Let’s Not Forget, Obama Is A Nobel Peace Prize Winner!

In October of 2009, with less than eight months serving as the President of the United States, Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

In a selection that did not have the early support from 3 of the 5 on the Nobel Selection Committee, it was Committee Chairman Thorbjor Jagland that argued the case in favor of Barack Obama over the other 204 selectees.  After awarding the Nobel Prize, there was considerable back lash for having presented the award for action that had not yet been taken.  In defense of the decision, Jagland remarked, "We have not given the prize for what may happen in the future. We are awarding Obama for what he has done in the past year.  And we are hoping this may contribute a little bit for what he is trying to do."   

Jagland’s remark “what he has done in the past year” was in clear reference to Obama’s “Apology Tour” that he set out on almost immediately after taking the oath of office.  Over the course of about 100 days Obama confessed what he believed to be the “Sins of our Nation” while at the same time making it clear to the world that the United States is no more exceptional than the least productive and troubled nation.  Jagland also commented that the committee was influence by Obama’s position on climate change as well as his efforts to prevent nuclear proliferation, neither issue the president had been in office long enough to do much more than write a memo about.

With six years under his belt now, let’s take a look what strides Obama has made towards nuclear proliferation.

Start with Russia, the undisputed second greatest nuclear power.  Because of the actions of reformer Mikhail Gorbachev, a failing economy and political pressure from President Reagan, the threat of nuclear holocaust came to an end in the 80’s.  But with the growing tensions between the US and certain factions in the Middle East, then President Bush took advantage of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and made deals with some of Russia neighbors, such as Poland and the Czech Republic to establish missile defense systems in their countries.

Politically, Russian leaders had no choice but to counter the US and the political rhetoric between the two super powers commenced.  This most certainly was anticipated by the Bush administration and likely discussed in great detail with Russia outside of the public eye however, the US media and Bush’s political opposition spun these actions into a make believe crisis and labeled it the start of a new Cold War between Russia and the US.  Throughout this ordeal and the crisis between Russia and Georgia, while Bush and Putin (whom he chiefly negotiated with) had many disagreements, they did share a good relationship.

Not one to let a crisis go to waste, fabricated or otherwise, President Obama seized the opportunity to portray himself as the Great Peacemaker.  This started with one of the grandest public relations blunders of all time, the embarrassing “reset” button incident between then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her counterpart Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.  Not many months later the missile defense system deal, which was to be stationed in Poland, was canceled, a move that came as a crushing blow to that country.  The move was praised by Russia’s then President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin; called and act of cowardice by his political opponents;, an act of “brilliance” by Nancy Pelosi and called an appeasement to Moscow by Poland.  What Americans saw by this action was a foreign policy decision made where Obama placed his ideology in front of the better good and security of the nation, an action that would repeat itself time and again in the years to come.

As for a reduction in nuclear arms, the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty ( New START), negotiated and signed between the two super powers back in early 2010 did absolutely nothing in the way of reducing Russia’s nuclear arsenal while the United States had to reduce in large numbers to comply.  Of course we started with a larger number, but that is not the point, the New START deal was more of a PR stunt orchestrated by the Great Peacemaker.  In no other nuclear arms deal in history has the US agreed to reduce any aspect of its nuclear arsenal without reciprocation from Russia.  But the goal of the Great Peacemaker was not to maintain dominance and superiority but instead to make American a world’s equal.  

In a move the stunned the world, Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi announced one morning that he was going to give up his weapons of mass destruction (WMD).  This event took place in 2003 and true to his word Gaddafi and his regime work with the governing bodies to safely and verifiably catalog, dismantle and remove his WMDs and his ability to develop them.  During this time a peculiar relationship developed between Gaddafi and the US, specifically Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.  

By the end of 2008 most of the work was complete and it looked as though Gaddafi was holding to his word to ride his state of all WMDs.  But in 2009 everything change and Libya unexpectedly stopped the removal of the final small amount nuclear grade fuel.  While there has never been an explanation for these actions, the one factor that had changed was US/Libyan relations.  Gaddafi had for some time tried to reach out to President Elect Obama in an effort to personally express his desire to maintain the relationship that had developed between himself and the US however his attempts to solidify that relationship fell on deaf ears.  The relationship between the US and Gaddafi deteriorated rapidly and was almost as if it did not exist at all.

