Obama The Failure

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Few things astound me more than those with the temerity to defend the indefensible with casuistic obfuscation. Recently, prominent media personage and Obama apologist Jonathan Alter challenged the world to explain why Barack Hussein Obama is a bad President. At the risk of deigning myself by explaining the self evident, I will respond to Alter’s challenge with the following indictment of Obama and extend an open invitation to debate this very topic on radio, television, or before a public audience.

I could never comprehend the irrational exuberance of Obamatrons or their predilection for ascribing infallible qualities to such a mediocrity the way fundamentalist fanatics attribute supernatural healing powers to fraudsters like Benny Hinn. The only plausible hypothesis that I can conjure is that credulous and knavish Americans lack the sagacity to distinguish between genuine statesmanship and the platitudes and puffery of a charismatic charlatan much as many Americans cannot differentiate between fine cuisine and the execrable garbage of McDonald’s.

The first thing that strikes one about Obama is his profound lack of intellect despite benefiting from a Harvard education thanks to affirmative action. I cannot recall a single instance where Obama has uttered a word that would send an ordinary man fleeing to a dictionary nor can I recall an instance where Obama has quoted a little-known historical fact or specialised knowledge from another discipline. On the contrary, Obama’s historical knowledge is atrocious. He once claimed that his maternal grandfather had liberated Auschwitz something that was impossible because the Soviets were the first to reach Auschwitz in the waning days of World War II.

Obama has also never shown the intellectual wherewithal or discipline to master a foreign language nor has he accomplished anything outside the fields of politicking and demagoguery unlike Dr. Ron Paul who is an accomplished physician. In contrast to Obama, statesmen like Thomas Jefferson produced actual inventions, such as improved ploughs, and demonstrated extensive knowledge of languages, philosophy, and science. Obama does not write his speeches and he is petrified to speak without his teleprompter. Obama’s degree from Harvard Law School is nothing but a gilded adornment designed to conceal the vacuous mind underneath. Those that might nevertheless take refuge in Obama’s academic pedigree might take comfort knowing that the great intellectual titan George W. Bush graduated from the inestimably prestigious Harvard Business School.

Yet the man’s lack of intellect is not nearly as disconcerting as his colossal policy blunders and inability to recognise, much less address, the monumental problems confronting the United States. For example, Obama’s response to the disastrous economy he inherited was to continue the same failed policies that produced the economic collapse. Obama supported the Wall Street bailout perhaps because the Wall Street banks were some of his largest financial backers, as the records at Open Secrets illustrate. Rather than allowing the big banks that peddled toxic mortgages or foolishly bought such mortgages to fail, the “solution” implemented by Obama in conjunction with the Federal Reserve was to recapitalise the banks with money produced out of thin air, resulting in a devalued US Dollar, inflation for US consumers, and the penalisation of saving. Perhaps worse, these actions encourage moral hazard because the Wall Street crooks will continue to engage in reckless behaviour knowing that they will again receive a bailout if they fail. Despite Obama’s claims of success, the toxic mortgage assets have not disappeared. Instead, they remain buried in the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.

Similarly, the much-touted “Cash for Clunkers” programme peddled by Obama proved an enormous failure. The programme did increase temporary demand for cars, but this ephemeral increase only happened at the expense of future demand. Those that contemplated buying cars simply accelerated their purchases to take advantage of the temporary incentive, but demand for cars quickly plummeted once the handout disappeared. Moreover, the programme was dreadfully wasteful in that the government mandated the destruction of countless used cars. If Obama had a modicum of knowledge about economics, he might have known that the government’s policy to subsidise car sales diverted resources from more productive sectors of the economy. Destroying cars and creating new ones might have helped Obama fudge GDP numbers, but it did nothing to improve the economy or augment overall wealth, much as French economist Frederic Bastiat proved one hundred and fifty years ago with the “broken window fallacy”. Likewise, the tax credit for first time homebuyers proved a colossal fiasco for identical reasons.

