Is Barack Obama As Bad a President As He Seems?

The easy answer is yes and is one conservatives eagerly embrace.  But the easy response, I suggest, is not always the right one.  (No pun intended.)

Of course recent events lend credence to the view.  The Obamacare roll-out highlighted incompetence; the Administration’s handling of Syria’s chemical weapons use displayed weakness and vacillation while Snowden’s disclosure of national secrets caused international embarrassment to the President and harm to the country.

Yet some of these reflect merely bad luck in timing.  (Snowden’s treason could have happened under any Administration.)  Still, Obama has benefited from that very factor.  (Would he have won the presidency in 2008 if Wall Street’s near meltdown had occurred in December of that year instead of September?)

He didn’t seem so bad two years ago. (Don’t misunderstand.  I’m not suggesting that Barack Obama used to be a right-winger.  I’m talking about job performance.)

The President set a goal early on to enact radical health care reform.  He succeeded.  He vowed to change the course of American foreign policy by being more solicitous of the attitudes of allies and foes (the “reset” with Russia.)  He promised disengagement with Iraq and delivered.  And, of course, the killing of Osama Bin Laden came on an operation Obama set in motion. 

In a sense, the former community organizer, state legislator, and two year U.S. Senator has performed better than his supporters had any right to expect. 

But his deficiencies five years into his Administration have become obvious, even to formerly ardent media fans.

 

He may be so enthralled by the fawning attention to which he has been accustomed that he cannot distinguish the difference between his wishes and reality.  He may think that his wish becomes transformed into reality because that’s the way his world works. 

So when he told Americans during the debate on Obamacare, for instance, that no one would lose his current health insurance policy, he may have been expressing his wish that that was so.  [But it wasn’t true.  The law, unread by Congress and perhaps by the President as well, proscribed insurance policies which did not meet Obamacare’s coverage minimums.]

Of course, there could be another explanation.  He was simply lying, saying whatever would serve his immediate political interest and policy objectives.

Excuses for Benghazi (an anti-Muslim video was to blame); Syria (what red line?) and the computer disaster with health law enrollment (no one warned me) are evidence for this cynical view.

Whatever the explanation, and both have merit, Barack Obama has been exposed as a deeply flawed president independently of what I suggest have been generally unwise policies promoted by his Administration.  To be sure, a fair assessment of his forty-two predecessors would cause such a label to be applied to some of them, too.

 

He may prove on balance to be a bad president who, like James Buchanan declining to take necessary action to stave off a civil war, failed to take steps against the looming bankruptcy facing the country.  Or, he may experience an epiphany and follow suggestions from his erstwhile conservative opponents. 

Alas, I am unable to confuse the wish with the reality.  I don’t live in the President’s world.

Democrats Presented GOP with Golden Opportunity During Shutdown

It is awfully frustrating for conservatives to see their leaders and wealthy supporters fail to exploit a proverbial “gift on a golden platter”.

During the recent Senate-caused shutdown, the Democrats were on the wrong side of an emotional issue usually occupied by the GOP.  Alas, conservatives failed to take advantage of the opportunity.

 

Almost automatically, when conservative proposals are made to cut or slow government spending, Democrats trot out “widows and orphans” for the media who will be harmed and warn of cutbacks in, for instance, police and fire department services.

But Senate Democrats were recently on the wrong side of the emotional appeal.

    

During the shutdown, the GOP House proposed continuing all government funding with the exception of Obamacare.  Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said no.

That set the stage for CNN reporter Dana Bash to ask Reid why he didn’t support immediate resumption of National Institute of Health funding so that cancer patients could receive care?  He paused, mumbled something, and then pretended to have been insulted by the question.

The GOP should have pounced.  The President and the Democrats caused unforgiveable harm to people in need because they stubbornly clung to Obamacare despite its unpopularity.  They were running roughshod over the public good in pursuit of their leftist agenda.

 

Thus, Republicans were presented with the opportunity to attack the Administration and Senate Democrats with a position that had immediate and obvious political appeal.

 

This had the potential to reverse public sentiment ascribing more blame to the Republican Party than the Democrats for the government shutdown.

As the question from the CNN reporter made clear, the GOP position resonated beyond the usual conservative base.  Alas, we failed to effectively exploit the opportunity. 

Fox News and the Wall Street Journal helped but more was needed.  This was the time for coordinated action.  There should have been talking points so that the message was consistent and widely disseminated.  There should have been internet ads hitting the Democrats hard with sympathetic victims featured to help spread the message.  But very little of what was necessary was done. 

It is of little consolation now to say that if Republicans had mounted an effective campaign to exploit the gift given to them by Senate Democrats, political pressure might have been sufficient to have caused the President, instead of the House, to surrender.

Have we learned anything?

Who Shut Down the Government?

House Republicans?  Senate Democrats?  The President?

Unsurprisingly, the media blames the GOP.  After all, didn’t President Obama say he wouldn’t sign a budget that omitted or delayed funding for   Obamacare?  So, therefore, liberals reason, the refusal of the House to agree to Administration demands means that the Republicans are at fault.

Equally unsurprising is that the public agrees.   Given the media’s supportive narrative, and the public’s general lack of interest and knowledge of national affairs, what opinion would one expect it to hold?  The generally disseminated view propounded by the press, of course.

But there’s a different view.

The Constitution places the authority to initiate government expenditures in the House of Representative.  Not the Senate or with the President.  So the House is duty bound to determine whether spending taxpayers’ funds should occur and for what purpose (Article 1, Section 6). 

The President and his allies complain that it is illegitimate to deprive the Affordable Care Act of funding.  After all, Obama says repeatedly, the electorate ratified the new health care law by re-electing him in 2012.  [Hardly.  The stronger argument is that the President was re-elected despite the unpopularity of Obamacare.  Exit polls had it disfavored 49-44%.]

Republicans, noting that the law’s support has now dropped to 39%, can point to the high-handed manner in which the legislation was approved on strict party laws after then-Senator Brown’s special election victory in Massachusetts cost Senate Democrats their filibuster-proof majority.

They, GOP lawmakers proclaim, are the ones carrying out the public’s wishes, not President Obama and Senate Democrats. 

At the moment, the government is at an impasse.  The Constitution requires that the legislature and the executive (leave aside the possibility of a veto override) work together and approve spending.  Traditionally, the solution to a conflict such as today’s would require compromise.

The President and the Senate have repeatedly declined House offers to do so.  So what is to be done?

Can Obama maintain this posture of intransigence forever?  Of course he can, but he won’t.  The President is the national leader.  Ultimately, he can take credit for what goes right but also is responsible for what doesn’t.

Politically, the White House thinks it’s in a winning position (and the latest polls agree), given how its media allies have characterized the dispute.  But time is not on the President’s side.  The public affected by the loss of services will lose patience.  Obama will heed their pain and a deal will be struck.

So what is the answer to the headline?  The House passed the budget which would have continued government funding and sent it on to the Senate.  Once there, it was rejected.  Accordingly, the President has not been presented with a budget since the Senate would first have to agree to a version approved by the House.  Thus, despite what the media would have you believe, Harry Reid and the Democrats are to blame.