The final shipment of nuclear grade fuel was eventually transferred out of Libya and handed over to Russia for disposal near the end of 2009 putting an end to Libya’s nuclear weapons program.  But there was still more work to do as not all of Gaddafi’s stockpiles of other WMDs had been completely removed.

The relative peace in Libya, which seemed to be held together at least in part by the relationship between Gaddafi and the Bush administration, began to deteriorate in 2010 which eventually lead to what was essentially the assassination of Gaddafi by National Transitional Council forces with the aid of a NATO coalition in October of 2011. 

So it was not the actions of the Great Peacemaker that removed nuclear weapons from a tyrant and as odd as it may seem Gaddafi’s Libya was an ally to America, yet news of his death was met with a rousing cheer from Secretary of State Clinton and we all know how the rest of the story in Libya goes.

What about North Korea, has the Great Peacemaker convinced the rogue nation to lay down its nuclear arms?  In then candidate Obama’s campaign manifesto, Change We Can Believe In, he described North Korea as an example of a country where direct and tough diplomacy that lays out clear choices as being the only way to handle such a regime.

The first opportunity presented to Obama to try out is “tough diplomacy” on North Korea came just a few months after taking office.  The ailing leader Kim Jong-il conducted the countries second nuclear test in May of that year, in an act of defiance to the west.  His actions came with little consequence as did the third nuclear test which was orchestrated by Kim Jong-il’s 26 year old son and the new Supreme leader of North Korea.  The third nuclear test took place just one month after President Obama re-election and was clearly intended to send a message to the president from the new kid in town.  In response to the test, the US as well as the international community responded as most would have expected, with firm media rhetoric and more sanctions on an already isolated state!

And last there is Iran and it appears more now than ever that the Obama Administration is ready and willing to allow what most consider the most dangerous state in the world, the ability to produce a limited amount of fuel needed to create a nuclear weapon with the promise that they will not build one.

Now, the Great Peacemaker has us engaged in another war, a war that could have easily been avoided and a war being fought against an enemy he pretended not to exist despite all is intelligence advisors telling him otherwise.

The Great Peacemaker’s attempt to appease the Muslim nations and our advisories by portraying the United States as an equal through the confessions of American sins and the denouncement of our nation’s greatness has failed beyond compare.

How To Go From Junior Senator To President In 6 Easy Steps

It wasn’t really all that hard, all it took was a political party more driven by gimmickry than political prowess, a complaint media and the apathy of voters who were simply not caring enough to take the time to do their homework and learn a little about some guy they never heard of.  Of course, Barack Obama had to do his part too! 

Here is what you need to do to rise from the ranks of a relative unknown Jr. Senator to becoming the POTUS in 6 easy steps.


No. 6  -  Be a Dynamic Speaker

In a mere 17 minutes, an obscure and relative unknown Illinois State Senator wowed a roomful of democrats, many of which likely had little if any idea who he was.

It was from a recorded response to President Bush’s weekly radio address that several democrats got their first earful of Barack Obama the speech giver, one democrat in particular was John Kerry.  The radio response was not of his own writing but the command in which Barack Obama delivered his words was impressive enough to gain him an invitation to deliver the Key Note speech at the coming Democratic National Convention.  For Barack Obama, a 17 minute block of time on July 27, 2004 changed the course of his political career.

Prior to his launch into democratic stardom, Barack Obama had a less than note-worthy professional and political career.  After graduating collage with is Bachelor of Arts degree, he started out as a community organizer and social activist, first in New York and then in some of Chicago’s poorest black neighborhoods.  He also earned his law degree, from Harvard Law, and worked as an associate at a civil rights law firm in addition to his second job of lecturing at Chicago University.

Obama officially entered politics in 1997 where he spent the following 8 years serving as an Illinois State Senator with little fan fair.  A 2000 run for a seat in the US House of Representative ended up in a 2 to 1 defeat for Barack Obama who then later ran for a spot in the US Senate which he won in a surprise landslide.

During his short time in the US Senate, Barack Obama sponsored 137 pieces of legislation only a handful of which were approved by the Senate and only 2 ever became law.

But despite his lack luster political career and extremely limited experience, his dynamic speech giving ability seemed to be all that was necessary to steal the Democratic Presidential Nomination away from Hillary Clinton who was early on believed to be a shoe in for the nomination and likely to win the 2007 US Presidential election.

