Relentless Incompetence: Americans Are Giving Up on Obama By Edward Morrissey, The Fiscal Times June 5, 2014 Over the last several months, the American public has had a hard and clear look at the executive talent inside the White House, and has begun to despair for real leadership and competence. When leadership fails, people stop following. It appears in the sixth year of the Barack Obama presidency, that moment has arrived. CNNâs most recent poll provided a clear indicator of this dynamic in the wake of two major controversies involving military issues. The results showed that Obama did not gain a majority of support for any of twelve issues surveyed from the respondents. In fact, in ten of the twelve issues, majorities disapproved of the Presidentâs performance, and only on one â the environment, usually an overwhelming Democratic strength â did his approval exceed his disapproval, and only barely at 49/45. On the economy and health care, which the poll identified as the top two priorities of its respondents, Obamaâs approval ratings sank to 38/61 and 36/63, respectively. The Washington Postâs Chris Cillizza assigns the change in polling to a crisis of leadership and competence in the White House. âThe core of Obamaâs appeal,â wrote Cillizza about the 2008 election âwas the idea that he would restore competence back to the White House after President George W. Bush's eight yearsâ¦. Obama openly embraced the idea that he was the anti-Bush on nothing much more than his commitment to putting the best people in the right places within his administration.â Now, the series of disastrous scandals and unmistakable incompetence have completely eroded confidence in his leadership, Cillizza argues, pointing to a Pew poll series in which his perceived executive competence went from 70/15 in February 2009 to 43/51 in December 2013. Continued at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Colum...ericans-Are-Giving-Obama#sthash.bUCPHyFu.dpuf
I know the liberal media want to paint this as merely incompetence at the top, meaning by inference that someone more competent could be executing the same policies and doing well. Of course, the person they have in mind is the smartest woman in the history of the world, Hillary. Apparently the smartest black man wasn't quite good enough. I think this analysis is backwards. The problem is not the execution or the people executing the policies, it's the policies themselves. Obamacare is not a failure because HHS Sec. Sebellius was an evil person whose main goal in life has been to advance gruesome forms of abortion. Even a decent person could not have made it work. The website might have worked better, but the fundamental flaws in obamacare would remain. The war on energy, the bailouts, releasing terrorists, undermining allies in the middle east and favoring islamist thugs, using the military to force radical social engineering on the country, etc etc. These were policies any liberal administration would have followed, no matter who was in charge. Any democrat's answer to any question is going to be to raise taxes, expand government, let in more immigrants and worship their religion of AGW.
For the vast majority of the last 6 years, I will agree with you. But there has been rampant incompetence throughout this administration, coupled with massive corruption and cronyism. You can argue this stuff has existed in government for a long time, but I think we've reached escape velocity on it during Obama's time.
What I find frightening is the calculated misuse of government power against political opponents. This has gained a great deal of traction under this administration. Things like the IRS scandal are actually defended and those who object to clear misuse of power are themselves attacked for raising "phony" scandals. Then there is vote fraud, and its first cousin, illegal immigration. These seem to be core values in the democrat party now. Opposing them will earn you the usual assortment of pejorative labels.
Well lets see.. IRS: seems to have been overtly tasked with attacking and damaging conservative citizens and conservative groups INS: they are quite busy as they have been assigned not to protect the border but to actually smuggle illegal aliens into the country and dump them in Arizona NASA: their new mission seems to be "Muslim Outreach" as described by Bolden EPA: the regime has directed the EPA to destroy the coal industry and to seize control of private lands if they have even a small creek or stream on them. If you have a drop of water flowing over your land it isn't your land anymore DoD: evidently the military has been asked to focus on green initiatives Dept of Interior: massive Obama ordered land grabs in the West ATF: ordered to flood Mexico with military grade weapons and then track some back into the United States so that severe gun restrictions could be introduced DOE/NRC: ordered to simply not consider any new applications for nuclear power plant contruction nor applications to restart existing plants that have been stopped for maintenance or inspections. If you turn your nuke plant off it is not going to be turned back on. DOJ: the department of justice seems to have been turned into a civil rights organization with a particular focus on race with selective enforcement and political bias influencing decisions about who to pursue, who to prosecute Those are just the departments of the government that are completely visible and mostly accountable for their actions. If the regime is willing to appropriate those very visible departments for political purposes just imagine what they are doing with the less-visible portions of the government. To the left the goverment apparatus is simply a political tool available to them because "they won" and they do not feel bound by the constitution even though they gave oaths to the contrary.
Great interview of dinesh D'souza on The Blaze. Best part is very relevant here: DâSouza: I think that with Obama, weâre seeing new lows and new aberrations that did not occur before. I mean itâs to me inconceivable that the Bush administration would go after Michael Moore in that way, or even that Clinton would unleash the IRS against his opponents. Carter certainly would never dream of doing such a thing. So, weâve in a sense turned a corner in American politics, and Iâm worried about it because to some degree politics is a game of adversaries, and if they do it to you, Iâm sure there are Republicans who are taking note who say âWell, wait till we have a chance to do it to them.â So we donât want the politics of putting your critics into handcuffs. Itâs a very troubling way for a country to operate. In fact, itâs the way third world countries operate, where they use the army or the police to go after their opposition. We have been thankfully spared from that kind of politics here in America. So, I think if people knew thatâs what was going on, there would be a revolt about it. One of our problems today is that our press has in a sense gone limp. In other words, whatâs happened is, we donât really have a normal press that is a check on the government. The mainstream media has become, in a sense, an extension of the Obama administration and is covering for him. They wonât report information damaging about him, and they are sycophantic to a fault toward the White House. Now Obama knows this, so it encourages people to abuse power when they know that theyâre not going to be held accountable. So I think we are at a perilous moment of American politics, but my hope and prayer is that it is a moment, and this is not the new normal. http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/0...ared-for-a-political-and-financial-shakedown/
The trend of our federal government has been to increase power and control. Not just since The One was anointed, but at least since the Civil War. A trend that old suggests that it is the nature of the beast to continue to grow until it has consumed all.