UK paper asks: Is Barack Obama the weakest President in history?
An article in a British news outlet asks: "Is Obama the weakest President in History?"
Anna Pukas writes at the UK Express:
INEFFECTUAL, invisible, unable to honour pledges and now blamed for letting Gaddafi off the hook. Why Obama’s gone from ‘Yes we can’ to ‘Er, maybe we shouldn’t’...
Pukas reminds readers of the euphoria felt by many on the left when Obama, the "son of a Kenyan goatherd" was elected to be America's first African-American President. Liberals across the country swooned as though it was the second coming of the Messiah. Giddy from the election, some thought their days of working were over and the new President would pay their mortgage and put gas in their car.
She also reminds us of his simple slogan, "Yes we can," but immediately notes:
His presidency, however, is turning out to be more about “no we won’t.” Even more worryingly, it seems to be very much about: “Maybe we can… do what, exactly?“ The world feels like a dangerous place when leaders are seen to lack certitude but the only thing President Obama seems decisive about is his indecision. What should the US do about Libya? What should the US do about the Middle East in general? What about the country’s crippling debts? What is the US going to do about Afghanistan, about Iran?
Pukas' questions are direct and to the point. They also happen to be the same questions asked by many here in the U.S.
She spends much of her article on the obvious indecision displayed by Obama on the issue of Libya, but his inability to lead has been apparent to many conservatives since the very beginning.
One thing Obama is good at, though, is campaigning - and going on vacation. He seems to spend a lot of time playing golf, and there's always NCAA brackets to be chosen. Those are, after all, far more important issues than bloodshed in Libya.
She writes:
It is also true that the President is constantly stymied by a hostile, Republican-ruled Congress. But Obama’s apparent reluctance to engage with momentous events is starting to look like more than aloofness. Some tempering of America’s role as the world’s No1 busybody may be no bad thing but under Obama the US appears to be heading towards isolationism. He is hardly doing much better at home. Economically, the US is in big trouble but the national debt is not shrinking.
Perhaps Ms. Pukas doesn't realize that for the first two years of Obama's term, he had a solid majority in both the House and the Senate and the GOP has only been the majority in the House for 3 months. He still has a majority in the Senate, however, a number of Democrats are concerned about their re-election in 2012.
She also seems to forget that the "world's No 1 busybody" is the same nation that led the fight against Nazism and Japanese imperialism and the same nation that stood firm against the expansion of Soviet Communism. Obama is not leading the nation to isolationism, as she puts it, but rather leading the nation to a status just slightly above a banana republic.
She continues:
Yes we can was a noble and powerful mantra which secured for Barack Obama the leadership of the free world.
That, and hatred of George W. Bush along with a sympathetic - no, adoring - media complex that did everything it could to ensure his election, while trashing Republican VP Candidate Sarah Palin in the most despicable way imaginable.
Pukas concludes by writing:
Those than can, do. It is time he started doing.
This is a sentiment most of us can agree upon. The problem, however, is that Obama has never held any executive position in his life, nor has he ever served a day in uniform. His resume is that of a radical political agitator, and he is very good at that.
The sad reality is that Americans have elected the most inexperienced, radical, left wing ideologue as President.
On practically every issue, except health care, he has dithered, flipped, flopped, and fiddled. When the going get tough, he gets going - to Rio, Hawaii, the golf course, or wherever First Lady Michelle wants to go.
In short, the world is burning while President Obama fiddles.
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