ended up with a pretty successful presidency.  Carter didn’t.

It’s your adminsitration Mr. President, don’t let Nancy Pelosi snuff it out.

Guantanamo

In less than one week the lack of experience of Barack Obama, that the media chose to ignore, was on radiant display this week.  His two executive orders, one, to close Guantanamo Bay, and two, to only interrogate enemy combatants as per the Army Field Manual, began the process of compromising our safety.

Today’s New York Times carries a story about a Saudi, who was released by the U.S. from Guantanamo is now a deputy leader of al Queda’s Yemeni branch.  He was suspected of involvment in the deadly bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Yemen.  He was realeased to Saudi Arabia to go through a rehabilitation program in that country before being released.  He is back on the front lines, ready to kill Americans.

So what is the president’s plan?  He doesn’t have one. Over the course of the next year, he’ll get back to us with whatever plan a commission or a committee recommends.  Maybe it was a political bone that he felt he had to throw to the left to keep them at bay.  Speaking of hope….

Interrogation

After more than seven years where President Bush kept us safe, President Obama rushed to put us at risk.  He abolished the practice of aggressive interrogation.  Now the enemy with whom we are engaged has no qualms about decapitating a prisoner (Daniel Pearl), no concern about torturing people and hanging the remains from a bridge for all to see (Blackwater contractors), and has one objective, that is, to see us all dead.  How do you negotiate with someone whose only demand is that you die?

The techniques used in very rare circumstances, were thoroughly reviewed and legal opinions issued that permitted their use.  Information was obtained that saved lives.  But now, the CIA has a much harder job to keep us safe.  In the Clinton administration the FBI was prohibited from sharing information with the CIA and vice versa.  Over 3,000 Americans died when those two agencies could not share information and connect the dots.

It was encouraging to hear President Obama in his inaugural address say tht this enemy will be defeated.  But to follow it up by closing Guantanamo and taking an important tool away from the CIA.  You can almost envision Osama bin Laden, sit up in his cave and smile and say, “Just like Clinton.  The paper tiger is back.  Now is the time to strike and the dog will run with its tail between its legs just like in Somalia.”

I hope not.  This is not the change we were waiting for.

“When the incoming Democratic president asked the outgoing GOP president to request the second $350 billion in rescue money, Mr. Bush graciously complied. At which point the Democratic majority informed the Democratic president that he’d see not a dime until they decided how to spend it.” — WSJ 01/16/2009

If Barack Obama wants to continue to be the “annointed one,”  and if he wants to achieve and maintain rock star status, just like his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, he should take another look at Clinton’s history.

If he wants to have a truly successful presidency, he better go get himself a Republican Congress.  If you look at a graph of the performance of the economy during Clinton’s term, you will see that the first two years were pretty lethargic.  But in 1994, the Republicans took over control for the first time in 40 years, and the economy took off, with Bill taking all the credit.  The last president to have a Democratic Congress during his entire tenure, was Jimmy Carter, and we all know how that turned out.

With Citibank caving in on the subject of cramdowns, we are all about to take it in the neck.  What the cramdown is, is where a bankruptcy judge can re-write the terms of a mortgage, including lowering the principal on the loan, in effect, “cramming” the loss down the banks throats.

Now I’m no fan of the banks making loans to people who shouldn’t have gotten them, but it has been a long standing priciple that in a foreclosure, the bank gets the house, if you can’t pay.  If the loan is structured right, that is, a good down payment then this presents good security for the bank.  In return, banks have traditionally been able to offer lower rates on mortgages than on many other kinds of loans.  However, if you change the rules of the game, such that banks no longer have that kind of security, what is any rational banker going to do?  That’s right, raise the interest rates.

So any banker writing a mortgage in the future, will have to weigh that some day in the future his security could be taken away at the stroke of some legislator’s pen.  While it is true that, Sen. Schumer’s proposed deal is only on loans in place at the time of the legislation and only if the bank and the consumer tried and were unable to negotiate different terms, it still hangs over the mortgage industry.  A banker today, will have to consider that in the next thirty years of the mortgage I am about to write, there may be another serious economic downturn, and in that downturn, some legislator may decide to do this again.  Therefore, I’ll add 1/4% or 1/2% to the rate to cover it, on every mortgage I write from this day forward.

Let’s recap.  Government programs (Fannie, Freddie, Community Reinvestment Act, Clinton’s Justice Department, HUD) push very hard on banks to make loans to marginal lenders.  The housing bubble bursts causing financial crisis and government rides to the rescue so that we can pay more for mortgages forever.

And we keep electing these people.

I was wondering how long it would take for Barack Obama’s lack of experience or a power base to manifest itself, but it appears the moment has arrived, and the problems keep coming.

His recent announcemnt or leak by his aides that Leon Panetta is his choice for head of the CIA is confounding, to say the least.  Panetta may be a nice man, and a good administrator, but in the midst of the War on Terror who but a rookie would put a rookie as head of the CIA?  Apparently Obama couldn’t push back those on the left who want no one who agrees with the Bush Administration in the post.  Two other potential appointees got hooted down by Obama’s supporters so he had to go with this pick.  The CIA is notorious for not liking outsiders.  Panetta has no intelligence experience, other than listening in on security briefings as Clinton’s Chief of Staff.

