Another Failed Presidency






















I received an e-mail recently from one of my readers. So many times in the past I have gotten burned posting stuff that was alleged factual in content only to find out it wasn't so. So, due to experience and that lost innocence that allowed me to trust unknown sources, I did my home work this time. I verified the article and the author.


The article, entitled "Another Failed Presidency", was written by Geoffrey P. Hunt and was first published in The American Thinker on August 31, 2009. I had not previously seen this work but was most impressed with Mr. Hunts perspective and insight.


President Barrack Hussein Obama, while not a failed President at this point in time, it does appear to many that given his full term he will likely be just another Jimmy Carter at the end of the day. As American citizens concerned about our own self interest as well as that of our nation we should hope for his success in turning the economy around and ending the widespread corruption in congress. Most indications lead one to believe this won't happen.


It might seem peculiar Rational Nation USA  chose to display the American Flag, with the picture of the Bald Eagle and the words of President Andrew Jackson inscribed over the  flag. Upon completion of reading the following RN USA believe you will know why it was choose for the header  at the top of this post.




Another Failed Presidency


By Geoffrey P. Hunt
Barrack Obama is on track to have the most spectacularly failed presidency since WoodrowWilson.












In the modern era, we've seen several failed presidencies--led by Jimmy Carter and LBJ. Failed presidents have one strong common trait-- they are repudiated, in the vernacular, spat out. Of course, LBJ wisely took the exit ramp early, avoiding a shove into oncoming traffic by his own party. Richard Nixon indeed resigned in disgrace, yet his reputation as a statesman has been partially restored by his triumphant overture to China.

George Bush Jr didn't fail so much as he was perceived to have been too much of a patrician while being uncomfortable with his more conservative allies. Yet George Bush Sr is still perceived as a man of uncommon decency, loyal to the enduring American character of rugged self-determination, free markets, and generosity. George W will eventually be treated more kindly by historians as one whose potential was squashed by his own compromise of conservative principles, in some ways repeating the mistakes of his father, while ignoring many lessons in executive leadership he should have learned at Harvard Business School.  Of course George W could never quite overcome being dogged from the outset by half of the nation convinced he was electorally illegitimate -- thus aiding the resurgence of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.


But, Barack Obama is failing. Failing big.  Failing fast. And failing everywhere: foreign policy, domestic initiatives, and most importantly, in forging connections with the American people. The incomparable Dorothy Rabinowitz in the Wall Street Journal  put her finger on it: He is failing because he has no understanding of the American people, and may indeed loathe them. Fred Barnesof the Weekly Standard says he is failing because he has lost control of his message, and is overexposed. Clarice Feldman of American Thinker produced a dispositive commentary showing that Obama is failing because fundamentally he is neither smart nor articulate; his intellectual dishonesty is conspicuous by its audacity and lack of shame


But, there is something more seriously wrong: How could a new president riding in on a wave of unprecedented promise and goodwill have forfeited his tenure and become a lame duck in six months? His poll ratings are in free fall. In generic balloting, the Republicans have now seized a five point advantage. This truly is unbelievable. What's going on?


No narrative. Obama doesn't have a narrative. No, not a narrative about himself. He has a self-narrative, much of it fabricated, cleverly disguised or written by someone else. But this self-narrative is isolated and doesn't connect with us.  He doesn't have an American narrative that draws upon the rest of us. All successful presidents have a narrative about the American character that intersects with their own where they display a command of history and reveal an authenticity at the core of their personality that resonates in a positive endearing way with the majority of Americans. We admire those presidents whose narratives not only touch our own, but who seem stronger, wiser, and smarter than we are. Presidents we admire are aspirational peers, even those whose politics don't align exactly with our own: Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Harry Truman, Ike, Reagan.


But not this president. It's not so much that he's a phony, knows nothing about economics, is historically illiterate, and woefully small minded for the size of the task-- all contributory of course.  It's that he's not one of us. And whatever he is, his profile is fuzzy and devoid of content, like a cardboard cutout made from delaminated corrugated paper. Moreover, he doesn't command our respect and is unable to appeal to our own common sense. His notions of right and wrong are repugnant and how things work just don't add up. They are not existential. His descriptions of the world we live in don't make sense and don't correspond with our experience.


In the meantime, while we've been struggling to take a measurement of this man, he's dissed just about every one of us--financiers, energy producers, banks, insurance executives, police officers, doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, post office workers, and anybody else who has a non-green job. Expect Obama to lament at his last press conference in 2012: "For those of you I offended, I apologize. For those of you who were not offended, you just didn't give me enough time; if only I'd had a second term, I could have offended you too."


