No Tuts or Pharoahs

Remember when every Joe Schmo out there was giddy as a schoolgirl telling us that Egyptian “freedom fighters” were getting rid of that old meanie Mubarak and were headed for a “democracy” in the land of Pharaoh? I sure do.

I particularly remember the reporters selling us that smack during the outset of the Arab Spring: “Revolutionaries,” they called the Egyptian dissidents—veritable “mutineers from Mubarak’s mayhem, sick of servitude and longing for liberty, just like Paul Revere!” They flung that noise, or something to that effect, at us with goggle-eyed glee each day for weeks on end.

Personally, I never bought this “freedom fighter” bull shiitake we were all being sold, and I said so from day one of this uprising on my amazing show, ClassRadio.com. Indeed, this “democratic” thang reeked of nutty radicals to me, and I believed it had zilch to do with “Egyptian young folk just wanting to live la Vida Loca.”

That said, however, I must confess that I did question myself as to whether or not I was being too harsh on the newscasters’ spiel and the motivations of the “freedom fighters.” Perhaps I had become too much of a jaded skeptic when it came to the jacked-up scat in Cairo.

That personal inventory regarding the wrongness of my perturbation with the “democratic revolt” lasted about two days. I believe I second-guessed my naughty heart right up until two hundred “democracy seekers” gang raped CBS’s foreign correspondent Lara Logan. I thought that was a strange thing for lovers of democracy to do.

Oh, another thing that made me think that maybe I was dialed into what was truly going down was the Muslim Brotherhood started popping up all over the place, gaining control over the “secular” Egyptian military.

And one more thing that ended my brutal introspection was that after Mubarak got deposed, the “new democracy” reestablished with Iran and Hamas and officially told Israel to blank off.

It was at that point in time that I ceased my second-guessing and formally realized that I am a genius. Radicals hijacked Egypt, and the Egyptians who truly long for freedom—at least as defined by sane standards—are now more SOL than they were under Hosni’s boot.

And lastly, this past week the “freedom folks” in Egypt have put forth their liberty legislation that includes bans on bikinis, mixed bathing on beaches, and drinking beer in public—and they’re even yapping about getting rid of the Sphinx, the pyramids, and other ancient Egyptian archaeological wonders.

Call me weird, but that doesn’t sound like liberty to me.

Bad, bad, bad ..................

Since we determined that Obama doesn’t deserve to be a President now, we know also that he doesn’t deserve a second time around in November 2012

So, since people have asked I will answer with five reasons based on substance, although I could probably come up with twenty reasons easily.

But for now, five will do.  

Each reason will come in two parts. The first part will be substantive arguments as to why Obama is a bad president because of a failed or flawed policy. The second part will put that argument into context with a campaign promise.

Reason Number One: Obamacare

Part One:

Obamacare legislation is flawed. Badly flawed, it doesn’t address the real need to bring down costs in the healthcare.

There were two reasons to reform healthcare in this country. The first purpose was to bring down runaway costs; the second was to expand coverage. At this point, it’s fair to say that even if fully implemented, no one knows what the exact outcome of Obamacare will be as to costs, although it’s safe to say coverage will expand.

Then-House Speaker Pelosi was right when she said that no one would really know what was in Obamacare until it was enacted. If that’s not an indictment of the legislation crafted by the president, I don’t know what is. I think at a minimum legislation ought to have known outcome, especially something as ambitious as Obamacare.

Instead of the “less than trillion dollars” figure that was trumpeted when Obamacare finally passed, the CBO says that the figure for the first ten years will come in north of $2 trillion. The increase will have to come from tax increases and benefit cuts.  

This isn’t a “narrative” or message problem. This is continued unease by the American public that was relatively happy with their healthcare choices and costs. And they were forced to take a replacement that isn’t going to work.         