It certainly does pay to speak well!

  
No. 5  -  Be History Making

If on February 9th, 2007 you would have asked virtually anyone who they thought was going to win the democratic presidential nomination and even the presidency for that matter, they likely would have answered Hillary Rodham Clinton.  But all that changed during a short speech in front of the Old State Capital Building in Springfield, Illinois the following day.

A beloved Clinton, Hillary’s political career dates back to the early 1960’s.  Then a registered republican, in 1964 Hillary campaigned for Republican Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater.  At this same time, the man who would become the 44^th President of the United States was a mere 3 years of age.

Hillary’s political views change significantly over the next few years, as the nation struggled through a difficult social transformation, and by 1968 she had turned in her republican card so that she could campaign for democratic and antiwar presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy.

Shortly after marrying Bill Clinton in 1975, she become Arkansas’s first Lady during Bill’s tenure as governor from 1979 through 1981 and again from 1983 through 1992.  Immediately following her term as the First Lady of Arkansas she began to prepare herself for the role as First Lady of the United States as she worked diligently alongside her husband in what became a successful run at the presidency.  Hillary served as the First Lady to President Bill Clinton from 1993 through 2001.  In both of her rolls as First Lady, Hillary was incredibly active politically and during her White House years her opinion and influence played a pivotal role in President Clintons decision making process, they were a dynamic team.

Immediately following her term as First Lady, she successfully ran for a seat in the US Senate where she served until throwing her name in the hat for the democratic presidential nomination in 2008.   Hillary was the early front runner and it seem as though John Edwards was her only rival.  History was in the making and it began to look as though the United States was likely going to have its first female president.

But a relative unknown Jr. Senator from Illinois, a man with little experience and nary a claim of success in his short political career became the game changer.  As it turned out, democrats found it far more history making to elect America’s first black president than to elect American’s first woman president despite the overwhelming difference in their credentials and Obama's relative obscurity.

No. 4  -  Claim You Will Do Something That Has Already Been Done

Throughout then candidate Obama’s presidential campaign, he repeatedly stated that if elected, he would end the war in Iraq and bring our troops home.  This was a central premise to his presidential campaign which sparked a great deal of voter enthusiasm for the relative unknown candidate.

Rewind to the start of 2008, a full year before Barack Obama was sworn in to office, it was around this time that the wheels were set in motion to construct the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the US and Iraq which would determine the departure time table and number of forces, if any, that would remain in Iraq.  The SOFA was signed during an official ceremony on November 17^th 2008.

As per the SOFA, the new president began to draw down US combat forces in 2009, the last leaving the region just before the end of 2011.

It served Barack Obama well to ride the wave party popularity he created by his campaign claim that he would end the war in Iraq although the deal had already been signed, sealed and delivered before he ever set foot in office.


No. 3  -  Profess To Be a Professor

"I was a constitutional law professor, which means unlike the current president {Bush 43} I actually respect the Constitution."

These were the words uttered by then candidate Obama at a fundraiser in March of 2007 but there was one small problem with his claim, that being Barack Obama was not a constitutional law professor, nor any other kind of professor for that matter.

Unlike a tenured professor, whose desire it is to further academia in their particular field of study through research, exploration, the exchange of ideas with fellow academics and of course publishing their discoveries, Barack Obama’s interest in constitutional law was significantly more constrained.  Obama worked as a lecturer at the University of Chicago where he taught and did so for reasons no different than tens of thousands of other individuals who find time to teach at colleges and universities across the nation, a paycheck! 

Obama did not immerse himself into the world of academia as professors do, he do not debate constitutional law with would be fellow professors and he did not publish a single paper on law, much less constitutional law during his 12 years teaching at the University of Chicago.  

But polling must have revealed that his claim of being a constitutional law professor raised his marketability as from that March day forward, Obama regularly referred to himself as such, with little regard as to how disingenuous he was being.


No. 2  -  Don’t Get Attached to Campaign Promises

During the 2008 democratic primary, healthcare reform was a hot button topic with frontrunners Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama, specifically the individual mandate, which at the time was part of Hillary’s and Edward’s plan and highly opposed by Obama.

