China: Obama’s Visit (Ying Rong, US)

Ying Rong writes:

President Obama’s visit to China takes place shortly after the 20-year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

At Obama’s speech to college students in Shanghai, several “students” who raised questions in fluent English have been identified as college teachers who are heads of the committee of the Communist Youth League (a sub-division of the Communist Party among youth). Several of these “students” have their own blogs with their real identities.

For example, the first student who asked Obama a question was a female “student,” Cheng Xi. Her true identity is the vice chair of the committee of Communist Youth League at Fudan University. The second one was a male “student”; his true identity was head of the committee of the Communist Youth League at the College of Foreign Languages, Tongji University.

Obama carefully touched the topic of Internet censorship in his speech. (As I wrote before, all posts related to Falun Gong on the Chinese Internet are negative propaganda by the communist regime; one can’t find clearwisdom.net or minghui.org in China.) Some monitoring the Internet revealed that this topic was reported on 55 Chinese Internet sites, but over 50 of them were deleted within a day.

http://www.peacehall.com/news/gb/china/2009/11/200911162239.shtml

向奥巴马提问的内定的所谓学生 都是来头不小的 (博讯 boxun.com)
第一位向奥巴马提问女“学生”程熙，共青团复旦大学委员会研究室常务副主任；第二位男“学生”黄立鹤，同济大学外国语学院团委书记。

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5053613d01008zd9.html
访谈中,上海大学生清一色用流利的英语提问奥巴马..每一个用提问的都是“装学生”的老师，本人同济在读~

re: US: Obama One Year after Elections (Phyllis Gardner, US)

Phyllis Gardner responds to Paul Pitlick’s post of 12 November:

I agree with Paul Pitlick. Seymour Hersch was on the NPR radio program Fresh Air on 12 November, and he highlighted some accomplishments of the Obama administration. First, he turned to a more diplomatic approach to all nations, including Israel/Palestine relations with the appointment George Mitchell as special envoy (admittedly, Hillary Clinton threw in a monkey wrench with the most recent accolades for the “slow-down” in settlements, versus a complete stop, leading Abbas to threaten to quit). The Iraq timetable of withdrawal was the direct response to his campaign rhetoric, which GWB eventually joined. Obama’s very reasoned approach to Afghanistan, while frustrating for those who want an immediate solution, shows that he puts principle over politics.

In another NPR segment, the discussion revolved around the “what makes a great President” in the public’s perception. The answer apparently is hope, upward movement, faith in the strength of adversity. Thus the “great” presidents are usually listed as Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy and Reagan. The latter two did not face great adversity for the nation, but they gave uplifting messages.

By contrast, LBJ and Nixon were cited as curmudgeon-like presidents, both of whom faced large issues and both of whom should be thought of as possibly great. The funniest part of the conversation was that neither exercised (for LBJ, the game of dominoes was his exercise), but also both were afflicted with depressive psyches, at least part of the time.

So, I guess the bottom line is that to be a great president, one has to have crises, a sunny disposition, and a prepensity to work hard on the treadmill in the morning. How uniquely American.

Phyllis (Still an Obama fan)

JE comments: A great observation from Dr. Gardner–US presidents can no longer be perceived as couch potatoes. You have to run and hit the gym to be “fit” for office. A good game of hoops makes you even more attractive.

re: US: Obama One Year after Elections (Paul Pitlick, US)

Paul Pitlick responds to Nigel Jones’s post of 4 November:

Although I don’t completely disagree with the assessment that Mr. Obama hasn’t done all that I wished he’d done by now, in the way that I would have wished, etc., etc., who would Nigel Jones wish to be the actual the US President? I’m very grateful it is not the McCain-Palin team, nor can I think of any other Republican who has any realistic idea of how to govern a complex society. Republicans have been complaining about government for years–no surprise that they don’t actually know how to govern. There may be a few other Democrats who could govern, although there are many more I wouldn’t trust.

