Candidate Un-Obama
*********************************************************************
President Obama runs against himself in a way that would make Bill Clinton blush
*********************************************************************
One could presume that the headline refers to Mitt Romney but it does not. The reality is, no one this year has run harder against President Obama and his policies than….President Obama.
After rhetorically pistol-whipping the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war on terror, the Obama administration is now implicitly conceding that “Darth Cheney” was correct. In a speech earlier this year, Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, declared ‘We are a nation at war.” There is a scary implication in that statement: has Mr. Holder just come to this conclusion, as his actions in office might support? Mr. Cheney…err…..Holder went on to thunder “And, in this war, we face a nimble and determined enemy that cannot be underestimated.. . . ” He then stated a legal strategy that looked strangely similar to…..the Bush Administration’s. Now acceptable, according to Mssr. Holder, are military commissions for war-crimes trials, noting that they (suddenly) provide for “fundamental due process and other protections,” as well as targeted killing of al Qaeda leaders, where he declared that “we should not deprive ourselves of any tool in our fight against al Qaeda.” This is a stunning rebuke of what candidate Obama said in 2008 as well as the early Obama Adminstration’s position until it found out that governing provided a different perspective than running for office.
Groucho Marx and President Obama ask “who are you going to believe, me or your eyes?”
_____________________________________________________
And after 3 years of self-delusion that Iran could somehow be cajoled into giving up its nuclear program, which has resulted in alienating our ally Israel, Mr. Obama has suddenly become a hawk on Iran, at least in words. At the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee earlier in the year, Mr. Obama opened with a keynote address whose strong talk on Iran was in direct contrast to President Obama of the last 3 years. Up until this speech, one could be forgiven if they interpreted his bigger fear to be Israel militarily striking Iran rather than Iran getting a bomb. But. at least in words and at this moment, the President seems to have his eye on the ball about who the real instigator of danger is: Iran.
And despite killing the Keystone XL pipeline project, along with its 20,000 shovel-ready jobs, the President recently welcomed private industry’s effort to work around his obstinance on the matter. In January, a company that was to build the XL pipeline, TransCanada, announced that it planned to break up the multi-billion dollar project into several digestible stand-alone parts with the hopes of making it more palatable to government regulators. The White House immediately put out a statement claiming that “The President welcomes today’s news” and even that “we support the company’s interest in proceeding with this project.” Thus, in Bill Clinton fashion, Mr. Obama is simultaneously opposing and supporting the Keystone XL but he hasn’t changed his opposition on the transnational (Canada-U.S.) piece of the pipeline. But Mr. Obama cannot have it both ways: he is either for or against the project.
And despite blow-out government growth via spending and regulations throughout his term, President Obama said this January that he wants to reform and streamline government. This mellifluous wind song has yet to be backed by substantive action especially as he has ignored his own deficit-reduction commission as well as business leaders who point out that over-regulation (i.e financial, coal industries) is stunting growth.
A more open government than his predecessor George W. Bush? President Obama recently dubiously used executive privilege to prevent the release of information to congress regarding the Justice Department’s botched Fast & Furious gun drug-war operation.
Taxes? The President was and still is adamant that he will not raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 per year. Yet that’s exactly what he did under Obamacare with the Individual Mandate Excise Tax which taxes people who do not purchase insurance.
Unlike Bill Clinton who would (successfully) take both sides simultaneously, Mr. Obama seems to be disavowing the policies of himself which forces one to ask who is running for President on the Democratic ticket: President Obama or Candidate Obama?
So when entering the ballot booth this Fall, voters should keep in mind Groucho Marx’s wisdom: who are you going to believe, me or your eyes?
-I.M.Windee
