Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Crash & Burn?

I realize it is very early in the game, but it appears that President Obama's approval rating is tanking so fast that you may have to dig to find it next month. On inauguration day, he was at 74%. As of yesterday, polls had him down to 55%.

Much of this can be attributed to the "wake up call". Americans are waking up to the realization that his "stimulus bill" is very short on stimulus and long on spending - spending we simply cannot afford at this point. When introduced, that bill enjoyed about 80% support. As of today, that is down to 42%, with many Democrats abandoning it. For those who have not bothered to do the math, the 3-4 million jobs the $819 billion bill is supposed to create works out to roughly $205,000 per job. That's a helluva job! Seems it would be far more effective to create $35,000 jobs, instead, at a cost of roughly $140 billion. That saves us almost $680 billion.

But that bill is not the only problem with Obama's approval rating. What the bill managed to do was open some previously closed eyes, and now even many of his supporters are beginning to gasp at some of his cabinet choices. Geithner, a tax cheat, and now Daschle, another tax cheat (who just dropped out because more crap is turning up). And now a THIRD tax cheat - Nancy Killefer, President Obama's pick to be the "Chief Performance Officer" to oversee government efficiency, who at least had the grace to step aside when found out. Add to that Ms. Brown, leader of Socialists International being appointed as an advisor, and two other picks are lobbyists - chosen right after Obama signed an order that prohibited lobbyists.

Frankly, the man is losing his street cred. The teflon is wearing thin, and it may be that things are beginning to stick.

Especially considering that every one of his first official acts were contrary to the best interestes of the people - sending $450 million to other countries for birth control and abortion assistance, during a recession no less; ordering a stop to racial profiling for terrorists; closing GITMO with no plan on what to do with the terrorists; ordering that we cease any and all harsh interrogations of terrorists; then giving his first TV interview on the terrorists own network, Al-Arabiya.

Mr. Obama is fond of making the claim that he fashions himself after Lincoln, his idol. Judging from how his approval rating is dropping like a rock, perhaps he should have made note of Lincoln's favorite saying: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."

I am no big fan of George Bush, but Mr. Obama is beginning to make Bush look good.

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