A scant 367 days ago, President Barack Obama was inaugurated amidst much fanfare. Songs were written, thrills went up MSNBC host’s legs, and Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore made a YouTube video with awestruck celebrities pledging to do what they could to make the Obama presidency successful.
His inaugural address enraptured the Washington Mall with appeals to the past and the future, as Americans had, he said, “chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”
After the first year of the Obama Administration, who can say that the man has succeeded? Who among us has more hope than fear? Who among us, sans the opposition Republicans, shows a unity of purpose over conflict and discord?
Indeed, things have gotten worse. Unemployment is at 10 percent; underemployment””the unemployed, those working part time, those who have given up looking for work””is at 17 percent. While Wall Street has stabilized thanks to multiple government bailouts, the unbailed out sector of the economy””Main Street””remains in disarray.
United States debt has increased to $12 trillion, which is only due to get much larger, as the U.S. deficit lies at $1.4 trillion.
Troops remain in Iraq while the war in Afghanistan has escalated under the watchful eye of the president. Promises remain unfulfilled (Guantanamo Bay remains open, health care reform has been hatched in the smoke-filled back rooms of old by the Democratic Party establishment).
Despite the president’s international popularity (the Nobel Peace Prize, a Danish newspaper proclaimed, “Obama, of course, is greater than Jesus”), his popularity at home has steadily declined. Rasmussen Reports, a polling agency, has Obama’s approval rating at 48 percent with his disapproval at 51 percent. In fact, only one president has had a worse approval rating after one year since this sort of thing has been kept track of (the worst””William Jefferson Clinton).
Now, it must be said, all this is not the president’s fault. He was dealt an awful hand. He is not the communist heathen that it seems some on the Right attempt to make him out to be. But what has he done?
Tens of thousands of troops have been deployed to Afghanistan in the past year (with not much to show for it), despite skepticism amongst both the Left and the Right. Though administration officials have tried to sell us on the idea that the economy has stabilized, the aforementioned employment numbers say otherwise.
And health care (though it was dealt a major blow by the GOP’s upset victory in Teddy Kennedy’s old Senate seat in Massachusetts) will cost more than $1 trillion dollars if it passes.
Where, Mr. President, is the change? Unless by change you meant that things would get worse.
The American people need real change. And they want it. They want “blood,” as Patrick Kennedy, Ted Kennedy’s son, put it. Indeed, in a recent poll, a generic Tea Party polled 23 percent, besting the GOP and only 13 percent behind the Democratic Party.
This should worry Obama. For this is a democratic-republic. Obama does not get to grade himself (asked recently in an interview to do just that, he gave himself “a solid B-plus.” I wish I was graded on that curve…), but the American people do.
And judging by recent events, unless the president changes course, America may pledge itself to another come 2012.