Fox News: Majority Thinks Obama Better at Campaigning Than Governing
I didn’t need a poll to tell me this, but here it is anyway:
The consensus among American voters is Barack Obama is better at campaigning for the job than at doing the job, according to a Fox News poll released Thursday. In addition, half of voters say the Obama administration doesn’t “get it.”
As the president’s approval rating remains in the high forties, the poll finds that voters by a wide 62 to 17 percent margin think Obama is better at campaigning than at governing.
It isn’t surprising most Republicans feel this way (83 percent). What may surprise the White House is that nearly seven out of 10 independents say they feel the president is better at campaigning than governing, and so do more Democrats (albeit by a thin 6 percentage-point edge). More than one out of five Democrats was unable to choose between campaigning and governing and volunteered a “both” response (22 percent).
I don’t think there’s anything particularly surprising about these result the Obama Administration really hasn’t made transition from campaigning to governing. This lack of leadership is one of the principle reasons he’s had so much difficultly getting his health care reform agenda through Congress.
Obama Administration to Britain: Drop Dead
I’ll say this much for the Obama Administration: They’re consistent. From the get go they’ve made it clear that longstanding American allies can expected to be taken for granted, insulted and, if convenient, dumped in favor of appeasement. Consequently this administrations decision to not support Britain, our closest ally, in its latest dispute with Argentina over the Falkland Islands shouldn’t come as surprise to anyone…
From the London Times:
Washington refused to endorse British claims to sovereignty over the Falkland Islands yesterday as the diplomatic row over oil drilling in the South Atlantic intensified in London, Buenos Aires and at the UN.
Despite Britain’s close alliance with the US, the Obama Administration is determined not to be drawn into the issue. It has also declined to back Britain’s claim that oil exploration near the islands is sanctioned by international law, saying that the dispute is strictly a bilateral issue…
~ ~ ~
Senior US officials insisted that Washington’s position on the Falklands was one of longstanding neutrality. This is in stark contrast to the public backing and vital intelligence offered by President Reagan to Margaret Thatcher once she had made the decision to recover the islands by force in 1982.
“We are aware not only of the current situation but also of the history, but our position remains one of neutrality,” a State Department spokesman told The Times. “The US recognises de facto UK administration of the islands but takes no position on the sovereignty claims of either party.”
This administrations actions are sad and shameful thing particularly when you contrast them with in unconditional support President Ronald Reagan offered to Margaret Thatcher in 1982 or that Prime Minister Tony Blair provided George W. Bush in the War on Terror. As Toby Young notes in the Daily Telegraph:
For this alliance to survive, both countries must recognise their obligations and, from time to time, that involves one of us setting aside more localised concerns for the sake of the cause. Tony Blair would have preferred it if President Bush had been prepared to wait for a second UN resolution before launching the invasion of Iraq, but he decided that Britain should follow America into battle nevertheless. He recognised that the preservation of the Atlantic alliance had to be prioritised above all else, both for our sake and the sake of the world.
In return, we naturally expect America to side with us when it comes to our own territorial disputes — and this element of quid pro quo was recognised by Ronald Reagan when he backed Margaret Thatcher in the Falklands War. It wasn’t in America’s regional interests to side with us, but Reagan knew the terms of the deal: It was your country, right or wrong. You don’t abandon your closest ally in her hour of need.
So it is truly shocking that Barack Obama has decided to disregard our shared history and insist that we have to fight this battle on our own. Does Britain’s friendship really mean so little to him? Do the sacrifices Britain has made in defence of the Atlantic alliance count for nought? Who does he think will replace us as America’s steadfast ally when she finds herself embroiled in a territorial dispute of her own — possibly with the very same motley crew of Latin American rabble rousers? Spain? Italy? France? Good luck with that, Mr President.
Shame on you , Mr. President, shame. This Administration, in the name of neutrality, has chosen to side with the aggressive, corrupt Argentine government of Christina Fernandez de Kirchner… A government that is being supported and encouraged by Hugo Chavez and that is threatening to blockade British territory.
We can not let this outrage stand. Call the White House, call your Senators, call your Representatives and tell them that We The People will not allow this administration to throw away the United State’s longstanding special relationship with our closest ally.