Also, is it legitimate to make comparisons between Mr. Obama and his predecessor? For example, one year into the GWB presidency, a terrorist plot had been allowed to occur on US soil, in spite of warning signals within various levels of the US government, and the Bush administration gave only grudging cooperation with an investigation after the fact. Also, by November 2001, the Bush administration was working feverishly behind the scenes to fix the blame on Iraq, who had nothing to do with the attacks, to give a pretense to invade.

I could go on, but, in summary, would any American politician be a more effective president than Mr. Obama?

JE comments: Thoughts on Paul Pitlick’s last question? I cannot see either Hillary Clinton or John McCain doing a better job than the Smooth Communicator, Barack Obama, at this point.

US: Nidal Malik Hasan: the View in Texas (Randy Black, US)

Randy Black writes:

On November 9th, John Eipper asked me off-Forum about the “local buzz” regarding the murders at Fort Hood when we learned of the tragedy this past week.

Having just returned from a five day trip (Wednesday- Sunday) with my daughter to the Big Bend National Park and to the Terlingua World Championship Chili Cook-Off, I went three plus days while there without radio, television or newspapers, not to mention being unable to get data off the cell phone or news feeds.

Cell phone reception that far off the beaten path is erratic at best along the Rio Grande in and near the Big Bend Park, there being a total of three cell towers in an area of more than 800,000 acres (1,250 square miles). Sometimes that’s good, however. There is literally no television or radio reception in the Terlingua area (600 miles southwest from Dallas and 240 miles from Midland). Okay, at night you can get the radio stations from south of the border.

Down there, when you have a signal and that’s rare, the cell phone is only a phone, no feeds or Internet access. The only paper there is a weekly that comes out on Wednesdays. We’re lucky to have that much. Thereafter, I got the occasional update from those who were coming in late from Alpine, Houston or El Paso.

Regarding the murders by the Army Major/physician who happens to be Muslim and who also apparently hates most things American, I didn’t know the tragedy until late Friday afternoon when they made an announcement on the PA at the chili cook-off. Everyone took off their hats and we had a moment of silence among the several thousands of participants. Someone sang America the Beautiful.

The “buzz” was mostly about the shame that the perp will likely not face the death penalty due to its rare enforcement and or that Obama will not support such a goal, him being such a friend of Muslims. I am not kidding: Obama really got the heat regarding his rumored Muslim upbringing. I heard this sentiment nearly all day on Saturday. And these were not exclusively Texans by any stretch of the imagination.

There was a significant contingent of retired military at the cook-off among the 5,000-6,000 or so who travel there annually for the event that has taken place on the first Saturday in November since 1967. Among the buzz: President Obama took just as much heat among those old and young soldiers as did the killer. Pres. Obama was absolutely vilified to the point that even I was surprised. Our president is hugely unpopular among our military it would seem. Several groups of contestants were from Fort Hood, and they criticized the fort’s military leaders for allowing such a nutcase/murderer to rise to such high rank. When it’s all said and done, I’d expect someone among the base’s management to take early retirement rather than be booted out for not listening to their own men and women who complained about Major Hasan’s rants over the past two years.

The participants at the cook-off range from 30-somethings to retired military, bankers, doctors, lawyers, auto mechanics, pilots, ditch diggers, undertakers and other n’er do wells from all over the US. Judging from the array of license plates on the trucks, cars and RVs at the cook-off, most were from outside of Texas. Some participants come from as far away as Guam, Puerto Rico, Belgium and Canada.

Judging from what I listened to around the camp fires Friday and Saturday nights, Obama is probably as unpopular among the American military that was there as is the demented shrink who killed all of those people out of hate for America.

From news reports: Classmates who participated in a 2007-2008 master’s program at a military college told The Associated Press that they complained to faculty during the program about what they considered to be Hasan’s anti-American views, which included his giving a presentation that justified suicide bombing and telling classmates that Islamic law trumped the U.S. Constitution.

Source: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_FORT_HOOD_SHOOTING?SITE=TXDAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

You can quote me.