And more and more evidence is cropping up that suggests that Americans’ fears that they would not be able to keep their current insurance under Obamcare was a legitimate concern. Because of the mandate provision, businesses are starting to make the simple decision to get rid of coverage, which is what critics said would happen.  

Poll after poll shows that 70 percent or more of Americans were already happy with their health coverage. And candidate Obama promised to make sure that Americans could keep their insurance if they were happy with it.

It was a key difference between the candidates Obama and Clinton during the primary.

“But the big difference is mandates,” wrote Paul Krugman in the NYTimes in February 2008, “the Clinton plan requires that everyone have insurance; the Obama plan doesn’t.”

“If Mr. Obama gets to the White House,” continued Krugman, “and tries to achieve universal coverage, he’ll find that it can’t be done without mandates — but if he tries to institute mandates, the enemies of reform will use his own words against him.”     

Because of the mandates that candidate Obama said he didn’t favor- and that is the key provision of Obamacare- the legislation is the largest expansion of federal government power since the Great Society, maybe ever. It imposes draconian measures on people who refuse to buy something from the federal government.

This is something that candidate Obama said he wouldn’t do.  

Bad president, bad, bad president.

Part Two:

“Under my plan to reform healthcare,” says candidate Obama under this hypothetical, “we’ll imprison anyone who doesn’t buy health insurance. And to enforce the requirement we will put 16,500 more IRS agents on the street.”

Reason Number Two: Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq

Part One:

Say what you like about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but Bush did secure Congressional approval for the military actions there. Obama didn’t even bother to consult Congress before fighting a de facto war in Libya.

You can try sophistry to argue why Obama took the measures he did, but it’s only that, sophistry. Any other president would come under the same scrutiny, especially when they argued previously that to fight a war without Congressional approval would be unconstitutional.

Bad president, bad, bad president.

Part Two:

“As president of the United States,” says candidate Obama in the hypothetical, “I will deploy our forces in and around Libya. I will authorize the use of force in Libya for a period not less than six months without first- or ever- securing the approval of Congress because you can’t make me.”

Reason Number Three: If You Can’t Budget You Can’t Govern

Part One:  

Despite having big majorities for the first two years of his presidency, Obama has failed to get any budget passed. Ever. His last budget didn’t even get one vote in the Senate. Not one.

Obama’s Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt said in 2006 “If you can’t budget, you can’t govern.”

That might be the reason why we have historic budget deficits without much to show for it. The reason why the public got so involved in the debt ceiling debate is directly tied to the indiscipline shown by the White House when it comes to budgets. 

There is give and take in any budget process that’s key to building support in any organization. Too often it’s Obama’s way or the highway. And the country ends up drifting.    

John Spratt was defeated for reelection in 2010 after first being elected to Congress in 1983. That was Obama’s bad.

Bad president, bad, bad president.

Part Two:

“Under my plan for economic growth and recovery,” says our hypothetical candidate Obama, “we won’t even pass budgets. We’ll run up historic deficits and raise the debt ceiling, something that I condemned my opponents for. But we’ll do it without any systematic support or budget process.”

Reason Number Four: Regulatory Overhang

Part One:

We’ll leave aside the great uncertainty that Obamacare is creating amongst businesses and concentrate on two other industries that are vital to economic recovery: Banks and Energy.

Like it or not, banks and energy are vital parts of the economy. If you want to understand why the economy is struggling to create jobs, you only have to look at what’s happening in those sectors to get why Obama’s policies have failed.

Banking: The president has used the full faith and credit of the United States to essentially guarantee the banking industry and below that real estate, which is the cornerstone of banking. Despite the guarantee and despite huge amounts of cash, banks aren’t loaning money. Part of that is demand driven, but part of it is the uncertainty surrounding Dodd-Frank banking reform.

It was clear from the mortgage crisis that banking needs better regulation. But it was also clear that part of the problem in banking was that the federal government became a partner in crime, so to speak, along with taxpayers and home buyers. Everyone was happy that the price of homes and real estate was going up. And the government created the framework for that to happen by originating about half the mortgages in the country.

