President Barack H. Obama took the oath office and delivered a forgettable, partisan address to the nation. He offered no solutions to the nation’s pressing debt problem, because he does not have one. Instead, he offered an MC Hammer take on entitlement spending: You can’t touch this.
The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.
Newsflash for Mr. Obama: The campaign is over. There is no need to keep on refuting your opponent’s lines, especially lines that he has already disavowed.
The tone and content of the speech fit with Obama’s character: Divisiveness, defensive on the subject of his own profligate spending on greendoggles, aggressive on the issue of immigration “reform,” and either dishonest or delusional when he said that “a decade of war is now ending.” If that is the case, then how did three Americans die this past weekend in Algeria?
Isn’t it striking, how Obama really has changed America’s image in the world? When Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981, Iranian terrorists freed American hostages. Two days before Obama’s second inauguration, al Qaeda-linked terrorists murdered American hostages while the Obama government relied on the weak Algerian government to free our captive citizens. The four Americans killed in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9-11 last year remain unavenged.
Barack Obama enters his second term facing a divided Congress, and with most state governments still in Republicans hands. His spokesman, Dan Pfeiffer, has already laid the groundwork for perpetual partisan war, saying “There’s a moment of opportunity now that’s important. What’s frustrating is that we don’t have a political system or an opposition party worthy of the opportunity.”
Does the president agree that the political system itself is not worthy of our moment in history? Does he believe that the 49% who voted for his opponent should get no say in how the nation is run at all? Our system of checks and balances is no longer adequate?
Obama enters his second term seeking to wage a war to enact gun control restrictions. The majority of Americans are not with him. Obama enters his second term believing that he is riding a wave of popularity. The fact is, he is the weakest second term president since World War II. He never ran on his first term accomplishments, and therefore has no wind at his back to push for any new initiatives.
Let Obama have his parade and his inaugural balls and his grandiosity. He is not a king, and our system that his spokesman derides was engineered precisely to slow down and frustrate men just like him.
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