Too Much Obama

By Alan Caruba

The more we see and hear him, the more President Obama’s popularity falters and falls. In recent days, as he was in the beginning of his term, he is everywhere, all the time again.

The one place he was not on 9/11 was Ground Zero. He chose the Pentagon instead; a curious choice for a man who criticized Bush’s actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, but then followed every one of them.

He is in full campaign mode these days, addressing friendly labor groups and spouting the usual communist clap-trap about the “rich” and, in diametric opposition to almost every economist in the nation, intent on letting the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year.

He has turned from actual issues to an obsessive attack on a relatively obscure Republican Congressman, John Boehner (OH), who is the designated spokesperson for the party and likely to be the next Speaker after the midterm elections. For the President, Boehner has become the despised opponent and, as we all know by now, the Republican Party has migrated from being the “culture of corruption” during the last administration to “the party of no” in the present one.

Pay no attention, please, to the ethics charges levied against Reps. Charlie Rangel or Maxine Waters, two stalwart Democrats, or Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson was busy steering scholarships to family members.

It is rarely mentioned in the mainstream press that the Republican Party has so few votes in Congress that its ability to block any legislation depends on disaffected Democrats, many of whom now realize that the President’s policies have jeopardized their ability to remain in office. Some Democrats are actually running against Obamacare, if not Obama himself.

Obama’s endorsement is the political kiss of death. It only took him a year and a half to achieve this status. George W. Bush wasn’t this disdained until well into his second term when it was apparent even to Republicans that he never met a spending bill he would not sign.

Perhaps we should have known that Obama was in trouble when he showed up on “The View”, a gabfest of ladies, all but one of whom are hardcore liberals. It was an odd venue for a President, but then so were his appearances on late night talk shows. I fully expect to see him on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” any day now. When Vice President Biden appeared there recently, he took the opportunity to praise George W. Bush.

Aside from the expected campaign function of his appearances, there is a faint tinge of desperation to all this exposure and it was noticed when he departed from his prepared text to say “They talk about me like a dog.” This is a curious complaint from a man who has described himself as “a mutt” and “a mongrel”, referring to his mixed-race parentage.

About the only media that still have what media critic Bernie Goldberg calls “a slobbering love affair” with Obama are the misnamed news magazines, Time and Newsweek. They have long since abandoned any pretence at either news or objectivity, two fundamental requirements of journalism. Add in MSNBC and it’s not exactly the kind of numbers that change the outcome of elections.

Obama knows he is a one-term President and, after the midterm elections, he will have to rely on his cabinet members and the dozens of other appointees to deter economic growth, ignore national security issues, and impose mindless environmental regulations.

Obama is already looking more and more pathetic in so many different ways. Don’t expect this to change much after he is dismissed from office by the voters in 2012.

© Alan Caruba, 2010