The Rise and Fall of BHO

The fall of Barack Hussein Obama is proving to be no less meteoric than his rise to public adoration. In fact, the fall may be even more dramatic than the well staged rise via staging, crowds and media hype of the historic nature of America’s first black POTUS.

The steady decline in policy support may have been noted in sundry polls, but it is in the last 48 hours that fallout from the MA special election of Scott Brown as the junior Senator may have taken it’s toll on the Obama “magic”. Instead, as FA compadre, Scott Malenski, notes, the liberal/progressive “friendlies” are turning on Obama in droves.

Domestically we have a major supporter and powerhouse, Paul Krugman, publicly humiliating Obama using the O’supporters’ catch phrase on his NYT’s blog yesterday… “He wasn’t the one we’ve been waiting for.”

Health care reform — which is crucial for millions of Americans — hangs in the balance. Progressives are desperately in need of leadership; more specifically, House Democrats need to be told to pass the Senate bill, which isn’t what they wanted but is vastly better than nothing. And what we get from the great progressive hope, the man who was offering hope and change, is this:

I would advise that we try to move quickly to coalesce around those elements of the package that people agree on. We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people. We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don’t, then our budgets are going to blow up and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance to their families. Those are the core, some of the core elements of, to this bill. Now I think there’s some things in there that people don’t like and legitimately don’t like.

In short, “Run away, run away”!

Maybe House Democrats can pull this out, even with a gaping hole in White House leadership. Barney Frank seems to have thought better of his initial defeatism. But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.

Dear Mr. Krugman… of course Obama wasn’t ready to fight for what the progressives believe in. Because, had you and fellow left believers paid close attention to the O’campaign, this was never about you and your beliefs, but about about “da won”. He is, first and foremost, a self absorbed politician with an ambitious agenda. Why is this a surprise? tsk tsk

The brow has to be seriously raised when uber-liberal journalist, Michael Hirsch, adds his own scathing damnation in Newsweek.”

Someone must have misinformed Barack Obama when he ran for president that the U.S. Constitution allotted him only a one-year term, rather than four years. Otherwise it’s difficult to understand why, faced with solving a Depression-size economic crisis, two wars, and global warming to boot, he felt that he also had to grab hold of the third-rail issue of health care during his inaugural year.

It’s been a disaster, of course, and may go down as one of the biggest political miscalculations in modern history. For the American public—haunted by too many rounds of layoffs, appalled by Wall Street’s government-aided Grand Heist, aghast at the size of federal spending that never seems to find its way into their pockets—health care was simply an intervention too far. Cue the tea partiers—and one freshly minted senator and future Republican rock star, Scott Brown. Lay poor Teddy Kennedy to rest all over again.

Hirsch, however, does hold true to his ever progressive optimism, noting that “overreaching” is a bipartisan trait. True enough… and only a negative in Hirsch’s column if the the GOP does not learn lessons from the past. Something I’d say anyone conservative or independent hopes they will demonstrate if they again come to power.

Another major domestic powerhouse, as Scott mentioned, Mort Zuckerman, didn’t mince his words either when he penned his Daily Beast op-ed, “He’s Done Everything Wrong”. Zuckerman, in the past an unapologetic supporter, is apparently now apologizing…. and labeling the Obama admin “corrupt” and “revolting”.

He’s misjudged the character of the country in his whole approach. There’s the saying, “It’s the economy, stupid.” He didn’t get it. He was determined somehow or other to adopt a whole new agenda. He didn’t address the main issue.

This health-care plan is going to be a fiscal disaster for the country. Most of the country wanted to deal with costs, not expansion of coverage. This is going to raise costs dramatically.

In the campaign, he said he would change politics as usual. He did change them. It’s now worse than it was. I’ve now seen the kind of buying off of politicians that I’ve never seen before. It’s politically corrupt and it’s starting at the top. It’s revolting.

Yet Zuckerman did try to throw Obama a few bones in his equally scathing op-ed. In his 10th paragraph, he said:

He’s improved America’s image in the world. He absolutely did. But you have to translate that into something. Let me tell you what a major leader said to me recently. “We are convinced,” he said, “that he is not strong enough to confront his enemy. We are concerned,” he said “that he is not strong to support his friends.”

The political leadership of the world is very, very dismayed. He better turn it around. The Democrats are going to get killed in this election. Jesus, looks what’s happening in Massachusetts.

In the first sentence, Mort states unequivocably that Obama has “improved America’s image in the world”. In the second, he contradicts that very statement. For how can the world be “dismayed” and unconvinced of an American President’s strength and dedication to allies, yet still have an “improved” image?

Case in point, Germany’s Spiegel in their their op-ed today, “The World Bids Farewell to Obama”. “Dismayed” may be an understatement, as the op-ed reads more like a poltical obituary… methodically checking off some (not all) adminstration failures.

US President Barack Obama suffered a painful defeat in Massachusetts on Tuesday. With mid-term elections looming, it means that Obama will have to fundamentally re-think his political course. German commentators say it is the end of hope.