JE comments: According to published reports, Maj. Hasan has been in the US Army since 1988–that’s 21 years of blame to go around. I don’t see how Pres. Obama, less than one year into his term, can be responsible in any way for the tragedy. But what is important is how many in the military perceive Obama as somehow “not one of us”–if indeed he is so unpopular in the military, what does this tell us about the nation? A “quiet loner” shooter, such as Cho at Virginia Tech, is not pegged as representative of any group; that Hasan was a Muslim will probably fuel knee-jerk hatred of Islam in the US Heartland. This is a very sad event that goes beyond the immeasurable suffering of the actual victims.

I asked Randy Black, our resident Texan-at-Large, for his thoughts on the Ft. Hood shooting, as it was surprising to me that no one had mentioned it yet on WAIS. Now the floodgate has been opened, and I anticipate many passionate responses.

US: Obama’s Presidency at 10 Months (Richard Hancock, US)

Richard Hancock writes:

I have read that a successful president is one who accomplishes no more than three objectives during the course of his first four years. I believe that Obama suffers from trying to accomplish too many things at once. I believe that he should have concentrated on (1) healing the country’s financial problems, (2) winning the war in Afghanistan, and (3) making inexpensive health care improvements. I will give Obama credit for making strong steps to accomplish no. 1 but, so far, his performance on Afghanistan is inconclusive, as are his efforts on health care. I have great doubts about placing great priority at this time on climate change and a card check to enable the easier unionization of workers. He certainly has not been a strong advocate of a balanced budget or programs to improve our deficit trade balance. His commitment to raise taxes only on those making more than $250,000 now appears to be a mirage and I believe that people are beginning to recognize this.

In the WSJ, Nov. 6, Congressman Shadegg of Arizona offers some sensible suggestions. He is in favor of a gradual approach in changing our medical system. His recommendations are as follows:

1. Do away with state regulations so that the sale of health insurance is placed on a national scale which would serve to lower premiums.

2. Give employees the right to buy health insurance on their own and to receive an income-tax deduction the same as the employer does for company-supplied health coverage.

3. Establish restrictions on “runaway medical practice litigation.”

Mr. Shadegg states that the above changes could be made at no cost, and that people have reason to be suspicious of the “expensive, untested, new health-care system” which is now before Congress.

Richard Hancock comments: My wife and I have health coverage which is written off on our taxes because we own and operate a language-translation company. Why should not any wage earner have the same privilege? We, along with about 80% of the American population, are satisfied with our current health care and have great misgivings about what this 1900-page monstrosity now in congress might bring us.

JE comments: A Poli Sci 101 question: wouldn’t Rep. Shadegg’s proposal to “do away with state regulations” on health insurance be an infringement on States’ Rights? Republicans (Shadegg is from the GOP) usually profess to favor more local control and less federal oversight.

As long as we’re putting things on a national scale, I offer two proposals:

1) A standardized, national driver’s license. Think of how many Americans are forced to apply for a new license just because they move to another state. It is wasteful to have 50 different sets of driving laws, regulations, sanctions, and “points.”

2) A national 10-cent deposit on beverage cans and bottles, like the one that’s worked successfully in Michigan for thirty years. While we’re at it, why not make it 25 cents? Think of the recycling advantages and the reduction of litter. Garbage is a huge problem. If garbage is worth money, it ceases to be garbage. Problem solved.

re: US: Obama One Year after Elections (Bienvenido Macario, Philippines/US)

Bienvenido Macario writes:

This is not exactly meant to defend Pres. Obama, but rather to present my understanding of the limits of the power of the US president. First, Pres. Obama was not sworn in until Jan 20, 2009. He was placed in office by nameless and faceless members of the electoral college, not by voters at large. This is the reality of American-style democracy that probably very few American voters are aware of. They do not elect the US President.

Whether we have a Democrat or a Republican in the White House, the US Congress dictates what the US President can and cannot do.

Pres. Obama should be credited with stopping the recession but at the cost of making Washinton DC the new financial capital of the US and at the expense of Wall St. Nothing really wrong there, except the US is has a market-based economy. When the financial and political capital of a country is one and the same there will soon be an inefficient economy.

