The Obama Presidency-One Year In

My fellow Americans:

This address could and should be the equivalent to a convention speech. I am not a politician, I’m not part of a party, and I’m not running for anything - I’m too young.

I come to you at the early years of a Presidency yet at a turning point of our nation’s collective soul.

On January 20^th of 2009 America made history by electing the first black President of the United States. This moment was historic… for the 20^th of January only. I have and will continue to judge this man, Barack Obama on the content of his character, not the color of his skin or the historic nature of his election.

The content of his governance over the past year has been nothing short of lackluster. His economic recovery plans have, by his own measure, failed. His laughable diplomatic efforts threaten our standing as the leader of the free world. Today I ask what another man asked at a similar point, are you better off than you were one year ago?

I assume the answer to be no. And if the President wants to know why we believe this, let me take him to school. However, this time he won’t be able to grade himself.

After voting, as a Senator to bail out big businesses, and backing the bailout of America’s auto industry, the President began his term as President with an executive order about 24 hours in. He would close the Military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by that time the next year. In that year however, his administration has had nothing short of a heck of a time finding a state in this great country to take the most dangerous people on planet Earth. Was he shocked by the fact that the American people don’t want terrorists down the street? Is he shocked to find that Americans oppose giving the rights we hold as law abiding U.S. citizens, to non-U.S. enemy combatants bent on our very destruction?

On the last point, he either didn’t know or didn’t care. During this year his Attorney General announced their master plan for prosecuting the mastermind of an attack that killed nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001. Barack Obama’s justice department will try Khalid Sheik Muhammad in lower Manhattan, just blocks from the very towers he helped bring down, in a city where his attack butchered over 2700 people. If this sick irony is supposed to comfort the people who lost loved ones, this White House needs a new moral compass.

The truth is that decision as well as the closure of Guantanamo Bay is as reckless and irresponsible as anything in the war on terror to date-if that’s what we call it anymore. It is not right legally or morally to grant non-U.S. citizens, American rights.

As to our defense overseas, Iran continues on an unobstructed path toward nuclear weapons. However, this year the administration was given a gift on this front. The June reelection of their President sparked massive protests because of their elections being rigged in favor of the incumbent. As the protests grew, the more violent the government treated the protesters. As men, women and children were being cracked down upon for practicing their inherent human rights, this President said nothing. An innocent woman known as “Neda” is murdered on camera and President Obama can only blame both sides for the conflict’s escalation. For a man who leads the free world, he was buying ice bream in Northern Virginia when oppressed people needed an advocate. It took nearly 8 days for our President to condemn the obviously cruel actions by the Iranian government.

While we’re on the topic of overseas relations, this President spent more time in the air and overseas than any other President in his first year. I guess we can excuse his jet setting and own environmental hypocrisy if he came away with anything from all of the conferences, summits, and trips.

Twice he went to Copenhagen in order to achieve lofty goals. But, he failed to win his hometown the 2016 Olympics and failed to get India and China to agree to hamstring their economies along with our own on climate change.

His famous apology tour took him to Europe, where he got a smattering of troops for the war in Afghanistan and a whole one Guantanamo detainee. To the Middle East, where his efforts provided the United States with more foiled attacks by that part of the world, and Israel with a continued barrage of rockets into their country.

He also flew to Russia, where he promptly stabbed our allies Poland and the Czech Republic in the back when he gave up the much needed missile defense that would’ve been housed in those brave nations. For this dramatic change of policy, the United States received nothing and demanded nothing in return from the Putin/Medvedev regime.

On the topic of allies, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahou was left to his own country’s defense at the United Nations. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was snubbed by the White House and given unusable DVD’s as an official gift.

These events would be comical if they weren’t so detrimental to our country.

I would be remise, however, if I didn’t mention the Commander in Chief’s decision to send much needed reinforcements to America’s war in Afghanistan. What he didn’t realize is the commanding general he put in charge in that country Gen. Stanly McChrystal had deemed time to be of the essence in our efforts and if we didn’t act in 12 months we would lose. The President promptly spent one fourth of that time pondering a decision that should have been right in front of him all along. In the end, he will send up to the 40,000 troops the General asked for, but on a strict timetable, which is another piece of lunacy. Did General Eisenhower have a timetable after D-Day? Did Grant? Or Washington? No, because wars end not when the President’s political capital runs out, it’s when the troops win the war and achieve the goals they were sent on their mission to achieve. We can only hope the timetable is only a political stalling measure, designed to fool his left wing base.

Domestically this President is fond of boasting about the sour economy he inherited from George W. Bush. That excuse may have been viable early on, but not anymore. After one year, the economy is worse off than last year. Unemployment last year was 7%. Now it is 10%. Big business may be back, but small business isn’t and that’s the backbone of this economy. The day the President owned this situation is the day he waited 3 days in a self-titled “crisis” to sign the stimulus bill. Many claimed this bill was only about one thing, a three-letter word as Vice President Biden put it, J-O-B-S, jobs. After assuring us that “nobody messes with Joe” the President essentially placed 787 Billion dollars in the Vice President’s lap. The result? He promised the unemployment rate wouldn’t go above 8%. It peaked at 10.2%. Money was shown to have gone to over 1000 congressional districts, even though there are only 435 of them. It seemed the type of jobs were akin to paying one man to dig a hole, and paying another man to fill in back up. It prompted many to ask, where are the jobs? Good question. We still don’t know. Maybe they fell in the new and completely make believe category for “saved jobs”.

Good news erupted though, when, after the House passed a Cap and Trade tax, the measure fell on deaf ears. Even so, the Environmental Protection Agency deemed the very substance we breathe out of our bodies as pollution.

But the reason energy taxes were put on the back burner was because the American people were to busy trying to read up on healthcare. We had a lot of reading all right. Each bill from the House and Senate seemed to grow larger and larger. 1000 page legislation began to look small as each attempt to put the government’s hands further on American’s healthcare grew bigger, bad-er, and more bogus. Senators and Congressman openly saw reading the bill to be an unnecessary task. While, at the same time badgering those who only ask that the bills be read openly on the floor once. After Nancy Pelosi jammed it through the House by five votes, the Senate lowered itself to out and out legalized bribery to pass their bill. Any Senator that had a loud objection to the final product was given a payoff, a kickback, or another personal incentive to vote in favor of this legislation. In the process we also saw the spine of so called moderate Senators. The truth is, they have no spine at all.

And even as we end 2009, the President will not have a healthcare bill on his desk until at least late January of next year. So what will be the lasting legacy domestically in 2009 for President Obama? Deficits. While the President still claims he inherited that too, the truth is he took a 1 trillion dollar deficit and multiplied it by four. He plopped more money on our national debt to the point that the federal government is in danger of losing its AAA bond rating. He’s printing money so fast that the world community he panders too is openly discussing moving to another currency and away from the dollar as its standard. All of this happens amid the President’s call for fiscal responsibility in 2010. Pardon us if we ask where you’ve been for the past 12 months Mr. President? Pardon us if we question the audacity of Barack Obama. We know he had it in his book, but this nerve is almost jaw dropping. Message to President Obama in 2010: “You’ve run out of our money”.

What a record for 12 months? How sad is it that we have to go through three more years of this. Well, we may not have to. Slowly but surely the American people are waking up. The President’s approval rating has plummeted from near 70% to the mid 40’s-in one year. Tea Party protests have become widespread. There are elections for Congress in November of 2010, and of course the President’s reelection in 2012. We must collectively make our voices clear on these occasions, because that is the only way we can make a difference. We need to tell the President, we don’t need him to be audacious, we need him to be right.

Thank you, God Bless you, and God Bless America.