Electing a Moron

By Alan Caruba

It’s not that long ago that former President George W. Bush was being characterized as a dimwit. In truth, because he was not a smooth talker, he often came across as less than a deep thinker. I am not sure the job requires a deep thinker because those who fit that description often turned out to be a disaster. The job’s best description is “leader.”

It is important to remember that the decade in which Bush served was one of consumer confidence, a healthy economy, marred initially by 9/11 and later by the decision to invade Iraq and depose a vicious despot who had warred with Iran and invaded Kuwait. Many Americans grew tired of the war and the subsequent occupation.

Only at the very end of Bush’s term, September 2008, did the nation suddenly encounter the financial turmoil that the mortgage “bubble” generated. It was long in coming and fearful in its immediate consequences. Congress voted a $700 billion bailout program for banks and insurance companies.

Candidate Obama had almost nothing to say about the crisis, but all during the campaign the mainstream media kept telling us that he had a giant IQ. He had already written two books even if both were about himself.

And, yes, he had taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, but few on the faculty have any recall of him. Indeed, his college transcripts, as well as his birth certificate, are all still carefully hidden from public view.

So we have only the last six months by which to judge him by his actions. A delightful blog by Theo Sparks has posted two lists demonstrating that just over half the voters in 2008 elected a moron.

So far on Obama’s watch:

He has doubled the national debt.

Announced the termination of the space defense system the day after the North Koreans launched an ICBM.

Against the advice and urgings for his own CIA director and the prior four directors, he released information on intelligence gathering.

Announced that he would close Guantanamo without having any idea what to do with its detainees, all of whom are hard-core jihadists. Several of those released have since returned to the terrorist trade.

Spent a lot of time in foreign nations apologizing for things about which most Americans take pride.

Told Mexicans that the violence in their country was our fault because some of the guns they use to kill each other had been purchased in the U.S.

Appointed an Attorney General who orchestrated the forced removal and return to Cuba of a nine-year-old whose mother died to give him a life of freedom in America.

Caused panic in New York by authorizing the flight of Air Force One over New York for a photo you can purchase with Photo Shop for less than a dollar. The flight cost $400.000.

Told the Iranian protesters in the streets of Tehran that the U.S. would not “meddle” in the affairs of their nation, but did not hesitate to tell the Prime Minister of Israel that his nation had to stop building new settlements to house its growing population.

Initiated the nationalization of the U.S. auto industry and gave a lot of money to insurance giant AIG without any pre-conditions.

Intends to nationalize the health insurance industry.

Is pushing a Cap-and-Trade bill that would be the largest tax in the history of the nation.

When the Honduran Supreme Court deposed a communist president, he sided, along with Cuba’s Raul Castro and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, with the exiled president.

President Obama, a former community organizer, claimed through a spokesperson that he was unaware of the initial nationwide “tea party” tax protests involving thousands. On July 4, an estimated million Americans participated in still more protests coast to coast.

Among his choice of friends, he was unaware that he started his political career in the living room of a former domestic terrorist, a member of the Weather Underground.

He was unaware that the pastor of the church he attended for twenty years was a racist who hates America.

He was unaware that his own aunt was living in the U.S. illegally or that his brother lives on pennies a day in a hut in Kenya.

Among his first choices for cabinet positions, he was unaware that he nominated a man to be Secretary of Commerce who was under investigation in a bribery scandal.

He was unaware that his choice for Secretary of Treasury was a tax cheat. Indeed, he was unaware that several of his top choices fit that description.

As President and the representative of the American people, he managed to offend the Queen of England, insult the British people by returning a bust of Winston Churchill, and make a deep bow to the King of Saudi Arabia, something no President in history has ever done before any monarch.

It is evident to all that President Obama is (a) incapable of delivering any kind of speech without the use of a TelePrompter and (b) incapable of answering any question from a member of the press in under ten minutes’ time.

So what do we know about the people who voted for him? According the Rasmussen Consumer Index, among Democrats confidence is up from 53.7 a year ago to 79.5 this year. Among Republicans, it has dropped from 99.4 last year to 68.6 today,

Democrats apparently think the economy has improved despite the loss of more than 2.5 million jobs in the first quarter of 2009. Under Obama, the U.S. unemployment rate has risen from 7.6 to 9.5%, the highest in 26 years.

To put it another way, the U.S. has lost 16,000 jobs each day since Democrats passed a multi-billion dollar “stimulus” bill. The nation’s Gross Domestic Product fell at 5.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009.

The stock market is down 3,000 points from a year ago.

This means that Democrats, voters and members of Congress, are either deluded and/or as moronic as the man they elected President.

The only justification for the debacle the President has offered thus far has been to blame everything on George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, his Vice President is candidly telling anyone who will listen that the geniuses Obama selected to advise him are clueless, having failed to grasp the gravity of the situation or offer solutions other than those that will put more people out of work, raise taxes, increase inflation, and further bankrupt a bankrupt nation.

How do I know it’s bankrupt? Because President Obama is on record saying, “We’re out of money.”

When you’re in a hole, stop digging.

Unless, of course, you’re a moron.