Probably because of politics, after the recession was checked, Pres. Obama stopped stimulating the economy to recovery and work on how to spend the money that’s not even there yet–the health care reform bill.

In Pres. Kennedy’s “We Choose to Go to the Moon” speech at Rice University in Houston in 1962, he reaffirmed America’s commitment to landing a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s. Money was not a problem, so even though we were in a Cold War and an ongoing Vietnam War by July 1969 the US put two men on the moon and brought them back.

The $1 trillion plus in 10 yrs. Health Care Reform is an uphill struggle; why? Because there is no money! Why? Because of the economy is broken!

Unfortunately Pres. Obama and his cabinet will get the blame, not the members of the electoral college.

An example of Washington DC as the new financial capital of America:

Fannie and Freddie spent $200 million in the last ten years lobbying before the US Congress. Their executives could get huge bonuses and no one questioned them.

Freddie Mac’s CFO committed suicide last year.

Now who will lobby for the entire US economy? Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, World Bank and the IMF are the worst examples of “too big to fail, too big to be wrong” corporations and institutions.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is like a typical Filipino politician, who says one thing and does the opposite. He speaks of “strengthening the US Dollar” and then throws away billions of taxpayer money on hopeless cases like the “Gang of Four” (IMF, WB, Fannie and Freddie). He should explain this conflict between his goals and policies to US taxpayers. He should answer to his employer, the American people.

JE comments: I went to college with Timothy Geithner (he graduated three years before me; we never met). Tim: if you’re reading these lines, I vote for a strong dollar! And Go Green!

Bienvenido Macario writes that national economies become inefficient when their political and financial capitals are one and the same. This is the rule for the overwhelming majority of countries–Russia, France, Japan, Mexico, the UK. In Europe, Germany and Switzerland are the only two countries with separate financial and political capitals. Elsewhere in the world, we have the examples of Australia, Brazil, (possibly) China, India, and the US. Does either model necessarily lead to inefficiency? New York City, interestingly enough, isn’t the political capital of anything–not even the state of NY. But New Yorkers will be quick to tell you they are the center of the universe.

re: US: Obama One Year after Elections (Harry Papasotiriou, Greece)

Harry Papasotiriou writes regarding the economic crisis:

Politics aside, the response of the Bush and the Obama administrations to the colossal banking crisis of September 2008- February 2009 has been on a continuum. Now that the panic of those five months is over, people can revert to their usual ideological disagreements. But during those five months, when it was uncertain whether major banks would survive, companies and corporations were uncertain whether their cash in those banks would remain available. Thus they cut production below sales, selling from their inventories, in order to ensure cash flow for their survival. Now that their inventories have been exhausted, the banking system has been saved (due to massive federal government intervention by both administrations) and consumer demand has not collapsed, they are drastically increasing production–hence the V-shaped recovery in production. But they have also instituted labor-saving measures, increasing their productivity, which means that unemployment will not decline soon.

Let me state that I tend to be a pro-free market conservative (Liberal in European terms). But in the face of a massive banking crisis of the kind that the United States experienced during those five months, I do believe in government intervention (as did Bush, Bernanke and Paulson). When panic takes over in the markets, disrupting their orderly and rational function, government intervention is essential. This part of Keynes’s insight, regarding the herd behavior of investors in capital markets, is best captured by his disciple Shackle, who focused on the psychology of panic situations. But once the panic is over, government should in my view retreat to a limited regulatory role and let the markets allocate scarce resources efficiently.

re: US: Obama One Year after Elections (Randy Black, US)

Randy Black writes:

Nigel Jones’s 4 November post in which he skewered the Obama administration is entertaining and in most aspects factual. Clearly, Obama campaigned hard for the Democratic Party candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, making several campaign trips to both states. Just as clearly, Obama was defeated along with the gubernatorial candidates. Think about it: One year ago, Democratic Party leaders and much of the national media gleefully declared the Republican Party dead on arrival as they celebrated the death for weeks afterward.