The sub-prime mortgage market that was created was inconceivable without the government providing the inflationary oomph that only government liquidity can really stoke.

Dodd-Frank was supposed to fix that. But it hasn’t tried to address the systemic problems of too-big-to-fail in any real way.  In fact, the administration has pandered to public outrage by demonizing bankers while keeping the banking system intact, warts and all.

We now have fewer banks in fact with larger pools of concentrated assets.

What could Obama do differently? He could break up the banks. He could bring back Glass-Steagall. Glass-Steagall was specifically designed to prevent the too-big-to-fail scenario by allowing banks to operate only in contiguous states and by forcing them out of the investment business. And it worked, until European mega-banks, not encumbered by Glass-Steagall, forced US banks to lobby for repeal saying this time things were different.

The way to address too-big-to-fail is not through Dodd-Frank, which doesn’t really touch the subject, but to make sure any one bank isn’t so big to force the rest of the system to fail. Dodd-Frank regulates every part of the banking business except for the part that keeps it from failing.  

Included in that reform should be the break up and private sale of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The government should be out of the mortgage business entirely with the exception of VA loans.

You can only get rid of too-big-to-fail by addressing the too-big part first.

Bad president, bad, bad president.

Energy: The president- and the left- has a huge ideological blind-spot when it comes to energy. The result of his policies in energy have been to make energy more expensive, to kill jobs in the US in energy and subsidiary industries at a time the country can’t afford it.

But really, there is no time the country can afford the rainbows and unicorns plan the left is following. Despite decades of research and promise, the magic bullet of renewable, plentiful, without-cost energy isn’t attainable. Ever.

After a much ballyhooed speech on energy policy that was supposed to lay out a new vision for energy in America, the New York Times was forced to issue the following correction:

The president can’t have it both ways.

He can’t claim that his sole focus is on jobs while he’s shuttering the power plants and oil rigs, sources that account for most of the energy we produce while he has no viable alternative of his own. America has the resources to be importing less foreign energy while creating real jobs.  

The president should stop getting in the way of developing those resources.    

Bad president, bad, bad president.

Part Two:  

"We won’t pursue natural gas, oil, coal or any other fossil fuel development under my administration. Instead we’ll focus solely on developing ‘alternative’ energies like solar and wind power by giving select companies loans, grants and cash subsidies. It hasn’t worked before but this time is different. We’ll make the alternative energy business so big that it will be too big to fail.”

Reason Number Five: The Selective Presidency

Obama is president when he wants to be, and AWOL when things are hard.

Here’s an example.

On the debt debate he was unengaged until the last minute. Then he compounded his error by scolding members of Congress like they were lazy- all while he planned vacations.

I don’t begrudge a guy a vacation, but to pretend that when Congress goes into recess they are slacking off is playing politics with it. The president doesn’t come across as the offended innocent then when he packs off to Martha’s Vineyard as the stock market tanks because of dissatisfaction with the cuts in the debt deal.

Where was Obama on the debt deal in February when he was presenting a budget that called for much bigger deficit spending?

Again: Obama wants it both ways. He wants to call for more spending in February, but in July he’s a deficit fighter. Which is it? People expect the president to have some core principles that he sticks to, that they can rely on. If he truly thinks that another $2 trillion in spending can get us out of the hole on unemployment, then he should argue for it.

Part Two:

“If I don't have this done in three years, then there's going to be a one-term proposition.”- actual statement of Obama from an interview with NBC’s Matt Lauer on Feb. 1, 2009.

Make a case for it, be presidential.     

Instead, Obama lectures and preens and blames everyone else. It’s S&P’s fault, or Congress’, or George Bush’s, or the rich’s, or it’s the greedy bankers, or oil companies, or insurance companies.

He’s one of the most eloquent presidents that we’ve had during an age when eloquence can reach everywhere. Yet few people now believe anything he says.