Related
- Trouble Brewing in South Atlantic Over Control of Falklands – Ray Walser, The Heritage Foundation
- Obama votes present on whether the Falklands belong to Britain – AllahPundit, Hot Air
Thoughts on President Obama’s First State of the Union Address
Let me preface this by saying I didn’t watch the President’s speech last night. Frankly I’ve been been watching him for roughly two years now and I’m tired of his hollow rhetoric. I did read through the transcript this morning though… it reads more like campaign speech than a State of the Union address. Worse still there’s nothing new there, it’s the same tired rhetoric and buck passing we’ve been hearing all long… more big government boondoggles, but nothing about encouraging private sector investment and job creation. That’s what’s needed to get the economy going again, everything he’s proposing will just prolong the agony.
The really sad part of it is a year into his administration and he’s still campaigning… Never mind that he’s hard left ideologue, President Obama’s single biggest failing is that he still hasn’t made the transition from candidate to President… even his supporters are becoming disillusioned over his lack of leadership:
When Al Melquist voted for Barack Obama in 2008, the unemployed software engineer was drawn to the politician’s charisma and promise of solutions for the nation’s economic woes and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the time since, Melquist has given up looking for work. The house in Las Vegas where he lived sits empty and bank-owned after his landlord didn’t make mortgage payments for 13 months. He is burning through his savings and doing Web site work to make ends meet for his family of five, while working on his own startup.
Millions of Americans like Melquist tuned in to the president’s State of the Union address Wednesday night, aching for solutions but wary – aware that in too many places voters are no better off today than when they lifted Obama into the White House.
Many have become so disillusioned with their economic situations that they are tired of all the politics and promises and want action.
“He just says so many things,” the 41-year-old Melquist said of Obama. “I just don’t trust what he says is actually going to happen.”
For me the defining moment was his attack on the Supreme Court (emphasis mine):
Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.
It’s no surprise Justice Alito was seen shaking his and and mouthing “not true” during the President speech… As Linda Greenhouse explains:
The law that Congress enacted in the populist days of the early 20th century prohibited direct corporate contributions to political campaigns. That law was not at issue in the Citizens United case, and is still on the books. Rather, the court struck down a more complicated statute that barred corporations and unions from spending money directly from their treasuries — as opposed to their political action committees — on television advertising to urge a vote for or against a federal candidate in the period immediately before the election.
The Court’s decision doesn’t reverse a century of law, the statute the Court ruled on was enacted as part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law only about decade ago… It doesn’t change the rules on corporate contributions to political campaigns, foreign or otherwise, at all. The only issue the Court addressed was whether corporations… or unions could pay for television ads in support of or in opposition to a federal candidate in the period immediately before an election. Quite honestly I don’t think the Court’s decision is going to have much of an effect… McCain-Feingold didn’t take special interest money out politics, it just moved it further into the shadows by forcing corporations and unions to create political action committees or 527 groups.
Anyway that’s my two cents. Ed Morrissey takes look at Pres. Obama’s 10 whoppers from the SOTU address here. Rochester Conservative has full dissection of the President’s speech here, James Pethokoukis calls it “A limited speech by a constrained president” and The New York Sun takes the President to task for his attack on the Supreme Court here.
Update: Paul Mirengoff has more about the Citizen’s United case over at Power Line.
Harry Reid: Racist Idiot
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is under fire for remarks he made to reporters about then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008:
Republicans called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to resign his leadership post over remarks he made in 2008 about then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, adding to the Nevada Democrat’s political troubles.
Mr. Reid, who supported Mr. Obama’s candidacy, said in private remarks during the campaign that the country was ready for a “light-skinned” African-American president with “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.” The remarks are recounted in a new book, “Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime.”
A spokesman for Mr. Reid said the senator wouldn’t resign his leadership post. “He has no intention of stepping down,” Jim Manley said. “Unlike others who advocate moving our nation backwards and viewing this moment for political gain, he’s working…to move our country forward.”
The controversy comes at a critical moment for Mr. Reid, who is facing an uphill battle for re-election this year and is trying to shepherd Mr. Obama’s health-care overhaul through the Senate.
I’m not going to waste your time with rants about the blatant double standards of the media, Congressional Democrats or even Al Sharpton… Any sane person instinctively understands that Senator Reid’s remarks were foolish and racially insensitive, if not out right racist.
