When George Bush was awarded the 2000 election with less votes than Al Gore - he didn't whimper around talking about the lack of a mandate. Bush stumbled through speeches - started wars - passed tax cuts - ran up tremendous deficits and debts - and did anything he wanted. He muscled it all through Congress and piloted the country exactly where he wanted to go - taking care of the rich and giving the middle class the finger.
Yes - on his watch New York City and Washington were attacked. Yes - he put our country into a downward economic spiral that may not end without a terrible crash - but there were no apologizing or pandering to anyone. It took all of those disasters for America to turn to President Obama. Under any other circumstances I doubt that he would have been elected.
But with the Obama landslide election and the overwhelming "feel good" wave of his inauguration - it took less than two years for his administration to fail miserably.
During his campaign - President Obama was the great hope. His excellent educational background - his beautiful family - and his eloquent speeches seemed to exude success. We would have a president that we could be proud of. Surely with a majority in both Houses of Congress - we would see some innovative programs and noble leadership. We would see a restoration of laws that would balance our budget.
What have we gotten? His campaign promises have dwindled to nothing. He was going to allow gays to openly service in the military - nothing on that. He was going to end Bush's wars - we have escalation. He was going to close the Gulag Prison Camps - they still exist. He was going to end all the tax cuts for the rich - and now he has crumbled to extend them. How about getting steamrolled on the "public option" in the "medicare for all" that we hoped for. Throw on top of that a few more budget busting ideas like cutting the estate taxes - lowering social security taxes by 2% running that program into a bigger hole - it seems that he is trying to "out republican" the Republicans.
Bush inherited a budget surplus and turned it into a record deficit. Bush started two wars without making any provision in the budget to pay for them - he won an expensive new prescription-drug entitlement without paying for it - he bailed out the Wall Street firms with the $700 billion TARP program. Now Obama seems to own all those fires and has even thrown gasoline on the flames.
I do not know why President Obama is doing all this. I guess he figures he has my vote all locked up - he figures since I would not vote for McCain - that I won't vote for any other ultra-conservative the Tea Party may offer up. I always thought that a person like Hitler could never rise again in our era of modern communications - but if you get people scared enough - they will vote for anyone whoever she may be.
