Obama's point of no return

http://www.prisonplanet.com/obamas-point-of-no-return.html

J.R. Dunn
American Thinker
Aug 20, 2010

There comes a moment in a failing presidency where the incumbent, through some single gesture, action, or statement, crosses a certain line from beyond which there is no return. Through his own will and behavior, he so underlines his failings, so frames his negative image, that no further action can ever erase it. Fate, accident, and circumstance have nothing to do with it. It is the president himself who puts the period at the end of his own sentence.

Such moments are obvious in retrospect, though not always at the time. With Richard Nixon, it was the “eighteen-minute gap.” An oval office tape recording turned over to Judge John Sirica, who was overseeing the investigation of the Watergate incident, turned out to have a lengthy period of silence smack-dab in the middle of a conversation between Nixon and chief of staff H.R. Haldeman. The White House claimed that Rose Mary Woods, the president’s secretary, had inadvertently hit the wrong button for those eighteen minutes. This might well have been true, but in light of Nixon’s long reputation as Tricky Dick, it sounded like the cock-and-bull story to end them all. Nixon had been holding his own in the Watergate battle up to that point. The voting public viewed the uproar with bemusement rather than indignation. But the tape gap finished him. In less than a year, he was forced into resignation.

For Jimmy Carter, it was the “malaise speech” of July 15, 1979, in which he attempted to shuffle the blame for his tepid performance as president from his own administration onto the shoulders of the American people. Carter claimed that a national “crisis of confidence” (he never actually used the word “malaise”) made it impossible for him to adequately grapple with the country’s problems. It was America’s fault, not Jimmy Carter’s. The public reaction was open disgust and the abject collapse of any support for the Carter presidency.

With Obama, we have an abundance of riches: the multiple vacations, the legal harassment of the state of Arizona on behalf of illegals, the clownish response to the Gulf oil blowout. But when historians come to select the moment when Obama went over the edge of the world, I think they’ll find the great Iftar mosque speech of August 13, 2010 hard to beat.

During a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan, the president found it appropriate to come out in favor of religious freedom. Not in support of Christians being attacked by janjaweed gunmen, or Bahá’ís tormented by Iranian mullahs, or Jews being stalked by assassins, or even American citizens being told that they cannot pray in public, but in favor of a shadowy foreign foundation with suspicious financing and disturbing jihadi connections that wishes to build some kind of victory monument congruent to the site of the 9/11 massacre.

These doomsday statements work by putting previous suspicions and surmises about the president — always negative — into sharp relief, acting as verification and confirmation. Nixon had suffered a reputation as a conniver since his knock-down, drag-out 1950 battle against Helen Gahagan Douglas (it was Douglas who coined the “Tricky Dick” nickname). The tape gap fit so perfectly into that narrative as to crowd out everything else. Carter’s inept performance as president was rendered even harder to bear by his continual sanctimony and moral preening. The malaise speech merely added the patina of a whiner.

With Obama, suspicions have involved his status as an American. The foreign parentage, the registration in an Indonesian school noting him as a Muslim, the uproar over the birth certificate aroused misgivings that, despite media scorn heaped upon those noting them, he has never quite been able to put to rest. As of last weekend, his opportunities to do so are ended. Impressions trump arguments, and for most of the country, Obama will, from here on in, be a strange and untrustworthy figure — a man who does not understand what Ground Zero means to America, who utilizes American law and custom to support foreign interests, who speaks to strangers more clearly than to his own.

Nothing either Nixon or Carter did enabled them to recover from their faux pas. Even as the tape gap story broke, Nixon was supervising a massive airlift of supplies and ammunition to Israel, which was involved in a life-or-death struggle against massive Arab attack in the Yom Kippur War. It gained Nixon nothing, scarcely earning a mention amid all the public speculation about Watergate. Less than three months after the Carter speech, Iranian “students” (actually professional revolutionaries under the control of the Ayatollah Khomeini) sacked the American embassy in Tehran, taking nearly a hundred American hostages. I can attest that I was not alone in thinking, “Great — and we’ve got Mr. Malaise is charge.” The year-and a-half-long hostage crisis, climaxed by the disastrous Eagle Claw rescue mission, hastened the collapse of the worst presidency of the later 20th century.

The past two years are the best Obama will ever see. The real crises of his presidency are still to come, and they are easily visible as they move toward us — Iran, terrorism, the economy, the collapse of the national health care system hastened by his own policies. He will meet them under a cloud of his own making, attempting to overcome them as a president who takes endless vacations, who will not defend his country’s borders, who sat out the Gulf oil crisis, who overlooks the sacrifices of his own countrymen in favor of dubious foreign figures.
Some lines of Shakespeare occurred to me while Obama was dawdling over a response to the oil blowout. They can also serve to cover the entire morass:

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads us to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

The tide has gone out for Barack Obama. It is all epilogue from here on in."

Interesting read Anna, I really had a lot of faith in Obama at the start, but I have to say I now dont think he is the man for the job AT ALL.

As my Favourite saying goes..............TIME WILL TELL!!