What does that say?

Bad, bad president.

The Stunning Decline of Obama!

I only do this rarely but it was so well-written and stems from a gentleman called Nile Gardiner who writes for the British newspaper called "The Telegraph".

The last few weeks have been a nightmare for President Obama, in a summer of discontent in the United States which has deeply unsettled the ruling liberal elites, so much so that even the Left has begun to turn against the White House. While the anti-establishment Tea Party movement has gained significant ground and is now a rising and powerful political force to be reckoned with, many of the president’s own supporters as well as independents are rapidly losing faith in Barack Obama, with open warfare breaking out between the White House and the left-wing of the Democratic Party. While conservatism in America grows stronger by the day, the forces of liberalism are growing increasingly weaker and divided.

Against this backdrop, the president’s approval ratings have been sliding dramatically all summer, with the latest Rasmussen Poll of US voters dropping to minus 22 points, the lowest point so far for Barack Obama since taking office. While just 24 per cent of American voters strongly approve of the president’s job performance, almost twice that number, 46 per cent, strongly disapprove. According to Rasmussen, 65 per cent of voters believe the United States is going down the wrong track, including 70 per cent of independents.

The Realclearpolls now has Obama at over 50 per cent disapproval, a remarkably high figure for a president just 18 months into his first term. Strikingly, the latest USA Today/Gallup Poll has the President on just 41 per cent approval, with 53 per cent disapproving.

There are an array of reasons behind the stunning decline and political fall of Obama, chief among them fears over the current state of the US economy, with widespread concern over high levels of unemployment, the unstable housing market, and above all the towering budget deficit.

Americans are increasingly rejecting Obama’s big government solutions to America’s economic woes, which many fear will lead to the United States sharing the same fate as Greece.

Growing disillusionment with the Obama administration’s handling of the economy as well as health care and immigration has gone hand in hand with mounting unhappiness with the President’s aloof and imperial style of leadership, and a growing perception that he is out of touch with ordinary Americans, especially at a time of significant economic pain. Barack Obama’s striking absence of natural leadership ability (and blatant lack of experience) has played a big part in undermining his credibility with the US public, with his lackluster handling of the Gulf oil spill coming under particularly intense fire.

On the national security and foreign policy front, Obama has not fared any better. His leadership on the war in Afghanistan has been confused and at times lacking in conviction, and seemingly dictated by domestic political priorities rather than military and strategic goals. His overall foreign policy has been an appalling mess, with his flawed strategy of engagement of hostile regimes spectacularly backfiring. And as for the War on Terror, his administration has not even acknowledged it is fighting one. Can it get any worse for Obama? Undoubtedly yes. Here are 10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in serious trouble, and why its prospects are unlikely to improve between now and the November mid-terms.

1. The Obama presidency is out of touch with the American people

In a previous post I noted how the Obama presidency increasingly resembles a modern-day Ancien Régime, extravagant, decaying and out of touch with ordinary Americans. The First Lady’s ill-conceived trip to Spain at a time of widespread economic hardship was symbolic of a White House that barely gives a second thought to public opinion on many issues, and frequently projects a distinctly elitist image. The “let them eat cake” approach didn’t play well over two centuries ago, and it won’t succeed today.

2. Most Americans don’t have confidence in the president’s leadership

This deficit of trust in Obama’s leadership is central to his decline. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll “nearly six in ten voters say they lack faith in the president to make the right decisions for the country”, and two thirds “say they are disillusioned with or angry about the way the federal government is working.” The poll showed that a staggering 58 per cent of Americans say they do not have confidence in the president’s decision-making, with just 42 per cent saying they do.

3. Obama fails to inspire

In contrast to the soaring rhetoric of his 2004 Convention speech in Boston which succeeded in impressing millions of television viewers at the time, America is no longer inspired by Barack Obama’s flat, monotonous and often dull presidential speeches and statements delivered via teleprompter. From his extraordinarily uninspiring Afghanistan address at West Point to his flat State of the Union Address, Obama has failed to touch the heart of America. Even Jimmy Carter was more moving.

