If we are to measure President Barack Hussein Obama’s record in office — 27 days, almost equivalent to the month of February — it got out of the gate like a race horse going for the triple crown, but came up short at the finish line on three major campaign promises, Change, Transparency and Bipartisanship.
Allow me to define these three important Crowns that Obama campaigned on, the voters believed in and the reason he was elected President:
Change: the process of becoming different.
Transparency: openness, communication and accountability.
Bipartisanship: cooperation, agreement and compromise between two major political parties.
Before Obama was inaugurated he announced some of his cabinet nominees, the names sounded familiar to those of the past belt-way politics of the Clinton Administration, including one of them. Three of the top nominees, had tax evasion problems — only one made it to a Cabinet position, the others withdrew. As for denouncing lobbyists, he put two of them as number two men in the Treasury and the Defense Department, both formerly lobbying for clients in their current respective positions. The Secretary of Commerce cabinet position is still open after two withdrawals, one a Democrat, who was forced to withdraw because of a Grand Jury indictment, the second a bipartisan attempt by Obama with a Republican Senator, but that failed because the candidate disagreed with the stimulus package Obama was ramming through and because he removed 2010 census responsibility from Commerce to the White House, a pure political move.
So much for meeting the definition of Change.
The day after Obama’s inauguration oath was flubbed, the legal powers decided it should be re-done with a properly phrased oath. And so it was done in the Oval office again, with what is called a pool group of print reporters, one with a tape recorder, and a White House photographer. No TV media was present nor invited. Had a print reporter not had a tape recorder there would be no recorded transcript of the event. All press conferences held before his presidency and after have been staged with a grid of reporters pre-selected for asking limited questions with pre-selected seats. We don’t know if the questions are pre-screened, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Now with a full-court press to pass a stimulus package, more accurately defined as a spending package, to create jobs and boost an economy that is in not only a national, but global crisis, Obama promised complete transparency. He told the people that they would have 48 hours to review the stimulus bill before Congress would vote on the bill. Well, that not only did not happen, the Congress itself didn’t have but 24 hours to review a 1000 page bill totaling $787 billion. No one in the Congress read the bill before voting on it. The lobbyists on K Street received the bill before some Congressmen. Obama promised no earmarks — wrong. A mouse gets some $30 million for some eco-protected land in San Francisco and there is $8 billion targeted for a railway from LA to Las Vegas. Meanwhile the people get a $13 a week tax break to buy a Big Mac.
So much for transparency.
Now only a few days into his new digs, he invites a bipartisanship group of Republicans and Democratic leaders to the White House for a pep talk on the stimulus bill. Well, this didn’t go over too well after Obama told one Congressman, after a discussion on the stimulus bill, “We won and we will prevail.” A few days later this same comment was shoved down the GOP’s throat by the Speaker of the House. Obama made one visit to the Hill to again patch up ill-choices of words that didn’t do anything to foster bipartisanship. Then he took his message to the people in town hall meetings, revisiting his campagning successes. When all was said and done, he didn’t get one vote in the House from the Republicans and got 3 votes in the Senate from GOP defectors preventing a filibuster.
So much for bipatisanship.
And so here we are a February month into a new presidency, Obama and his family are in Chicago, planning to return to the White House tomorrow. Plans to sign the stimulus/spending bill — 27% stimulus, 73% spending — on Tuesday, but now backpedaling on the success of the near trillion dollar plan by saying it won’t be a quick fix. If that is the case what was the big rush?
Grade for the month = F
2 users commented in " Obama’s Report Card After 27 Days In The White House = F "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI don’t know, 27 days and the guy flunked the course already. After 27 days I still wasn’t sure in which building the chem lab was or where to find the bookstore. It’s probably a good thing he wasn’t graded at Harvard Law after 27 days or he might never have made Law Review. Oh well, there’s still summer school where he could make up some credits.
As far as bipartisanship is concerned if the republicans in Congress can provide some creative solutions beyond more tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest 2% of the population there might be some bipartisanship. The fact is they have nothing to offer. There is no viable republican leadership so they’re reduced to divorcing themselves from any proposals beyond tax cuts and to follow Rush Limbaughs’ lead in wishing that Obama fails. It is a sad fact that the most influential and powerful republican today is Limbaugh. I’m a firm believer in a strong two party system for democracy to work, but unless the republican party can get its act together and begin to understand what the American public voted for and need their party will only become more of a sideshow.
I am not grading an undergraduate seeking a bachelors, nor a law school student seeking a Harvard Law degree. I am grading a President who has a law degree from Harvard, an individual who practiced law, a State Senator from Illinois — which I try not to hold against him — and a United States Senator who served in the Congress. Also, an individual who campaigned for the office he holds for two years on three significant campaign promises. Now if he were an undergraduate student or a law degree student I would suggest he seek out a counselor, but based upon what I see in 27 days, I don’t think he would make the proper selection of a counselor — for he certainly hasn’t had a success rate in picking Cabinet members or other high level positions in his administration. He promised Change, Transparency and Bipartisanship. And on these three campaign promises he has failed before he even got out of the gate and I rest my case on the facts as I presented them in this column. We can discuss the past, but as I have said — it is prologue. When it comes to the Republican Party — you bet they need to get their act together, but so do the Democrats. I truly hope Obama’s spending spree program — 23% stimulus 73% spending — succeeds for all Americans, although I fear its socialism. History, however, has demonstrated this kind of spending spree did not work with ‘The New Deal’ during the Great Depression. It was World War II that got us out of that Depression. As for Rush Limbaugh, he is not the voice of the Republican Party, even though Obama tried to anoint him with this title. His is a voice to be heard as is yours and mine and should not be stifled through a Democratic move to reintroduce the ‘Fairness Doctrine.’ Now we both know where each of us are coming from, and that is healthy. I respect your comments and your point of view and there should be more of this kind of dialogue. I encourage you and other readers to bring on different points of view than what I project, perhaps I too will be influenced.
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