A poll today reveals that “independent” voters now outnumber Republican and Democratic party members 2-1. This revelation is hardly good news for Obama or for any Republican candidate for that matter.

Significantly, there are more than 25 members of the Democratic Party-controlled House of Representatives who have banded together to petition Obama to not allow tax dollars to be part of any new Health Service that might subsidize abortions. Religious zealots? Republicans? Nope, the Democratic Party members in the House are the perps. Apparently, the once-united Democratic majority is splintering in all directions under the inept leadership of Nancy Pelosi, who is often vilified from one coast to the other. Also significant is the fact that Democratic Party Congressional leaders are fighting a Republican-led campaign to post proposed laws (bills) online at least three days before a vote. Apparently, the Democrats are afraid of the voters getting an opportunity to see what they’re up to.

While Nigel points out many failures of Obama one year in, BO has one significant victory. In one fell swoop, he vanquished his principal adversary. By appointing Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, he essentially sent her on a permanent “field trip.” Out of town, out of mind. Rather than having her in D.C. as a US Senator where she’d be grabbing headlines on a daily basis, she’s been banished to the outbacks of the world and only occasionally surfaces in a “grip and grin” photo op in Moscow or Cairo. A brilliant move on Obama’s part, in my opinion. Her always unfaithful hubby is left behind in their D.C. mansion with his girlfriends and poker buddies.

By the way, I assume that Nigel’s comment that BO spends too much time on the golf course is offered tongue-in-cheek. Playing something like 12 rounds of golf in one year hardly seems excessive to me, especially with the Fort Belvoir golf course only a few minute’s drive from the White House.

Nigel also compared BO to Jimmy Carter by saying that Carter was Cicero and BO is Bozo the Clown. That’s probably unfair to Bozo. Way back when Carter was the presidential candidate, I was drawn to the peanut farmer because he was not part of the insider-based Washington establishment. I thought that as an outsider, Carter would surely be superior to Gerald Ford, clearly an insider. Boy was I wrong. Carter was a one-legged duck in a sea of sharks. Whether or not BO will succeed as President probably depends upon a bit of arm twisting in the smoke filled rooms of the Capital. Will Barack Obama turn out to be a “one-term wonder”? We’ll probably know in about one more year.

In the meantime, BO will continue to try to nationalize major industries as he’s already done with GM and Chrysler and a number of major banks and investment houses. Can he effectively nationalize the health care industry? Only the Shadow knows and at the moment, he’s not talking. My daughter has been buying Ford stock as fast as she can gather up the funding from me and her savings permits.

JE comments: Ford was trading at under $2/share in February, and is now in the high $7s–a quadruple return for those wise/brave enough to grab a ride early this year. But “past performance does not guarantee future returns”–one of my favorite disclaimers on financial prospectuses. Ford is clearly the darling among Detroit’s erstwhile Big Three. Will the FoMoCo honeymoon last? Let’s call up the Shadow once again…

re: US: Obama One Year after Elections (David Crow, US)

David Crow writes:

I disagree with Nigel Jones’s assertion, seconded
by John Heelan (both from 4 Nov.), that President Obama has “failed
to lift the economy from the doldrums.” On the
contrary, his swift, bold action–including the
stimulus package, the bank bailout, and the auto
bailout–averted a replay of the Great
Depression. GDP is growing again at an
annualized clip of 3.5%. Unemployment was
growing by nearly half a percentage point per
month when President Obama took office. That
pace has slowed dramatically to an average of
one-tenth of a percentage point for the last four
months (Source: Trading Economics,
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Unemployment-Rate.aspx?Symbol=USD ).

Halting the free fall of the world’s largest
economy is no mean feat. Let’s give credit where credit is due.

re: US: Obama One Year after Elections (John Heelan, UK)

Nigel Jones wrote on 4 November:

A year in and the (Obama) administration has failed to lift the economy from the doldrums, with ten percent of the workforce jobless, a dollar plunging nearly as fast as the BO’s poll ratings and a country mired in unsustainable debt. (Just like Britain, in fact.)