4. The United States is drowning in debt

The Congressional Budget Office Long Term Budget Outlook  offers a frightening picture of the scale of America’s national debt. Under its alternative fiscal scenario, the CBO projects that US debt could rise to 87 percent of GDP by 2020, 109 percent by 2025, and 185 percent in 2035. While much of Europe, led by Britain and Germany, are aggressively cutting their deficits, the Obama administration is actively growing America’s debt, and has no plan in place to avert a looming Greek-style financial crisis.

5. Obama’s Big Government message is falling flat

The relentless emphasis on bailouts and stimulus spending has done little to spur economic growth or create jobs, but has greatly advanced the power of the federal government in America. This is not an approach that is proving popular with the American public, and even most European governments have long ditched this tax and spend approach to saving their own economies.

6. Obama’s support for socialised health care is a huge political mistake

In an extraordinary act of political Harakiri, Obama leant his full support to the hugely controversial, unpopular and divisive health care reform bill, with a monstrous price tag of $940 billion, whose repeal is now supported by 55 per cent of likely US voters. As I wrote at the time of his passing, the legislation is “a great leap forward by the United States towards a European-style vision of universal health care, which will only lead to soaring costs, higher taxes, and a surge in red tape for small businesses. This reckless legislation dramatically expands the power of the state over the lives of individuals, and could not be further from the vision of America’s founding fathers.”

7. Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill has been weak-kneed and indecisive

While much of the spilled oil in the Gulf has now been thankfully cleared up, the political damage for the White House will be long-lasting. Instead of showing real leadership on the matter by acing decisively and drawing upon offers of international support, the Obama administration settled on a more convenient strategy of relentlessly bashing an Anglo-American company while largely sitting on its hands. Significantly, a poll of Louisiana voters gave George W. Bush higher marks for his handling of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, with 62 percent disapproving of Obama’s performance on the Gulf oil spill.

8. US foreign policy is an embarrassing mess under the Obama administration

It is hard to think of a single foreign policy success for the Obama administration, but there have been plenty of missteps which have weakened American global power as well as the standing of the United States. The surrender to Moscow on Third Site missile defence, the failure to aggressively stand up to Iran’s nuclear programme, the decision to side with ousted Marxists in Honduras, the slap in the face for Great Britain over the Falklands, have all contributed to the image of a US administration completely out of its depth in international affairs. The Obama administration’s high risk strategy of appeasing America’s enemies while kicking traditional US allies has only succeeded in weakening the United States while strengthening her adversaries.

9. President Obama is muddled and confused on national security

From the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to the War on Terror, Obama’s leadership has often been muddled and confused. On Afghanistan he rightly sent tens of thousands of additional troops to the battlefield. At the same time however he bizarrely announced a timetable for the withdrawal of US forces beginning in July 2011, handing the initiative to the Taliban. On Iraq he has announced an end to combat operations and the withdrawal of all but 50,000 troops despite a recent upsurge in terrorist violence and political instability, and without the Iraqi military and police ready to take over. In addition he has ditched the concept of a War on Terror, replacing it with an Overseas Contingency Operation, hardly the right message to send in the midst of a long-war against Al-Qaeda.

10. Obama doesn’t believe in American greatness

Barack Obama has made it clear that he doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism, and has made apologizing into an art form. In a speech to the United Nations last September he stated that “no one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold.” It is difficult to see how a US president who holds these views and does not even accept America’s greatness in history can actually lead the world’s only superpower with force and conviction.

There is a distinctly Titanic-like feel to the Obama presidency and it’s not hard to see why. The most left-wing president in modern American history has tried to force a highly interventionist, government-driven agenda that runs counter to the principles of free enterprise, individual freedom, and limited government that have made the United States the greatest power in the world, and the freest nation on earth.