The sad reality is that, as the Washington Times points out many of the people now trying to excuse or defend Sen Reid are the same people who were calling for the Senate Majority Leader Trett Lott’s resigantion:
But several Democrats — including Mrs. Feinstein — did in fact target Mr. Lott after his remarks. “This statement casts a dark shadow over Sen. Lott’s ability to be a credible party leader,” she said in 2002, according to an Inland Valley Daily Bulletin news story.
“I can tell you if a Democratic leader said such a thing, they would not be allowed to keep their position,” Sen. Mary Landrieu, Louisiana Democrat, said of Mr. Lott in 2002.
Sen. John Kerry also called on Mr. Lott to resign, saying “I simply do not believe the country can today afford to have someone who has made these statements again and again be the leader of the United States Senate,” according to a Boston Globe article.
Bottom line our elected representatives should be held to highest standard of conduct, not the lowest. Harry Reid has shown himself to be a racially insensitive idiot and he should step down… Period.
Video: Jack Cafferty Rips Obama on Failed Openness Pledge
Ouch:
Don’t worry Jack, we will!
Most open and ethical Congress in history… Heh!
Video: America Rising An Open Letter to Democrat Politicians
Good News: National Debt Already Tops Debt Limit
From CBS News:
The latest calculation of the National Debt as posted by the Treasury Department has – at least numerically – exceeded the statutory Debt Limit approved by Congress last February as part of the Recovery Act stimulus bill.
The ceiling was set at $12.104 trillion dollars. The latest posting by Treasury shows the National Debt at nearly $12.135 trillion.
A senior Treasury official told CBS News that the department has some “extraordinary accounting tools” it can use to give the government breathing room in the range of $150-billion when the Debt exceeds the Debt Ceiling.
Were it not for those “tools,” the U.S. Government would not have the statutory authority to borrow any more money. It might block issuance of Social Security checks and require a shutdown of some parts of the federal government.
Right, we’re already in debt up to our eyeballs and what’s the Democrats plan?
Keep spending… Look folks, you can’t spend your way to prosperity. Anyone who tells you you can probably thinks an alcoholic can drink his way to sobriety.
Related
- The Audacity of Debt – Wall Street Journal
A Few Thoughts on Obama’s Afghanistan Speech
First off let preface this by saying I didn’t watch President Obama’s speech last night, instead I read the transcript this morning. The first thing about his speech that struck me is no where in it did he mention victory… A fact noted by LA Times blogger Andrew Malcolm:
President Obama spoke 4,582 words in his prime-time Afghanistan war speech at West Point last night.
He said “Al Qaeda” 22 times.
He mentioned the “Taliban” 12 times.
And here’s how many times the Democratic chief executive used the word “victory” — 0.
That telling omission says more than anything about Obama’s 322nd day in office, when he gave his first major address as the United States’ commander in chief.
The sad truth is nothing in the President’s speech leads me to believe that he is fully committed to prosecuting this war to it’s end even though he made winning the war in Afghanistan a central part of his Presidential campaign.
Anyway, President Obama outlined three broad strategies last night, the first Denying al Qaeda a safe haven is counter-terrorism… It’s Joe Biden’s “magic ninjas” and drones strategy. Which I would assume is why he decided to commit far fewer troops than Gen. McChrystal asked for. The second and third, reversing the momentum of the Taliban and safeguarding the Afghan people are elements of counter-insurgency, even with the 30,000 additional troops we’re woefully undermanned.
I have no doubt Gen. McChrystal will the best he can with the resources he has, but counter-insurgency is labor intensive mission and given the troops available I’m not sure he’ll be able to do much more than secure urban centers.
Lastly the President set a time line for our mission in Afghanistan, a time line that ultimately undermines the counter-insurgency mission. In order for COIN operations to work you troops have to “flood the zone” and work to build trust with locals so they’ll be willing to provide us with the intelligence information we need to flush out the bad guys. The only way to do this by convincing the locals you’re going to be sticking around, by setting a date for withdrawal the President is telling the very people whose trust we need we’re not in it for the long hall. No one is going to cooperating with us for the simple reason they know we’re going to leave and the bad guys will still be there… ready, willing and able take revenge on anyone who cooperates with us.
Bottom line Wars don’t end Mr. President, they are either won or lost.
