Posted on 12/22/2009 11:27:41 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Time magazine may think U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is 2009’s “Person of the Year,” but Time is wrong: 2009 was dominated by Barack Obama, even though it wasn’t a great year for him.
Obama’s human frailties surfaced. Words, not deeds, are his forte.
Critics and fans tended to agree that, so far, his presidency is one of great intentions (if not great expectations). He’s good at saying what he’d like to do, but has difficulty doing (or being able to do) very much.
Cheerleaders confuse rhetoric with results.
Obama is the most accessible president in recent times. He’s everywhere and omnipresent, seemingly hurtling around the world, bowing (if not scraping) to royalty and apologizing for America’s perceived errors, be they real or imaginary.
In some ways he’s more popular abroad than at home. Europeans, while liking him, were not susceptible to his charisma when he flew the Atlantic to lobby for Chicago getting the 2016 Olympic Games. No dice. Rio de Janeiro got them. A first ballot defeat for Obama and Chicago.
A mixed triumph was winning the Nobel Peace Prize for doing little but saying a lot. More Great Expectations. The prize tended to open American eyes and was mildly embarrassing even for his fans. Finally, Copenhagen and climate change was a fiasco that resulted in nothing.
Obama’s grandiose plans to reform health insurance have been compromised into spin over substance and will overlap into 2010. There are concerns about whether advertently or inadvertently he seeks to bring socialized medicine to a nation that for years has been indoctrinated against anything smacking of socialism.
Obama’s bailouts while promising to cut taxes for 95% of Americans still ring in electorate ears. The country’s debt will eventually and inevitably deflate the currency in order to cope with a debt running into double digit trillions.
One of Obama’s more effective election campaign promises was to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre. That, too, had to be delayed. The more one wrestled with the question of detainees, the clearer it became (to some) that the ideal place for detaining “illegal” Taliban and al Qaida fighters was . . . Gitmo.
As if to replicate his predecessor, George Bush in Iraq, Obama has made Afghanistan “his” war – even though when he adopted it, it wasn’t the catastrophe it now seems. The “surge” in Iraq worked for Bush, so Obama is reluctantly trying it in Afghanistan where success is more tenuous.
As the most popular president of recent times when he was elected, Obama’s job approval rating has plunged to 42% (Rasmussen) or 47% (Gallup) – the lowest ebb of any present in the same time frame. This isn’t fatal, but it is a concern – especially with mid-term elections coming up in 2010 and Sarah Palin “surging” as the only Republican with a solid base of admirers (and a solid base of Republican critics).
Palin’s book (Going Rogue) is now said to have sold one million, indicating that three million sales is a realistic target. Since quitting as Alaska’s governor to revitalize her tainted image. Palin has so far succeeded without a false step. Her likeability factor is higher than any other political aspirant.
So pressure is on both Obama and Palin – he to start implementing noble intentions, she to defuse the Republican establishment’s horror at her popularity.
An interesting year ahead.
Who is this Peter Worthington? Is he completely clueless?
Sarah doesn’t have to defuse or prove anything to a so-called Republican establishment.
2010 is our election year and Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman are already headlining a grand scale TEA PARTY CONVENTION in Nashville, TN in February.
Thanks! Exciting times for sure.
A blog where David Frum writes. Frum is a major Palin Basher
So pressure is on both Obama and Palin? Yea obozo is in a pressure cooker that he put himself in, but Sarah is in natural form no matter the forum!
Yes, I notice the blog’s name. Peter Worthington’s piece is pretty pathetic.
Worthington is a Canadian writer as is Frum, and his father in law
It’s a crap column. One small paragraph about Sarah. Very misleading title.
What “great intentions” is that?
0bozo’s intentions are to ruin this country forever. That's why he's got to be stopped by Republicans re-taking the House in 2010.
What is this “Frum Forum” anyways?
Does it have anything to do with that effeminate, traitorous weasel David Frum?
She will endorse and get credit so long as the trends hold. Others will seek credit as well.Should they not,she will get all the blame. That’s just the way it will be.
Words, not deeds, are his forte.We know that.
I don’t think Palin cares what the republican establishment thinks of her. that’s why i like her.
Oh, lol, well, thank you for telling me that. Yep, Peter doesn’t get it at all.
ditto. If Palin is co-opted by the GOP leadership, her time will be done. The fact that she is outside and calling her shots and not those of the gOP leadership is one of the biggest reasons I support her 100%
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