One must also question the sanity of Obama’s military policy. Despite his strident rhetoric about ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the undeniable reality is that the United States military remains mired in these disastrous wars and continues to be a behemoth bureaucracy. Alter even has the audacity to cite the Libyan intervention as proof of Obama’s astuteness, yet anyone with a basic grasp of Libyan history knows that the current civil war in Libya is not a battle between despotism and democracy. Instead, the war is a tribal conflict between a brutal tyrant and a motley assortment of political Islamists allied with secular opportunists who are fighting Gaddafi so they can siphon Libya’s oil wealth into their own pockets once they replace him. Despite the rhetoric about ushering transformative change, the United States continues to spend incalculable sums of money on its military under Obama. If Obama had any knowledge of history, he might have learned that excessive military spending was one of the factors that precipitated the Soviet collapse along with an amorphous mass of bureaucrats that cannibalised the rest of the economy and taken corrective measures to reverse America’s inexorable descent into Soviet status.

Yet Obama’s innumerable failings do not stop here for Obama has also embarked upon an extravagant government entitlement that will hasten the fiscal collapse of the United States rather than help it realise the unquantifiable savings that Obama promised would allow Obamacare to pay for itself. Obama has also ignored the perilous predicament confronting Social Security and Medicare. Social Security presently runs a deficit and Medicare is in imminent danger of doing the same. Rather than proposing necessary changes such as reducing benefits, increasing the age at which recipients may collect benefits, or means testing, Obama prefers to delegate the politically unpalatable task to a commission whose recommendations he summarily ignores.

In light of the foregoing, it is abundantly clear that Obama is a demonstrable failure. Yet Obama skilfully works to conceal his ineptitude and the disastrous effects of his own shortcomings by falsifying statistics just as Stalin and Mao did with their numerous failed five-year plans. For instance, Alter cites the 9.1% unemployment figure and that the US economy no longer sheds 750,000 jobs per month as proof that Obama prevented a second Depression. However, Obama’s unemployment numbers fail to account for discouraged workers or those marginally attached to the workforce. If one were to employ this oft-ignored U-6 figure, one finds that the unemployment rate is a staggering 16.2%. Despite the stimulus and unprecedented intervention from Obama and the Federal Reserve, the US economy gained no net jobs in August. To place things in perspective, the US economy needs to add 150,000 monthly jobs merely to keep up with population growth. If the aforementioned does not attest to Obama’s mendacity, then one should recall that Obama’s own website boasted that it had saved or created 30 jobs in Arizona’s 15fth Congressional District, a miraculous accomplishment given that this congressional district does not exist. The website is replete with similar fabrications, yet at no time has Obama assumed responsibility for these farcical claims nor has he held his subordinates to account for their deceit.

Despite these failures, Obama has attacked imaginary problems such as lack of diversity in the federal workforce. Obama recently issued an Executive Order requiring Federal Agencies to implement programmes to increase diversity despite the overrepresentation of ethnic minorities in the federal workforce. Similarly, Obama has promised to tackle (pun intended) and “to throw his weight around” what is undoubtedly the most important affliction affecting the country, which is the lack of a Division I college football playoff. Obama frequently opines on frippery such as the Kanye West outburst or NCAA basketball playoffs, but seems unwilling to answer questions from citizens except those already vetted at Obama pep rallies. Obama even had the gall to interject himself into the dispute between Henry Gates and the Cambridge Police jumping to conclusions that ultimately proved erroneous. Clearly, it is lamentable that a lawyer and a former professor of Constitutional Law would exhibit such a cavalier attitude towards justice.

I could continue ad nauseam, but I have made my point that Obama is an idiot and a colossal failure. I challenge Jonathon Alter to accept my challenge to debate his ridiculous assertions, although it is doubtful that one so intoxicated with Obama will muster the courage to debate those with whom he disagrees or those sensible enough to emigrate from the United States to escape the tyranny of the US government.