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Friday, November 25, 2016

Bookends to a Disastrous Presidency

To watch Barack Obama's pathetic final non-victory lap around the world this past week, one can't help but recall his stomach-churning "Apologize for America Tour" at the start of his administration.  You'll recall that in April 2009, he went to Europe, which we sacrificed tens of thousands of American lives to liberate 70-plus years ago, and informed Europeans that America "has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" of Europe. 
Last week, Mr. Obama could not resist the urge to dis his country once again, telling the "global community," again from a foreign shore, that in the age of the internet, nationalism (read: Donald Trump) is rearing its ugly head.  "Faced with this new reality where cultures clash, it's inevitable that some will seek a comfort in nationalism or tribe or ethnicity or sect," he informed us from Athens.  He reassured his audience that "American democracy is bigger than any one person."  (Wink, wink, Donald.)  Fittingly, he then went on to tour the ruins of ancient Greece, before flying off to Berlin to cry on the shoulder of his globalist soul mate, Angela Merkel, another leader looking at a potential uprising by her constituency, frightened by her insane immigration policies.
The choice of debt-ridden Greece, Europe's worst economic basket case, was oddly appropriate as the location for the start of the swansong tour of the U.S. president who has produced as much American national debt in eight years as all previous American presidents had produced over a span of 220 years combined.  One must wonder if Mr. Obama views pauper Greece as the model America should emulate.
These two globetrotting tours by the man-child president expressing disdain for both his own country and the choices of its people seem the perfect bookends to Obama's presidency. 
His is a presidency that will likely produce shudders for years to come for all sentient Americans who had the misfortune to live through it, but particularly for Democrats.  It was a sheer disaster, both in terms of the reversals the Democrats will see in their policy initiatives and in the depth of Democratic Party political losses down to the state and local levels.
As for the Democrats' agenda, Marc Thiessen neatly summed it up in the Washington Post.  Mr. Obama and his Democratic fan base (what is left of it) are going to learn how all of those "accomplishments" of his administration, achieved by means of presidential fiat in executive orders, executive actions, regulatory "guidance," and regulations, can be as easily undone by President Trump.  Even the rare policy Obama bothered to have codified into law – albeit with zero bipartisan support – like the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") will be gratifyingly rescinded with the GOP controlling both houses of Congress and all polls showing either a majority or plurality of Americans hating it.  
And make no mistake: the Democratic Party's political losses this past Election Day were enormous.  Due to the decimation that has occurred of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party is arguably in the strongest position it has been in a century, if not longer.  In addition to controlling the White House and both houses of the U.S. Congress, as reported by Real Clear Politics, the GOP now controls over two thirds of the 98 state legislative bodies across the country.  Additionally, it has control of both the governorship and both state legislative chambers in 23 states, whereas the Democrats can say that of only seven states.
Ironically, Barack Obama turned out to be the greatest gift to the Republican Party since Confederate general George Pickett ordered his infantry to make a headlong charge across three quarters of a mile of open field against barricaded Union artillery.  That blunder led to victory for the Union army at Gettysburg and in turn to ultimate victory for our Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, in the Civil War.
Obama's obtuseness in recognizing how a majority of Americans feel about him, his policies, and the Democratic Party he represents continues unabated, despite the shellacking his agenda took on Election Day.  He's just the gift that keeps on giving, which he demonstrated in another talk, again on foreign soil.
When asked by reporters if he would adhere to George W. Bush's decision not to criticize his successor's policy choices, Mr. Obama suggested that he will not remain silent as Mr. Trump pursues his own policy course.  "As an American citizen who cares deeply about our country," Mr. Obama intoned last weekend in Lima, Peru, "if there are issues that have less to do with the specifics of some legislative proposal or battle or go to core questions about our values and ideals, and if I think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, I'll examine it when it comes."  Translation for us rubes: "I'll be screaming from the peanut gallery."
How noble of him.  It is just this sort of hubris – this failure to recognize that we do not want to hear from him anymore – that drove Americans crazy and to the polls to throw Hillary Clinton (Barack Obama in a pantsuit) into the political abyss two weeks ago. 
I say to Mr. Obama: bring it on.  Your constant hectoring of the American people for the last eight years about what American values supposedly are (if I hear that "that's not who we are" line one more time, I may slit my wrists) repulses us.  Your professorial sneering and snide comments toward Middle America from your earliest days of campaigning for president grated on us like fingernails on a chalkboard.  Who can forget that immortal quote in ad-libbed comments made by Mr. Obama to the Democratic cognoscenti in San Francisco way back in 2008, that Americans in Pennsylvania – you know, one of those "toss-up" states that (shockingly!) went for Donald Trump – are people who just "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations"?  Gotta love that down-home feel he has for us regular 'Mericans.
When asked by the New Yorker's David Remnick what he told his daughters following his party's massive defeat on Election Day, Mr. Obama said he actually told his children (I am not making this up) that his fellow American citizens are "living organisms" who are "messy."  Yes, that's what we are, Professor Obama.  Just icky microbes in a Petri dish to be studied and manipulated by brilliant Democratic thinkers like you.  If we don't appreciate your genius, well – pfff – we just don't, since we are only one-celled amoebae, after all.  Can't pack a whole lotta thinkin' in that little gelatinous blob, now, can we?
So let us hope that Mr. Obama keeps to his word and yelps about every policy President Trump chooses to enact, or every Obama executive order he decides to repeal.  That pompous nattering will remind everyday Americans just why, on November 8, 2016, they rejected his party and their candidates lock, stock, and barrel.
Yes, just keeping talking, Mr. Obama.  You'll ensure that the Republicans hold a solid majority of political offices across the country for the next 30 years – at least.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/11/bookends_to_a_disastrous_presidency.html

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