 During a presidential primary debate in January of 2008, Obama was being pressed by his opponents for not including an individual mandate in his plan to which he replied:

"A mandate means that in some fashion, everybody will be forced to buy health insurance." Instead of going that route, his plan, he said, "emphasizes lowering costs."

Obama held his position on the individual mandate throughout his campaign and was often vocal of his opposition to Hillary’s plan, once stating:

 “Elect Hillary and the government will compel you to buy health insurance. Elect me, and I'll give you lower costs and let you keep your freedom.”

But all Obama’s talk of the individual mandate causing American’s to lose their freedom by forcing them to buy health insurance turned up to be empty as not more than six months after being sworn in to office he was embracing the individual mandate which was now a part of his forthcoming healthcare bill.

When later question as to why he was including the individual mandate, he simply replied “I changed my mind.” And that answer apparently was good enough for his supporters.


And the No 1 Way to Go From Jr. Senator to President

Be a Liberal, the main stream media just loves liberals!

Working with Congress - The Success of Presidents both Past and Present

The morning after the sweeping republican mid-term victory, President Obama offered his congratulations to the new Republican Senate.  Now, two weeks later, the president has set the stage for a congressional showdown between himself and republican lawmakers.  

Immediately following the mid-term elections, President Obama began to make demands on the lame duck congress to put a piece of immigration reform legislation before him or he would act on his own.  The president has had six years to push congress to move immigration reform forward, two of which his party had full control of congress and could have pushed just about anything through they wished, just as they did with ObamaCare, and yet he did nothing.  Instead the president has chosen the lame duck session to demand action from congress OR ELSE!

This is just another fine example of the kind of failed leadership that is routinely displayed by President Obama who continues to place the blame of his go nowhere agenda on the inactions of congress.  But blaming congress carries no water as a countless number of his predecessors managed to get a great deal of work accomplished while working with a mixed bag of congressional make-ups.

Past Presidents and their Congress

Take Richard Nixon for example!  Despite his many flaws, Nixon was able to work with his democratic congress.  Had their working relationship been better, Nixon would have been more successful with is domestic policy agenda but congress did little to object to his foreign policy which was quite successful.  Nixon’s demise was not one of contention between him and his democrat controlled congress, his demise was of his own making.

It is hard to fairly assess any aspect of the Ford presidency as it came under such a peculiar circumstance and all would be pure speculation.

Jimmy Carter had a contentious relationship with congress but with the democratic faction, not the republicans.  Carter, trying to do what he believed to be the right thing for the country, almost always came in conflict with the views of the very liberal congress of the time.  Carter didn’t “play ball” with his congress who essentially made a lame duck president out of their party leader, but at least Carter tried.

Ronald Reagan enjoyed a very good relationship with congress throughout his 2 terms as president.  While republicans did hold the Senate for Reagan’s first 6 years in office they never held the House.  But despite never having full control of congress, Reagan’s conservative policies and leadership style seem to bode well with the democrats of his time and made for a very productive, successful and fulfilling 8 years for both the president and the congress.

Bush Senior was a single term president which typically indicates that the president did not share a good relationship with his own party and to some extent this was true.  During his term in office republicans did not carry the Senate or the House although this was really not the issue.  Bush 41 ran on a platform that promised a similar administration that of his predecessor Ronald Reagan, the idea being that he would continue with the successes of the previous 8 years and not make any radical changes.   It sounded like a good plan but something had to be done with the mounting deficit created during the Reagan years. 

Having already made the infamous promise of “Read My Lips, No New Taxes”, Bush 41 lost his own parties support when in the end he had to concede to democratic pressure which blocked his desire to impose tax cuts as a solution in lieu of the typical tax hikes favored by democrats.  It was not due to a bad working relationship with congress that caused Bush 41 his problems it was the breaking of a single promise, that voting republican’s held him to, that cost him a second term in office.

Bill Clinton, much like President Obama, had the luxury of a democratic controlled congress his first two years in office however, failed to capitalize on it.  After democrats lost both the House and Senate in the mid-terms, things became quite contentious between the president and the republican held congress.  But Clinton remained popular and after being re-elected did a bit of a reset and as his relationship with congress improved significantly as did his ability to move parts of his agenda forward.  Even through all the missteps and scandals that surrounded much of Clinton’s second term, a great deal was accomplished or at least that is the opinion of many.  No matter, on the subject of the president’s ability to get legislation moved through congress, Clinton seemed to manage well in an environment where most would have predicted him to have failed.

