American Missive

ATLANTA— Barack Obama’s approval ratings have officially dropped at a rate not seen in 50 years of polling. 

In a post entitled Megalomania is Back in Vogue last October 24, 2008 (almost a year ago today!), I said the following about Mr. Obama’s impending election:

One of my predictions for an Obama Presidency has long been that his spark will fade sometime soon after election.  I believe that upon his election, his approval ratings will soar (relative to those of George Bush’s, that is).  There will be a pervasive sense that much needed “change” has occurred.  It’s also easy to predict that there will be wide-spread celebration among liberals in America and across many countries abroad.  But sometime next summer or fall (or maybe early in 2010), I predict his approval ratings will start to subside.  The problems we face as a nation, and that the world faces, are much more complex to resolve than the Obama rhetoric and adrenaline let on.  I believe after 6 months or a year of Mr. Obama, people will have grown tired of the soaring rhetoric and there may be a general sense of “buyer’s remorse” for having elected him.  They will appreciate his thoughtfulness and ability to articulate our troubles in a way we can understand (he far exceeds both George Bush and John McCain here).  But in general, people will come to see his promises as empty and his solutions as ineffective. They will have trouble identifying with him- his unusual background and his liberal stances ultimately remain out of touch with much of America.  In summary, I believe they will view his presidency as a disappointment.

As I have said before, I am predicting that if he is elected, his economic policies will protract our current economic struggles and will exacerbate inflation somewhere down the road.  I firmly believe the state of the economy will remain a major part of the national debate in 2012 and Mr. Obama will be called to answer for it.  Further, I believe he will be tested aggressively by our enemies and Americans will find his responses weak. Finally, I believe his liberal views on social issues will only divide us further.

In conclusion, I don’t believe he can possibly live up to the hype and the rhetoric he is injecting into his campaign at this time.  I really think the impending disappointment among the electorate will result in him being a one-term president.  I think his self aggrandizement will be his own undoing.

I still stand by these words and am unsurprised at the collapse in his approval ratings. 

There is much more to say on this topic of why he has collapsed so far and so fast, but for me the most significant is that he is proving himself to be a fraud.  That allegation has not yet found its way into the mainstream discourse, but I think it will eventually.  If you look at his most eloquent and celebrated speeches, the words are in many cases well-chosen, well constructed.  The problem is they are meaningless in the face of how he has behaved as president.

Consider this excerpt from his address at the Democratic National Convention in 2004:

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us — the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of “anything goes.” Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an “awesome God” in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

Now, marry that up with his selection of partisan hack Rahm Emmanuel as his chief of staff, his direct attacks on Rush Limbaugh, his verbal assault on FoxNews, his dismissal of health care “reform” opponents as misinformed, his verbal attacks on bankers, insurance companies, the wealthy, etc.  If Mr. Obama has done anything, it is to carve up America into subsets, and to try and marginalize and demonize any of those subsets that represent opposition or dissent.  

This is not the president we were promised.  This is not the man who matches those eloquent words above.  America is perceived as being more divided today than ever before.  And this while being governed by the post-partisan president.

Barack Obama is a fraud.

That’s what the narrative will come to be, in my opinion.