The problem is people looking at politicians as some sort of saviours. I like Obama. Always did and still do. I just never thought he had superpowers or something similar like many people seemed to. The day Obama was elected I was very proud of the world I live in and that doesn't happen often. But I also remember telling my dad that he would be the world's biggest disappointment not because of him but because of people's unrealistic expectations. You can't win when people think you'll fix the world.
Anyway, after Bush, if the US was run by a donkey, it couldn't be worse.

Claudia79 wrote:The problem is people looking at politicians as some sort of saviours. I like Obama. Always did and still do. I just never thought he had superpowers or something similar like many people seemed to. The day Obama was elected I was very proud of the world I live in and that doesn't happen often. But I also remember telling my dad that he would be the world's biggest disappointment not because of him but because of people's unrealistic expectations. You can't win when people think you'll fix the world.
Anyway, after Bush, if the US was run by a donkey, it couldn't be worse.

I think he'll be a huge disappointment, not because of unrealistic expectations, but because of what he has actually achieved. In his first few months he was responsible for more spending than all previous presidents added together. Then, there is still the raging debacle over his documents: a passport has finally been produced, but with date of issue and date of expiry blanked out; his college records are still sealed; his long-form birth certificate has not yet turned up; he has spent over a million dollars not producing a $12 certificate.

Let's add to that civilians killed in Pakistan by unmanned drones and a health care plan that obliges citizens to buy heallh insurance or be fined up to $5,000. He was elected because as a black guy he embodied 'hope and change,' but he didn't actually get round to saying what that change would be and people were swept along by his charismatic personality and his incredible financial backing.

Should Obama make it to the end of his term as president, he will no doubt be a one-term president because several states have passed resolutions requiring all presidential candidates to prove eligibility to stand and I don't think Obama can do that.

Did you know that a bill is now going through the American legislature that would give Obama the authority to shut down the internet?

I think Obama was voted President , not just because he would be the first Black President, but after the
corrupt war mongering Cabinet of George Bush the American Electorate wanted a Leader who would offer a
Health Service for the poor and a fresh approach . With such a small majority in the House, the Democrats were always going to have a hard time getting Bills passed, so now we are witnessing another character
assassination about Obama"s birthright and fear because he is a Muslim.

I know he is currently in Martha"s VineYard with his Family, but is working there apparently , not playing Golf all day. Our own Politicians are currently enjoying almost 3 months holiday, not to mention the Easter and Christmas Breaks.

Since it seems likely he will not be the World Leader everyone was expecting, you have to go back to John
Kennedy and before hime Roosevelt to find World Leaders, strange that from a Country of over 200 million
the Political Candidates are so inept or dishonest.

first up, obama is not america's first black president, he's the first mixed race president. second up, obama is america's first real political experiment. having tried it, they'll go back to the tried and trusted way in 2012.

I just don't trust him, and never did.

The Famous Grouse wrote:I just don't trust him, and never did.

america is beginning to realise this.

Claudia79 wrote:Anyway, after Bush, if the US was run by a donkey, it couldn't be worse.

a lot of americans miss bush. tells you loads about obama.

The Famous Grouse wrote:I just don't trust him, and never did.

Me neither. Very little experience in politics, yet huge amounts of funding behind his presidential compaign. He's a puppet of the big banks and powerful monied people like George Soros. With his presidency, a new acronym entered the vernacular: to POTUS was added TOTUS - Teleprompter of the United States. He even used a teleprompter when he visited an elementary school.

The Democrats played a fantastic election campaign. Under their, "Change," mantra, they put up a black man and a woman. So, there you are! They were presenting their candidates as living symbols of change. Obama hasn't done much apart from read off the teleprompter, play golf and basketball, hold big parties at the White House and have lots of vacations. He's the front man for those who really hold the power.

Iv"e just finished reading Zeitgiest addendum, it really is a fascinating read, from the first $ bill printed which became a debt to the assassination of Presidents who wouldn"t play ball with American Corporations, it"s not
Politicians who Govern Countries, it"s big Business. That"s why anyone with brains doesn"t want to serve his Country, he would rather serve himself.

Looks like a double-dip is inevitable, latest figures for Housing in America are very bad, share prices falling again , around the World.

Marky wrote:

Claudia79 wrote:Anyway, after Bush, if the US was run by a donkey, it couldn't be worse.

a lot of americans miss bush. tells you loads about obama.

Marky, the Americans elected Bush TWICE. 20% (I think) believe he is a Muslim and I read somewhere that 5% of people actually said they believed he was the anti-Christ. I think that says it all.
I'm more than willing to change my mind re Obama especially because I don't like politicians, generally speaking. But he will have to invade another country and prove to be a war criminal before I can say he's worse than Bush (who, by the way, also had a 'quality' I can't stand: stupidity).

Claudia79 wrote:[20% (I think) believe he is a Muslim and I read somewhere that 5% of people actually said they believed he was the anti-Christ. I think that says it all.

don't forget those who think elvis is still alive.

Marky wrote:

Claudia79 wrote:[20% (I think) believe he is a Muslim and I read somewhere that 5% of people actually said they believed he was the anti-Christ. I think that says it all.

don't forget those who think elvis is still alive.

But that's just wishful thinking!

I love this guy!