Tuesday, April 28, 2009

WAR ON ACHIEVEMENT CONTINUES!

President Barack H. Obama completes his first 100 days in office today.

The biggest surprise is that he made it this far.

Now, don't go all x-stal on me. I don't think anything dire should have happened by now.

What I mean is, whatever else he may be, he is the most energetic, tripple-A type personality to have taken the White House in my lifetime.

When it comes to energy, this guy could end our dependence on foreign oil all by himself if we could find a way to harness it.

The purpose of this post, however, is to take a look at some of the significant milestones in his War on Achievement and my evaluation of them.

January 22: he issued an Executive Order to close Guantanamo detention center within a year and declared that the U.S. will not "torture" prisoners. Mistake.

January 23: he Lifted ban on federal funding for international organizations that perform or provide information on abortions. Mistake.

January 27: he gave the first formal television interview as president to Arab television station, telling Muslims, "Americans are not your enemy." Mistake.

January 29: signed his first bill into law, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, making it easier for workers to sue for pay discrimination. Mistake.

February 17: Signed The American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, promising that it would create or save 3.5 million jobs. Mistake.

February 25: Moved to fill out his cabinet, nominating former Washington Governor Gary Locke for Commerce Secretary after New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson withdraws over campaign contribution controversy. Mistake.

February 26: Unveiled a $3.6 trillion federal budget for 2010 and estimates the federal deficit for 2009 will balloon to $1.75 trillion. Mistake.

February 27: Announced the withdrawal of all American combat forces from Iraq by August 2010, but says the U.S. will leave tens of thousands of support troops behind. Mistake.

March 2: Nominates Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services after former Sen. Tom Daschle withdraws over income tax controversy. Mistake.

March 3: Released $28 billion in stimulus funds to states and cities to build and repair highways, roads and bridges. Uhh - good for states; bad for tax payer - Mistake.

March 9: Reversed President George W. Bush's ban on federally funded embryonic stem cell research, and declares that all federal scientific research will be walled off from political influences. Not one benefit has come out of EMBRYONIC stem cell research. Both umbilical and adult stem cell research have actually achieved results. Mistake. (The underlined part sounds good but is absolute fantasy.)

March 19: In an interview with Jay Leno on the "Tonight" shows, he criticized the bonuses paid to AIG executives. Not the government's business. Mistake.

March 24: Responded to drug cartel violence along the Mexico border, committing $700 million to law enforcement and promising to work to reduce U.S. demand for illegal drugs. Not a totally bad idea, but probably will result in money being spent with no results. Mistake.

March 30: Asserted unprecedented government control over the auto industry, rejecting turnaround plans by General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, and engineering the ouster of GM's chief executive, Rick Wagoner. Not the government's business. Mistake.

March 30: Signed Omnibus Public Lands Management Act. Included in the law is protection for 256,000 acres in southwestern Utah. Check out those 256,000 acres...what do you suppose is prevented by "protecting" that land? Mistake.

March 31: Begins his first European tour as president, which, over several days includes a G20 summit to deal with the recession, meetings with Russian President Dmitriy A. Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao, to discuss the economy and reducing military arsenals, and a NATO summit. Embarrasses his own country by apologizing for its evilness. Mistake.

April 7: Paid a surprise visit to Iraq, met with Iraqi leaders and gets a less than ecstatic reception from U.S. soldiers. Basically a good idea, but ended up being pretty flat. Simi-mistake...eh...OK. Check out: The Unseen Blogger .

April 10: Nominates BYU law professor Larry EchoHawk to head the Bureau of Indian Affairs. EchoHawk opposed having Indian casinos in Idaho, but when it was discovered that Idaho had a law allowing casinos, he helped the state negotiate a loophole that would create a state statute to oppose Tribal Gaming. Plus, he has experience in leadership on Pawnee land less than 1,000 acres. How can he know what the issues are on Native American reservations? Mistake.

April 12: Authorized use of lethal force to rescue cargo ship captain held hostage by Somali pirates. Good move...even though he should not get excessive credit for what the Navy Seals, themselves, accomplished.

April 13: Removed family travel and remittance restrictions with Cuba. OK...I'm ambivalent on this one. Good for Cuban Americans who want to go home, bad in the long run until Raul Castro changes his ways.

April 16: Visited Mexico City and President Felipe Calderon. The leaders agreed to cooperate on combating drug violence along the U.S.-Mexico border. Mistake...nothing will be accomplished and he probably brought swine flu back to us. (OK...that last part was a joke...lighten up, for goodness sake!)

April 16: Released memos from Bush administration authorizing harsh interrogation techniques but says no CIA employees who followed the memos will be prosecuted. Mistake. Would have been a mistake even if he hadn't changed his position later (see below).

April 17: Travels to Trinidad and Tobago for the 34-nation Summit of the Americas and declares that he "seeks a new beginning with Cuba." At the summit, Obama shakes hands with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, the leftist, anti-American leader who had called Bush a devil. More apologizing for America. Stupid Mistake.

April 20: First Cabinet meeting. Gave cabinet members 90 days to cut government spending by $100 million. OK...cutting is good. But 100 million is a minuscule amount. Mistake. Good for posturing only.

April 21 - 23: Leaves the door open for prosecution of federal lawyers who wrote harsh interrogation memos during Bush administration and says if there's an investigation, it should be done by an independent commission. Two days later, he tells congressional leaders he will not support creation of an independent commission to investigate the Bush administration's harsh interrogation techniques. Mistake. (See April 16 above)

April 27: Says the government is concerned about the spreading swine flu virus but there's not yet "a cause for alarm." Allows DHS Director Janet Napolitano to declare a health emergency. Mistake.

If you are a liberal, I'm quite certain you disagree with my assessments.

If that is the case, feel free to offer a reason for your disagreement.

However, if you just call me or any of my other commenters silly, of stupid, or some other disparaging name, your comment will be deleted.

State your case reasonably, logically and stick to the topic of this post, which is not how some previous president(s) did in THEIR first 100 days, but how President BO has done.

6 comments:

TAO said...

With that record, the man still enjoys the overwhelming support of a majority of Americans!

Which sadly signifies how poor our prior leadership was!

Obviously after 20 years if this record wins you the support that Obama is enjoying now that means that the bar of expectations has significantly been lowered over this period of time.

Joe said...

TAO: You just LOVE bringing up the past to justify the present.

I think President BO enjoys so much support because he is charismatic and we have not had a charismatic president since John Kennedy (yes, I loved Reagan, but I would not assign charisma to him, though some would), because he is articulate (when on the teleprompter), he smiles a lot, and he is black (oh-oh...the "B" word...I must be racist).

I also believe that when the luster wears off and people realize the end result of his schemes his popularity will drop like a rock and he will be hated by the very people who are supporting him now.

We must learn from the past, but our present is our responsibility.

Anonymous said...

With that record, the man still enjoys the overwhelming support of a majority of Americans
who live in predominantly liberal regions of the country.

Yep.

The fact is that BHO is less popular today than GWB was eight years ago. But this is only true if one runs an honest poll ... and honesty is not the left's strong suit.

Joe said...

Mustang: I will be doing a post on the latest issue oriented polls for Friday's post. Keep a look-out.

shoprat said...

His numbers are going to collapse soon as people begin to realize what he is really doing to them.

snaggletoothie said...

Shoprat
I suspect there will be a continuing realization gap since the dinosaur media will continue to make it difficult for many to even know what is going onin the world.