John Heelan responds:

There is much truth in my countryman’s acerbic comments on Obama. However, perhaps he is being a little unfair in timescales.

As his hero, Margaret Thatcher–a far more draconian leader than Obama–found out, the economic depredations of the previous government were so deep that it takes substantially more than a single year to turn things around.

When Thatcher came to power in 1979 (I voted for her!), inflation was at 27%, over-powerful trades unions had caused wage inflation and time lost on strikes, unemployment was approaching a post war record of 700,000 and government debt was so large that IMF loans were required.

A devotee of Milton Friedman’s monetarist policies, Thatcher instituted extreme deflationary policies. Taxes were raised, government spending cut and interest rates increased as the government sought to reduce inflation.

A year later, the deflationary fiscal and monetary policies had reduced inflation, but at a cost. Aggregate Demand had fallen, economic growth had dropped leading to full recession by mid-1980, and unemployment was well on its way to the 3 million, a level that lasted for several years.

Would Nigel have said then that Thatcher had failed in her first year?

Is not Obama in a similar mess with the US economy wrecked by 8 years of Bush administrations? Is not one year too soon to turn the US “supertanker”?

If so, Nigel is being unfair to Obama. If not, I look forward to his similar comments after Cameron wins the next election and fails one year later to have remedied UK’s economic mess left by New Labour.

re: US: Obama One Year after Elections (Cameron Sawyer, Russia)

When commenting Nigel Jones’s post of 4 November, JE wrote:

Anyone willing to come to President Obama’s defense?

Cameron Sawyer responds:

Certainly, I am willing to give a somewhat milder assessment, also from a right-wing perspective.

Nigel brings up some valid criticism, but his overall view is much colored by an emotional view.

He says that Obama has mostly engaged in “prolonged dithering,” rather than accomplishing anything. I can’t really agree with this. The change in the direction of our foreign policy was rather decisive and rather quick, and very much welcome. The level of productiveness of work with other countries has been increased many-fold. A decision has been made about Iraq, which was surely the biggest foreign policy issue we have, and I think the decision made is probably the best of a bad menu of choices. A decision has also been made about Afghanistan–and I agree with Nigel that this one was probably wrong, but we can’t accuse him of dithering.

The economic crisis has been managed reasonably well by almost all accounts. Pumping tons of money into the economy by the state is the only plan anyone has, and it seems to have helped. We have avoided economic collapse. We do not have the inflation which skeptics, including myself, predicted. The debt is awful, but it is less than the average debt of Western European countries, as a proportion of GDP.

The socialization of medicine, which is the pet project of the Democrats, is something I am passionately opposed to, so I am happy that this has failed so far. But other than disagreeing with the policy, I can’t blame the administration too much for this. It has been done in a serious-minded and intelligent way, which is one reason why it is failing. Resort has not been made to the whole toolbox of propaganda and manipulation, and for this I respect the Obama administration.

Concerning scandals, mentioned by JE: this is not actually a trivial issue. The remarkable lack of scandals in the Obama administration is just a sign of the high quality of management and teamwork in the Obama administration. It forms a stark contrast to the awful Clinton administration, which was scandal-ridden exactly because it was so poorly run and staffed by so many questionable characters (starting with the then-president and his odious wife). The Obama administration is a real class act in comparison, and in fact in absolute terms as well. I don’t agree, by and large, with its domestic policies, but that fact does not make Obama, in my eyes, a “Bozo.”

US: Obama One Year after Elections (Nigel Jones, UK)

It’s hard to believe that the US presidential elections of 2008, so thoroughly scrutinized on the e-pages of WAIS, celebrate their first anniversary today (4 November). To mark the occasion, we hear from Nigel Jones:

I have been waiting in vain for American WAISers to start a discussion a year after the election of President Barack Obama–or the Blessed One, as he is known in some disrespectful quarters.