Related
- Searching in Vain for the Obama Magic – Spiegel Online
- The Afghan-Pakistan Solution – Pervez Musharraf, Wall Street Journal
- White House: July 2011 Is Locked In for Afghanistan Withdrawal – CBS News
- Strikingly, Obama’s Afghan Strategy Manages to Repeat Almost Every Single Mistake Made in Iraq – Jeff Emanuel, Red State
- A few more thoughts on Obama’s Afghanistan speech – Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
- On AfPak, is Obama clever or stupid? – John Lewis, American Thinker
Priceless: Saturday Night Live Mocks Obama’s China Trip
Just how bad have things gotten for President Obama? This bad:
Ouch… I wonder how many reporters the Associated Press will devote to fact checking SNL?
(H/T: MsUnderestimated via Hot Air’s Headlines)
Fred Thompson: The War in Afghanistan Has Been Lost
Oh boy, I wish Fred hadn’t gone here but the said truth is someone had to say it out loud…
From the Politico:
Former Sen. Fred Thompson today intensified his party’s criticism of President Obama’s long deliberation over policy in Afghanistan, announcing that Obama’s delay signals that “the war has been lost” and that nothing the president now does will “make any difference.”
“It really doesn’t matter how President Obama divides the Afghan baby, how he splits the difference between McChrystal and Biden. Because the war has been lost,” Thompson said on his radio show today. “I say this because of one sad and simple fact. The president does not have the will and determination to do what’s necessary to win it. His heart’s not in it, and never has been. The Taliban knows it. Al Qaeda knows it. Our allies know it. And the American people know it.
“Our enemies are now emboldened and our friends are discouraged. We cannot prevail if the American people are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary for an extended effort. The case has not been made to them to justify this effort. The case can only be made by the president. This president is unable or unwilling to make that case,” Thompson said.
Kathryn Jean Lopez has the audio here.
Ouch… Barack Obama made winning the war in Afghanistan a central part of his Presidential campaign and yet 10 months into term in office he’s still formulating a policy… Unfortunately, I think Sen. Thompson is right, President Obama lacks the temerity to prosecute the war in Afghanistan and is instead voting ‘present’ just as he has done with everything else.
Jim Hanson laid it out months ago Mr. President, wars do not end, they are either won or lost:
The buck stops with you Mr. President, it’s time to make a decision… Do we give our war fighters the resources they need to fight and win or do we cut and run?
Update (5:15 p.m.): Pete Hegseth has a good post over at The Corner that takes Sen. Thompson to task for his remarks:
Let’s go back to an interview Senator Thompson gave on Hannity and Colmes on May 1, 2007:
HANNITY: The biggest battle we have is this war on terror, this battle in Iraq. We have a really deep divide in the country. Senator Reid the war is lost. We still have to finish the job there. Where do you stand in general on the war on terror and, more specifically, in Iraq, and on the divide surrounding Iraq?
THOMPSON: Well, let’s talk about Senator Reid for a moment. Right before I came over here, I was sitting outside, getting a bite to eat, before we did our interview. A young woman [former Army captain] came up and asked if she could sit down and talk to me a minute. . . . I asked her what she thought about this. She said, “How in the world can anyone, any one of our leaders, declare war, declare that the war has been lost when we’ve got troops in the field? My friends are over there in the field. I know what they think about this.”
And, of course, it’s just like all other Americans think. The very idea that they would do this and undercut our efforts over there is unprecedented. And it’s not only unprecedented; it’s awful politics.
We should not be fearful of these people politically. We just need to concentrate on what’s right. What is right? We need to take advantage of any opportunity we’ve got down there. I’ve got a lot of faith in Petraeus. I knew him when he was at Fort Campbell when I was in the Senate. He tells me we’ve got a shot? We’ve got to take that shot.
I’m sure Senator Thompson made many similar comments in 2007, and he was right. Sen. Harry Reid’s statement was unprecedented, and it was awful politics. And if Petraeus says we have a shot, then we’ve got to take that shot.
In light of the above, what is Senator Thompson doing undercutting the mission in Afghanistan? Is the mission less justified? Is it less achievable? Or is McChrystal less capable? No. Senator Thompson’s issue with the Afghanistan mission is President Obama. And while I share many of his frustrations — indecisiveness, lack of will, unwillingness to articulate the need to win — none of them give him, or anyone, grounds to declare the war lost.
I have a lot of respect for Fred Thompson but the more I think about his remarks the less comfortable I am with them… Pete Hegseth is right, regardless of our frustrations with the President Obama’s lack of action there are just some things that shouldn’t be said while men and women are in harms way.
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