Bill Richardson withdraws his name from nomination as Commerce Secretary, due to a gathering scandal.

Eric Holder as Attorney General pick approved pardons for the FALN terrorists while working in the Clinton Justice Department and now he is responsible for prosecuting terrorists.

The Blogojevich scandal doesn’t want to go away and now the Democrats are battling over whether or not they will seat the man appointed to replace Obama in the Senate

We have the Coleman/Franken fiasco in Minnesota; Charlie Rangel under investigation for not paying taxes despite being chairman of the committee that writes the tax laws (Ways and Means); an item in the NY Times about a donation to the Clinton library from an individual who benefited from legislation supported by Hillary Clinton…

How long before the press decides the honeymoon is over?

As Barack Obama builds his Administration team you can sense the frustration starting to build on the left and among those who are still paying attention.  In an article in yesterday’s New York Times, Obama Describes Team as Experienced Yet Fresh, you can anticipate the eloquent gymnastics you are about to read as you would watching the young Chinese girls at the Beijing Olympics.

The Perception of Change

As the agent of hope and change, some people are beginning to wonder that if this is so, why is he populating his adminstration with so many people from the Clinton administration, causing one pundit to ask if we wanted a return to the Clinton Administration we would have voted for Hillary.  The master politician responded to this line of thinking thusly, “Americans would be ‘rightly troubled’ if he overlooked experience to create the perception of change.’”   Let me see if I have this right.  If you actually change, it is a perception of change, but if you don’t change, it is real change?  I got it.

He went on to elaborate, “What we are going to do is combine experience with fresh thinking.  But understand where the vision for change comes from first and foremost:  It comes from me.”  Okay, let me take a hack at that one.  Barack Obama is bringing together all these people with long resumes in government, with years of experience, and confident in knowing what to do and how to do it, but they are all going to follow Barack Obama’s direction and apply fresh thinking to their settled ways.  Or might they say, yeah kid, go back to the Oval Office and we’ll call you when we need you.

The Voice of Experience

Painting the picture further Obama says, “I suspect that you would be troubled and the American people would be troubled if I selected a Treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council at one of the most critical economic times in our history who had no experience in government whatsoever.”  But an inexperienced president?  No problem.  Even JFK, who was elected the youngest president in our history, had served one full term in the Senate, was reelected, and was two years into his second term before becoming president.  And he had a pretty rocky time between the Bay of Pigs, his Vienna meeting with Kruschev, the Cuban Missile Crisis and Viet Nam, in less than three years.  Barack Obama was four years into his first term and half of that time he spent running for president.  Should we not be concerned at the lack of experience at the top?

The Definition of Freshness

To prove his point about the freshness of hope and change, he spoke of Paul Volker.  Now, I think very highly of Paul Volker.  I believe it was he who got inflation under control after the disasterous Carter Administration economic policies.  Obama appointed Volker to lead his economic advisory board.  At 81 years old, he is the epitome of freshness.  How is that you wonder?  Obama masterfully spins it this way, “Paul Volker hasn’t been in Washington for quite some time and that’s part of the reason he can provide a fresh perspective.”  So where does that leave Obama?  Is he stale because he has been in Washington or his he fresh because he has been out campaigning for the last two years?

To cap it off in a question and answer period Obama said, according to the Times, “his [Obama's] call for new ways of thinking on the economy should not be interpreted as a reflection of frustration and disappointment with the Bush administration’s recent economic-recovery efforts.  He signaled his support for the latest $800 billion government bailout plan, which is intended to provide new lending for consumers as well as push down home mortgage rates.”

Anyone Out There Feeling Buyer’s Remorse?

So the purveyor of hope and change wants us all to believe that bringing back the Clinton administration is change; that 81 year old Paul Volker is fresh, but 72 year old John McCain is ancient; that Bush is the cause of all that is wrong with America, but fresh thinking should not be interpreted as frustration with Bush.

My sense has been that Barack Obama was painting himself into a corner.  All the while he believed that with his adroit political and verbal skills he would be able to slip out of the corner unnoticed.

The Democrats have only held the White House for eight of the last twenty-eight years.  So realistically, where else would Obama go for experienced executives?  With no executive experience himself, it’s not like he can bring colleagues in from his past executive positions, like Carter from Georgia, Reagan from California, Clinton from Arkansas, and Bush from Texas.  With only four years in Washington, two of them spent on the road campainging for president, it’s not like he built a network of experienced executive branch contacts there either.

He is also in the precarious position of having built up expectations so high, there is really no where for his job approval ratings to go, once he takes office, but down.  In addition to all this, he has to watch his left flank.  There are a lot of grumbling noises coming from that direction from a bunch of people with balled up IOUs in their fists, thinking we got you here, where’s the payback?