This, combined with weak leadership both at home and abroad against the backdrop of tremendous economic uncertainty in an increasingly dangerous world, has contributed to a spectacular political collapse for a president once thought to be invincible. America at its core remains a deeply conservative nation, which cherishes its traditions and founding principles. President Obama is increasingly out of step with the American people, by advancing policies that undermine the United States as a global power, while undercutting America’s deep-seated love for freedom.

A Young Ronald Reagan?

Texas Governor Rick Perry scorched the political pot Tuesday with a red-hot rhetorical attack on Fed-head Ben Bernanke. When asked about the Fed's reopening the monetary spigots, Perry said, "If this guy prints more money between now and the election, I don't know what y'all would do to him in Iowa, but we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas."

And that wasn't all. In a more controversial slam, Perry said, "Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous -- or treasonous -- in my opinion."

Pretty rough stuff. Very aggressive language. And undoubtedly way too strong. It was poorly received in the financial world.

No, Ben Bernanke is not a traitor. This is a policy dispute; it's not a matter of patriotism. However, and this is an important however, the rest of Perry's statement suggests that hisanalysis of Fed policy is right on target. In other words, wrong words, right analysis.

The Texas governor, who by some polls is the new Republican presidential front-runner, went on to say: "We've already tried this. All it's going to be doing is devaluing the dollar in your pocket. And we cannot afford that."

Well, to me that is exactly right.

Let's take a quick look at Bernanke's QE2 record of pump priming: The dollar fell 12 percent on foreign exchange markets. The consumer price index jumped more than 5 percent at an annual rate. And the $600 billion cheapening of the greenback led to skyrocketing commodity prices, including oil, gasoline and food. That oil price shock is one of the principal factors behind the 0.8 percent first-half economic stutter. As a result of the jump in inflation linked to QE2, real consumer incomes slumped badly and consumer spending fell substantially.

Before QE2, the economy was growing about 2.5 percent, even though it already was blunted by numerous tax and regulatory obstacles. But the cheap-dollar oil shock came perilously close to pushing us into recession.

So it turns out that Perry -- even with his overly strong language -- is a pretty sharp economic and monetary analyst.

In fact, Perry's analysis actually channels recent Fed dissents by reserve bank presidents Dick Fisher of Dallas, Charles Plosser of Philadelphia and Narayana Kocherlakota of Minneapolis. They object to a two-year extension of the Fed's zero-interest-rate policy and, in so doing, have set down an opposition marker to a potential new shock-and-awe quantitative easing that many fear will be announced Aug. 26 when Bernanke speaks to the Jackson Hole, Wyo., Fed conference.

What makes Perry's position even more interesting is his disagreement with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. When I interviewed Romney this past April, he essentially defended Bernanke and dollar depreciation. "Well, you know, I think Ben Bernanke is a student of monetary policy," Romney said. "He's doing as good a job as he thinks he can do in the Federal Reserve."

Meanwhile, in tea party circles on the campaign trail, Bernanke is a much-disliked figure. Rightly or wrongly, he is blamed for bailing out Wall Street. Also, many view Bernanke's massive money creation, along with President Barack Obama's massive federal stimulus spending, as another failed big-government attempt to revive the economy.

Tea partyers and many others fervently believe in lower spending, reduced tax burdens and a regulatory rollback to strengthen small businesses and the private economy. They're against Uncle Sam's just throwing money at problems.

So in this sense, Perry's red-hot riposte at Bernanke may be shrewd politics, as well as a much-needed defense of stable money.

The former Air Force captain piloted C-130 missions in Central America, South America and North Africa and all over Europe. He's a fierce devotee of American exceptionalism and greatness. My hunch is that just like Ronald Reagan, Perry views a collapsing-dollar threat as more evidence of American decline. And he is very much opposed to any of that.