Overall, George W Bush shared a reasonable relationship with congress.  During his first two years in office the congress was split with the Senate belonging to the democrats and the House held by republicans.  Wanting to set a tone of bi-partisanship, Bush 43 avoided conflict with congress as much as he could and during those first years he never handed out a single veto, in fact, it was not until about 2 years into the full republican controlled congress that Bush exercised his veto power for the very first time. 

Bush 43 enjoyed the comfort of a republican controlled congress during the middle 4 years of his two terms in office however, his relationship soured during his final two years when democrats took over the House.  Looking ahead to 2007 democrats chose to politicized the Iraq war, a war they almost unanimously supported in the onset, an action (it was never declared a war, big mistake by Bush) that received full congressional approval and a war that in the end democrats turned into a political opportunity to demonize the Bush presidency in an effort to score political points heading into the next election cycle.  It was a hypocritical but effective move by democrats which turned public sentiment away from the original intent of the Iraq war and the fact the democrats were for it before they were against it.  None the less, Bush 43 worked well with his congress through all but the very end of his presidency.

That makes a half dozen of the most recent presidents all of which seemed to manage well with congress in most cases. 

So how does President Obama stack up to the leadership of his predecessors?  Let’s take a look.

President Obama and his Congress

Then Senator Barack Obama not only campaign on a platform of Hope and Change for the nation, he also vowed that he would restore the people’s faith in their government and remove its dysfunction.  In a 2007 campaign speech Obama said that he would "turn the page on the ugly partisanship in Washington and pass a bipartisan agenda in Congress.”  Obama also wrote, in his Blueprint for Change, that his administration would increase transparency so that ordinary Americans can understand their government and trust that their money is well spent and also that his administration would end the practice of writing legislation behind closed doors.  Whether or not he had good intention when he spoke/wrote these words we will never know but his campaign vow of transparency and a united congress evaporated about a minute after sitting down in his new office for the first time.

While they may not have fully agreed with the particular path the newly seated president chose, republican lawmakers wishing to work with Obama and the democratic controlled congress, in large, gave their support to the president’s early plans to move the economy forward.  And with his massive spending package signed, sealed and delivered with the consent of congress, Obama cleared his desk and set his sights on healthcare reform!

The relationship between the president and republican lawmakers went downhill rapidly from this point forward.  What was later realized as little more than political showmanship, the bi-partisan effort to craft a healthcare reform bill was soon taken behind closed doors with a ‘Democrats Only’ sign hanging from them.  The fight between the parties grew contentious as republicans liked less and less what they were learning about the partisan healthcare bill being drafted.  And the contentiousness spilled over to other agenda items as the president became highly defensive of anyone who challenged any portion of his progressive agenda.

The dam broke when, through the less than ethical actions of Harry Reid, the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act bill, better known as ObamaCare, was moved forward by both the House and the Senate with ZERO republican support and exactly enough democratic votes to pass the bill to the president to be signed into law.  ObamaCare was not the only point of contention between democrats and republicans early in Obama’s term as president but it was the issue that cost democrats their majority in the house in 2010.

President Obama having failed to take advantage of his party’s monopoly on congress during his first two years in office and the loss of democratic control of the House left him with a stack of unfinished business.  The big ticket agenda items, of the president’s, were all far too far to the left to foster any support from house republicans at least not without some compromise, especially after demonized them almost non-stop from the start of his presidency.

Fast forward to 2014, as the president continued to swim in the pool of his own arrogance, the thought never crossed his mind that democrats could lose control of the Senate.  Now having done so, the president finds himself ill prepared to deal with the very republicans he has for the past four years blamed for all the inactions of congress.

Having lost the cover of Harry Reid and not wanting to compromise on an immigration reform deal with republicans, President Obama has decided that he will use his executive pen to circumvent congress and take whatever unilateral actions are available to him and glue together some type of makeshift immigration reform using a number of executive orders. This action, if carried out, will set a very negative tone for the remaining two years left in his presidency, adding to the dysfunction that has existed between the legislative and executive branches during his term and will likely wash away any hope of democrats remaining in control of the White House come 2016.