August 5, 2012
How many regret voting for Mr. Obama?
In 2008, predictably, most Democratic
voters were very disappointed in the Bush administration. So too were
many Republicans and Independents because many of them believed that
he and the Republican party had lost their way. We had entered two
wars that made no sense that were squandering the health and lives of
our military men and women and taxpayer's money on wars that could
never be won. The No Child Left Behind Act was becoming exposed as a
failure, the Medicare Prescription Drug bill was an entitlement that
most rational voters knew was unaffordable, and the housing bubble
grew and burst under his watch (yes Bush repeatedly warned the
Democratic controlled congress...but that was an ineffective
response). All of these actions combined with the weak McCain-Palin
ticket, and the promise for hope and change from the first black
candidate for our highest office, led to Mr. Obama becoming our
president. To even his least ardent supporters it seemed that we
could hardly do worse as a nation under Obama than we had under Bush.
I'm guessing that somewhere in some voter's consciousness was the
hopeful image of Nelson Mandela who had come into office in South
Africa and proved to be such a great unifier of that country's
politics and people.
Sadly, Mr. Obama quickly proved that he
is no Nelson Mandela. Instead of uniting our political leaders and
followers he did just the opposite. Instead he can easily be
described as the great divider and blamer (Bush caused it all, or
those intransigent Republicans are at fault). He quickly drew a line
in the sand and said to the Republican lawmakers by words and
actions...we won, you lost, now get out of the way. He then proceeded
to push an agenda pitting the poor against the wealthy, and even
managed to further the racial divide in our nation, not only between
blacks and whites, he also appealed to Hispanics to join the
Democrats against "them".
Mr. Obama reminds me of some of the
many extremely well-educated people I have encountered during my long
life who were judged by themselves and others to be smart because of
their academic achievements. However, I have also observed that to
have achieved academic success does not automatically mean that one
has the necessary shared values, common sense, practical experience,
judgment, integrity, and finally accumulated wisdom needed to
actually be effective as a leader. It comes down to the simple fact
that being able to memorize and regurgitate information in order to
achieve academic success doesn't mean nearly as much as the other
ingredients mentioned. Mr. Obama did have one positive key factor for
his success in getting elected. As LeRoy Goldman pointed out in an
article several weeks ago...he had lots of luck. If his U.S. Senate
race opponent had not withdrawn from that race in disgrace, if
Hillary hadn't bombed out in Iowa, if President Bush hadn't left
behind such a dismal image, and finally, if McCain-Palin had not been
such weak opponents...hope and change wouldn't have had a chance.
Look at Mr. Obama's two crowning
achievements; The stimulus and health care reform laws. He handed off
responsibility for writing these critically complex bills to Harry
Reid and Nancy Pelosi. And they did what was expected and enlisted
the help of the lobbyists for the special interest's most affected.
Predictably, these new laws then significantly favored those same
special interests instead of our citizens. In the end, the stimulus
package did not help to stimulate the economy in ways that created
jobs, just as Obamacare will not improve health care delivery for the
vast majority of our citizens. Clearly, Mr. Obama, even with a
majority of his party in control of both houses from the two years
preceding his election through the first two years he was in office,
and a continuing majority in the Senate even now, has failed to
deliver positive results for anyone but the special interests. The
reasons for his poor performance are simple, first he did not have
the courage to confront the special interests, and he had no clue
about how to turn our economy around. He had almost never worked in
the private sector, let alone led a capitalistic organization. How
would he be expected to know what to do. He could have, of course,
surrounded himself with experienced business turn-around experts, but
instead he chose to appoint mainly loyalists, and intellectual
academic types who shared his vision of a more socialist economy for
America. The net results are that America's economy and our nation's
citizen's futures have never been more threatened.
I read his two books; "Dreams from
My Father, and "the Audacity of Hope" recently, and learned
from his own words how he views the world, and can only conclude that
it was predictable how he would choose to lead our nation. His lack
of practical experience combined with his socialized agenda have been
verified by his words, actions, and results. He has proven that he is
more interested in social change than repairing our economy and
creating jobs. What do you want; bigger government and a weaker
private sector with fewer jobs, or the opposite?
Can we afford any more hope and change?
These are my opinions. What do you
think?
Mike Tower
Hendersonville, NC
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