US President Barack Obama has had a number of difficult weeks during his first year in the White House. Right after he took office, he had to wade through a week full of partisan bickering over his economic stimulus package combined with a tax scandal surrounding Tom Daschle, the man Obama had hoped would lead his health care reform team.

Then there was the last week of 2009, when a failed terror attack on a flight inbound for Detroit exposed major flaws in US efforts to identify and stop potential terrorists.

This week, though — a week when Obama should have been celebrating the first anniversary of his inauguration — may have been the president’s worst yet. Scott Brown, an almost unknown Republican member of the Massachusetts Senate, defeated the Democratic candidate Martha Coakley for the US Senate seat vacated by the death of Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The defeat in a heavily Democratic state not only highlights Obama’s massive loss of popular support during his first year in office, but it also could spell doom for his signature effort to reform the US health care system.

Center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung German commentator had, perhaps, the zinger perspective:

“Obama made a serious misjudgement. Right at the beginning of his first year in office, he saved the banks, rescued the automobile industry from collapse and passed a huge economic stimulus package. He had hoped that these enormous deeds would give him the space to address those issues which are dearest to him: health care reform, climate change and investment in education.”

“Those issues, however, are clearly not priorities for people in the US at the moment. Scott Brown campaigned on two promises, both of which apparently struck a nerve with the electorate. He wants to block health care reform and he wants to find ways to reduce the enormous budget deficit. It is here where the roots of dissatisfaction with Obama are to be found. His reform agenda, in its current form, is highly suspect to Americans. And they have the impression that, if he continues piling up debt, he will be gambling away the country’s future.”

Let me repeat that phrase… “… they have the impression that, if he continues piling up debt, he will be gambling away the country’s future”. Welcome to the heart of the movement that catapulted a Republican Senator to a seat held by a Kennedy for decades.

Bears repeating…. it’s the economy, stupid. An issue that transcends party loyalty any day of the week. Spending our money while promising us results for the spending… only to see deplorable results and generational economic oppression… doesn’t score points with an educated electorate – no matter what their voter registration says.

The UK has no dearth of acerbic observations on the tide turning embarrassing loss either. Gerald Warner notes that Obama’s “change we can believe in” has successfully managed to turn the home of Kennedy monarchy “bright red”, and resting ..”comfortably in the hands of the GOP.”

The Telegraph India, notes Obama’s three electoral strike outs:

The defeat in Massachusetts is the third big loss for his party in a row since Obama moved into the White House. Two months ago, Republicans similarly unseated governors in New Jersey, another equally solid Democratic stronghold, and in Virginia, which Obama had convincingly won in his presidential election in November 2008.

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Any loss of a majority in the Senate and the US House of Representatives, now controlled by Democrats along with the White House, will make Obama a lame duck President for the rest of his first term in office.

Obama’s WH is not unastute to the global damage to “da won’s” reputation. So the official talking points have been issued to the faithful for marching orders. Of the 17 bulleted phrases we will begin to hear thru the media, over and over, for the next weeks, 11 of them are direct, or indirect, “blame the Republican” excuses.

· Senate Republicans have an obligation to the American people to join us in governing our nation through these difficult times and to help clean up the mess they left behind.

· It is mathematically impossible for Democrats to pass legislation on our own. Senate Republicans to come to the table with ideas for improving our nation and not obstructionist tactics.

· Saying “no” might be a good political strategy but it does nothing to create jobs or help improve the lives of struggling Americans.

· Republican Hypocrisy on Debt Limit Puts Our Economy, Seniors and Veterans at Risk

· In 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion.

· Republicans squandered those surpluses by spending wildly on massive tax breaks for the wealthy and special interests, leaving President Obama with a $1.3 trillion deficit on the day he took office last year.

· Now, as the time comes to take responsibility for those mistakes, Senate Republicans want to pass the buck.

· Senate Democrats didn’t create this problem – we are simply cleaning up the fiscal mess that we inherited from the last Administration in order to avoid the economic catastrophe that would be created if the United States defaulted on our debt.

· When they were in control, Senate Republicans voted seven times to raise the debt limit and refused to pay for the costs of major initiatives. Their claims of fiscal purity do not square with their record of wasteful spending and excess.

· Standing against this measure would demonstrate yet again that Senate Republicans have no real plan to solve our nation’s economic challenges they helped create.

· Republicans, now more than ever, have a responsibility to work with us to move our nation forward with economic policies that continue us on the path to recovery.

The MA loss is not hard to interpret for joe blow citizen. The outrageous spending is simply not acceptable. Nor is forcing unpopular legislation thru despite the diverse reasons for opposition.

If this current POTUS ever “had a dream” for “remaking” America into a nation clearly opposed by virtually all political “kitchen table” spectrums, he can consider them dashed. In fact on Tuesday, Jan 19th, the need for his run to the center, simply in order to remain relevant as a leader, was etched in stone.

If Obama intends to hang on to a legacy other than being the “historic” first black President of the American superpower, he’s going to have to come up with something better than finger pointing. Because when the next black US POTUS comes to power, and he or she will, they shouldn’t have to live down the irresponsibility of this “pass the buck” mentality, in addition to shouldering the responsibilities that already weigh heavily on the leader of the free world’s shoulders.