This article takes on the views of conservative Michael Medved, and argues that knowingly or not, President Obama is hurting the country with his policies.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/well-meaning-or-not-obama-threatens-america/
As a 2012 political strategy, Medved’s final point is, as far as it goes, reasonable. However, the rest of his essay often argues against his thesis, which seems to be that Mr. Obama is not consciously trying to harm America and is a conventional American president and politician with conventional political goals and aspirations. If one assumes, for the sake of argument, that this is true — if Mr. Obama is, with the best intentions and with good will, pursuing policies that are manifestly harmful to America and Americans — the end result is the same. The matter of his motivations will doubtless be a ripe controversy for future historians, but will matter little to contemporary Americans, who will suffer regardless.
Consider then the following examples, not by any means an exhaustive list:
(1) Mr. Obama’s 2012 budget flies in the face of fiscal and political reality. Not only does it fail to actually cut spending, it dramatically increases spending — and the deficit — far into the future, while raising taxes, ignoring the entitlement crisis, and continuing the promulgation of policies that can have no result other than to destroy the creation of wealth, jobs, and the economy. America is broke, beyond broke, and the utter dissolution of our existing entitlements — not considering ObamaCare — is imminent. Unemployment is arguably at 10.3%; virtually every economic indicator is in the toilet. Any responsible president, any president for whom the welfare of the nation is his first concern, will not propose a budget that spends, now and into the future, far more money than America produces and can possibly take in or repay. Yet Mr. Obama wants to spend billions on projects like high-speed rail, a boondoggle the public neither wants nor needs.
(2) Since taking office, Mr. Obama has serially and crudely insulted our strongest and most faithful allies, such as Great Britain and Israel, while extending “outreach” to virtually every thuggish, repressive, anti-democratic regime on the planet. His repeated threats to establish yet another deadline when Iran violates the last have established only his impotence. Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, and all Mr. Obama can do is threaten to trot out even more threatening rhetoric.
(5) One of the only constants in Mr. Obama’s foreign policy is a reflexive, mindless support for Marxist and/or Islamist despotism. Take the example of Honduras, where a Marxist president attempted to overthrow the Honduran Constitution and install himself as ruler for life. Adhering to the rule of law, the Hondurans threw him out of office and out of the country. Mr. Obama immediately sided with the Marxist, and has personally, and through the State Department, supported him against the Honduran rule of law ever since.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/well-meaning-or-not-obama-threatens-america/
As a 2012 political strategy, Medved’s final point is, as far as it goes, reasonable. However, the rest of his essay often argues against his thesis, which seems to be that Mr. Obama is not consciously trying to harm America and is a conventional American president and politician with conventional political goals and aspirations. If one assumes, for the sake of argument, that this is true — if Mr. Obama is, with the best intentions and with good will, pursuing policies that are manifestly harmful to America and Americans — the end result is the same. The matter of his motivations will doubtless be a ripe controversy for future historians, but will matter little to contemporary Americans, who will suffer regardless.
Consider then the following examples, not by any means an exhaustive list:
(1) Mr. Obama’s 2012 budget flies in the face of fiscal and political reality. Not only does it fail to actually cut spending, it dramatically increases spending — and the deficit — far into the future, while raising taxes, ignoring the entitlement crisis, and continuing the promulgation of policies that can have no result other than to destroy the creation of wealth, jobs, and the economy. America is broke, beyond broke, and the utter dissolution of our existing entitlements — not considering ObamaCare — is imminent. Unemployment is arguably at 10.3%; virtually every economic indicator is in the toilet. Any responsible president, any president for whom the welfare of the nation is his first concern, will not propose a budget that spends, now and into the future, far more money than America produces and can possibly take in or repay. Yet Mr. Obama wants to spend billions on projects like high-speed rail, a boondoggle the public neither wants nor needs.
(2) Since taking office, Mr. Obama has serially and crudely insulted our strongest and most faithful allies, such as Great Britain and Israel, while extending “outreach” to virtually every thuggish, repressive, anti-democratic regime on the planet. His repeated threats to establish yet another deadline when Iran violates the last have established only his impotence. Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, and all Mr. Obama can do is threaten to trot out even more threatening rhetoric.
(5) One of the only constants in Mr. Obama’s foreign policy is a reflexive, mindless support for Marxist and/or Islamist despotism. Take the example of Honduras, where a Marxist president attempted to overthrow the Honduran Constitution and install himself as ruler for life. Adhering to the rule of law, the Hondurans threw him out of office and out of the country. Mr. Obama immediately sided with the Marxist, and has personally, and through the State Department, supported him against the Honduran rule of law ever since.
.