Perhaps they are keeping quiet out of sheer embarrassment? Let me, therefore, with due trepidition as a mere Brit, get the ball rolling and attempt a provisional first-year report on the BO as he appears from over the pond, who, let us not forget, is already one quarter of the way through his first (and hopefully only) term in office.

It is an appropriate day to attempt such an assessment, since it is not only a year to the day since the President was elected; but, by unhappy (for him) coincidence, it is also the day when the GOP won back the Governorship of one state–Virginia, which fell to the Dems relatively recently–and took a second, New Jersey, from the Democrat incumbent, in the first statewide win in a traditionally Democratic state since 1997. And this despite the BO personally intervening in the campaign. His long honeymoon with the voters seems to be definitively over. The bubble has burst, not with a bang but a whimper.

It is not before time. For, wherever we look, the Obama administration is a disaster zone with a capital D.

A year in and the administration has failed to lift the economy from the doldrums, with ten percent of the workforce jobless, a dollar plunging nearly as fast as the BO’s poll ratings and a country mired in unsustainable debt. (Just like Britain, in fact.)

Despite controlling both houses of Congress, BO has failed to implement the central plank of his platform: Health Service reform. Hardly surprising really, since it would cost $1.055 trillion dollars over a decade, and could only be funded by higher taxes which Americans are understandably reluctant to pay.

The hallmark of BO’s style is not the smack of firm government, but the prolonged dither. He has deliberated for months over where to go in Afghanistan, preferring to spend time on the golf course or windbagging in TV studios rather than take a hard decision on a fruitless and unwinnnable war that is killing young Americans almost daily. We’re still waiting for him to make that choice.

He has failed to close the Guantanamo detention centre, despite promising to do so.

After pumping $787 billions into the economy–enacting the traditional Democrat remedy that the way to solve a problem is to drown it in other people’s cash–that money has now gone with the wind and the US has a projected cumulative deficit of $9 trilllion dollars over the next ten years: a debt to make even our own Prime Minister, Gordon “borrower” Brown’s eyes water.

In foreign affairs, apart from the Afghan quagmire, the BO has achieved precisely nothing. The Israeli-Palestine stalemate remains exactly where it was. Iran is busy completing its nuclear programme without a squeak of protest; he has stripped eastern Europe of its missile defence system without getting so much as a “thanx” in return from Russia.

Even in peacenik, left-wing, Europe that ole BO magic appears to be wearing thin: a personal appearence by the President at Copenhagen failed to secure the 2016 Olympics for his hometown of Chicago. OK, he did win the Nobel Peace Prize–but that was ludicrously decided upon by the Awards committee only days after he moved in to the Oval office.

Faced with this mounting array of failure, ineptitude and stasis, what has the BO done? Why, what most failing leaders do: he has blamed the Media, heaping abuse on the one major TV outlet not to have fallen under his spell–Fox News.

It is scarcely surprising that more and more Americans are wondering what they did in that moment of madness one year ago. The unpalatable truth is that, sickened by the idiocies of George W. Bush, they elected a Bozo of awesome proportions. A silver tongued Bozo, perhaps, but a Bozo all the same. Despite the soaring, empty rhetoric, he is beginning to make Jimmy Carter look like Cicero.

I feel at least slightly qualified to attack Obama because my country too elected a preening, narcissistic, strutting vacuum in 1997–and are still paying the price for having done so. In six months we will finally eject our useless left-wing Government. I’m sorry that you have another three years of pain to endure before you get the chance to do the same.

Oh, yes, and where exactly did he put that pesky birth certificate?

JE comments: Anyone willing to come to President Obama’s defense? He hasn’t been brought down by any major scandals during his still-young administration. But on the other hand, the economy has not turned around, at least not in my neighborhood, and the (ever-diminishing) buck inevitably stops on the presidential desk. Unless recovery comes soon, he will be blamed.

President Obama is doing a lot, but has he done anything? Time will only make it more difficult for him to enact significant reform. It is inevitable that the Democrats will lose some seats in Congress in next year’s elections–if mid-term election history teaches us anything, it is that yesterday’s contests in New Jersey and Virginia will be a harbinger of 2010.