The Short List - Political Criticism

Why is it perfectly acceptable to vilify George W. Bush for his presidency, and that is considered socially acceptable, but attempt to vilify Barack Obama and you face extreme criticism and are often cast as a bigot or a racist.

I don't understand this. Especially when I consider the things that those who hate Bush have touted that he "ruined", "adversely affected", or as some have said "compromised". Here is a short list of such things as compiled from a liberal democrat's site that goes on and on about George W. Bush. Apparently that author holds that George W. Bush is a villain in the following areas:

• The truth
• America as we knew it
• The Constitution of the United States of America
• The presidency
• The moral high ground
• The presidential oath of office
• An independent press
• Accountability in government

Now these are just some of the reasons given on that site. Most of the rest were lists of names, I don't know who most of the people are. I presume Republicans of some infamy in their eyes. But what about this short list in light of the first 1.75 years of Barack Obama?

The Truth

Obama promised, repeatedly promised, to have an open administration and government. In his own words "encourages accountability through transparency," and said: "My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government."

But what happened when his own efforts were in jeopardy of passing? Closed doors, secret meetings, outright bribery, and in some cases coercion in the passing of "health care reform". Oh but some protest, "that was not the president's doing" they would say. Oh really? When did the president tell them to open the meetings, allow Republicans to be present and contribute, and someone tell me when he told them to create the bill with enough time for people to actually read it before voting on it? He did not do those things because it suited him not to.

He cannot hide behind the Congress and say "they did it". The buck stops at the white house. And for a president to promise transparency as he did, there you go, an outright lie.

America as we knew it

The liberal democrats in office, under the leadership and goal setting of Obama, have attempted to completely change the America I grew up with. Was America about government takeover of business? Was America about ramming legislation through the process that the public was at best split over? Considering health care, the nation was split and it is still split. That is hardly a mandate.

What about American borders? What has Obama and Congress done to protect our borders, specifically the southern border? Nothing. They are using the issue as a political token to get immigration reform. When did America allow open skirmishes with armed foreign groups to occur on our soil. This is happening now. When the governor of Arizona asked Obama for help securing the state's borders, she was urged to "be his partner" in working toward a comprehensive overhaul of the nation's immigration system. There was no help. No troops. No fences.

This is not America as we knew it. Would any president up to and including George W. Bush have allowed armed insurgents to engage in open warfare on our soil without a response? No. Not one.

And how about blatant socialism? And please, taking over corporations, running the health care system, those are socialist actions. Go read your high school civics books. Those are examples of socialism.

The America I knew and grew up in was not socialist. And I pray it never will be.

The Constitution of the United States of America

This is a particularly tricky issue for Barack Obama. He has already openly violated the constitution on several points. here are a few:

• Violated Article 1, Section 6 by attempting to vote Hillary Clinton a pay raise while waiting for her to become Secretary of State. It is against the constitution to do so.
• Violated Section 9 by taking Chairmanship of the UN Security Council, it should have gone to an ambassador and the constitution requires a congressional vote to approve such a title for the president.
• Violated Article 1, Section 2 by attempting to give the census job to his Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. It was not within his authority to do so.
• There is no constitutional support for the appointment of "czars". Obama has appointed numerous czars to oversee issues that are constitutionally within the realm of the legislative branch of government. Their existence is constitutionally wrong.
• Violated the 1st Amendment by the confirmed attempt to silence Laurie Williams and husband Alan Zabel for Criticizing Cap and Trade.

The Presidency

Remember when Obama's transition team leader was asked if he was ready to take office? Her response was he would be "ready to rule on day 1". That should have been a clear warning sign to everyone who paid attention. When oil was rushing into the Gulf of Mexico, why did Obama not allow foreign support to come in early? And why did he go golfing so much when this crisis was unfolding? Why did he wait so long to do anything? Perhaps because it was useful to him to have a crisis such as this so they could push through further legislation to shutdown ocean oil drilling. Perhaps he just had no clue what to do.

Obama has used the presidency as a political tool, not unlike many other presidents, but he has not even attempted to mask his efforts. People spoke of George W. Bush as being an arrogant president. He arrogance is nothing next to the arrogance of the Barack Obama presidency.

The moral high ground

I am not even sure why this was so often applied to George W. Bush. If people even remotely understood how the government works, they would see that Bush more often than not retained the moral high ground. As for Barack Obama, why was he always in company with those that preached violence to others and those that spoke of the government of the United States as being "criminal" and "violent"? Where does that show a moral high ground? Consuming preached hatred does not make for a moral high ground.

The presidential oath of office

Gaffs aside, the oath contains this part: "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States". See the part about violating the Constitution above.

One who so willingly violates the Constitution is not so faithfully defending it. Or, he is simply incapable of understanding it. I don't know. I assume its the former.

An independent press

This was applied to George W. Bush and honestly, I have to wonder what that web blogger was smoking. The press had never been overly kind to Bush. In fact, many times he was made the fool of in the open press. If the press were to treat Obama the same as the treated Bush, there would be calls of racism and demanding that those responsible would be fired.

But as it turns out, that will never happen. Obama is the darling of the liberal press and is favored in their reporting. This is a general thing for the liberal press, they love liberals, they hate conservatives. To deny this reality is living a lie. Open your mind for yourself and look around you. Pay attention to the how the press treats liberals vs conservatives. There are exceptions and some of those are on both sides: there are some major news agencies that are overtly conservative - maybe 2 at best.

So while it may not be Obama's fault directly, where is his criticism of them? Where is the president urging fairness? Where is the president leading? He is not.

Accountability in government

Barack Obama has been placing people in position to disrupt accountability in government since he took office. The "czars" he has appointed work for him. There is no independence and they are in in bed with most major sections of government. While it may sound like conspiracy theory to suggest he has done this to protect himself, one can hardly deny it will vastly help. Given that Obama is not stupid, he would have known this from the beginning. Did the potential backlash sway him from this? No. Did he ever address this? No. It seems like a willing act.

And as for the promised transparency, we have yet to see any of it. Obama's presidency remains secretive and he remains unaccountable for the failures so far.

So there it is. That is my short list of criticisms of Barack Obama. I criticized him on what he has done and what he has not done. Not who he is, not his religious beliefs, not his ancestry, not his wealth, not on anything other than what he has done in the race for president and as president.

I am not attacking the man. I am criticizing the man, based on his own merits of his presidency and actions. Anyone who rises up to lead has by that very action opened themselves to criticism.

I also stand by what I wrote and quoted as being accurate as best I could determine. If you have criticism of something I wrote based on its accuracy, please share. I shall correct it. If you have criticism based on your disagreement with my opinion, you are free to write your own position and post it where you have permission to do so legally.

I ask that if you disagree, then don't read this anymore and don't post any comment. I will delete them anyway. If you agree with my position then don't post any comment, I will delete those as well. This is my opinion and my position. It is not up for debate and it is not up for mockery. Please respect my opinion and position and I will respect yours.

Flame me and you just confirm my opinion of liberal slander and show me to be correct.

And if you already commented, it just proves you failed to read the whole post.

Copyright 2011, Kevin Farley (a.k.a. sixdrift, a.k.a. neuronstatic)