Mercifully, the Founders at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 devised a useful remedy for such a desperate state--staggered terms for both houses of the legislature and the executive. An equally abominable Congress can get voted out next year. With a new Congress, there's always hope of legislative gridlock until we vote for president again two short years after that.


Yes, small presidents do fail, Barack Obama among them. The coyotes howl but the wagon train keeps rolling along.

[editor's note: The author is not the not the same person as Geoffrey P Hunt, who works at the Institute for Scientific Analysis as a senior research scientist.]

The original sender of the e-mail, who ever it was, added a few lines of their own. While taken out of the original text of the article they were good enough Rational Nation USA felt compelled to run them as a footer to the actual article.


Margret Thatcher: 'The trouble with Socialism is, sooner or later you run out of other people's money to spend."


"When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both." James Dale Davidson, National Taxpayers Union


"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." Tacitus


"A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own." Unknown



Via: E-Mail
Via: American Thinker

Comments

  1. I was looking forward to a real analysis. Instead I got a partisan, typical Obama hating screed RN.

    History will not be kind to George W. just as it is not kind to LBJ. And only the diehardiest righties think Nixon was much more than the dishonest crook he showed himself to be.


    What Carter and Obama have in common is both became president at awful times to become president. Nothing Carter could have done would have made his term any better. His actions, in my view, kept the international situation from decaying into chaos and wars nobody could have won.


    Obama inherited an economy on the brink of depression according to right and left leaning economists. The international situation is tenuous at best. China has emerged as an economic rival perhaps stronger than ourselves. It's huge population and lack of morals in the products they produce. Whom and how they deal gives thm a huge advantage.


    In 2012 I'll be glad to listen to the grades given Obama and whether he deserves a second term. It is premature and shows total disregard for history and what Obama inherited for Mr. Hunt to make his flawed assessment now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. TRUTH - You know me well by now my friend. My post was simply to provoke thought, nothing else.

    Since you brought it up here is the reality as I see it.

    1) Carter was an abject failure by any rational analysis, and I think you know this. To believe otherwise is partisan pure and simple!

    2) Nixon was by far more intelligent than his paranoia allowed him to develop. Certainly more intelligent than Carter. Carter was honest, to his credit. Nixon was not to the detriment of the nation he was supposed to lead.

    3) You have never heard me sing the praises of the man who "never met a spending bill he didn't like." Nor have I been a proponent of his rather fascistic policies. Enough said.

    4) Obama has not earned high marks at this point in his tenure. He has three years left to really make a difference. my take at this 25% juncture is that he won't. I believe he is as corrupt as any republican or democratic politician has ever been.

    But I meant it when I said as American's we should all hope he succeeds for The United States of America!

    2012 will decide his effectiveness. Until then all we can do is hope against hope. Until then I will continue to report the news and opinions as I see it.

    I ADMIT TO BEING PARTISAN, HOWEVER NOT EVEN HALF AS PARTISAN AS THE LEFT IS.

    Funny thing being a true independent conservative. We seem to be the only ones able to keep an open mind. I am sure Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson are smiling down on me and other like minded 21st century conservatives!

    ReplyDelete
  3. WOW ! !
    I believe I am to the left of 101. LOL. That said. I do not see why the FAR Right, Neocons, One Worlders, are displeased with Obama's foreign policy. He will take the Bush doctrine to the brink. The Pentagon, Dept. of War, and the MIC should also be very pleased. Obama has given his version of the opiate for the masses.
    War is Peace---Peace is War. And the sheep are swallowing it hook line and sinker.

    ReplyDelete
  4. RealityZone - Left of TRUTH 101? How can that be?! :-)

    As to Obama's foreign policy, anyone who really understands conservative thought will know that his policy is not geared toward rational thought and self interest.

    Obama is a puppet for the leftist power structure. The statist minded whose goal is the one world order where all kiss the ass of the power brokers.

    That is why I am a true independent conservative and radical capitalist who has no allegiance to any dogma other than reasoned and rational thought.

    Perhaps this why I have few friends on the political left as well as the political right. Such is my cross to bear and I bear it proudly.

    ReplyDelete
  5. LMAO; RE "Obama is a puppet for the leftist power structure. The statist minded whose goal is the one world order where all kiss the ass of the power brokers."
    Now then lets just replace Bush for Obama, Leftist with rightist. And then there you have it. The uber elite are all one in the same. They just wear a different lapel pin on their suit. W advanced the New World Order faster than any previous President. Obama has been handed the torch. The agenda continues. As I always say [ they select so we may elect].

    ReplyDelete

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