On CBS's 60 Minutes Sunday night, President Obama said that he "didn't overpromise" voters before taking office, and that he did not underestimate "how tough this was going to be," saying not only will it take him more than one term to accomplish all his plans, it may take more than one president. The interview starts out humble enough, but by the end, the arrogance and hyperbole are breathtaking. Here he lists the administration's accomplishments:
Not only saving this country from a Great Depression. Not only saving the auto industry. But putting in place a system in which we’re going to start lowering healthcare costs and you’re never going to go bankrupt because you get sick or somebody in your family gets sick. Making sure that we have reformed the financial system, so we never again have taxpayer-funded bailouts, and the system is more stable and secure ...
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It keeps going but you get the idea. Where would anyone have gotten the notion that he'd overreached, not only in terms of ambition but immediacy as well? Hmmm ... Perhaps it was the speech then-Senator Obama gave on June 3, 2008, the night he won enough delegates to lock up the Democratic nomination for president:
The journey will be difficult. The road will be long. I face this challenge with profound humility, and knowledge of my own limitations. But I also face it with limitless faith in the capacity of the American people.
Because if we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.
This was the moment—this was the time—when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves and our highest ideals.
Again, he started out humble enough, but then got carried away by the rhetoric. It seems both naive and arrogant now. It's almost funny looking back on it.
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One more nugget from that June 2008 speech, given that Barack Obama has been the most polarizing president of our time:
But what you don't deserve is another election that's governed by fear, and innuendo, and division. What you won't hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon...
What you won't see from this campaign or this party is a politics that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to polarize, because we may call ourselves Democrats and Republicans, but we are Americans first. We are always Americans first.
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Fear, innuendo, division and polarization are exactly what we've gotten from the White House for the last three years. Think about the way he's treated Paul Ryan and the Simpson-Bowles commission, his campaign's class warfare strategy, the speeches sowing fear about reforming entitlements, the ads by left-wing interest groups showing Republicans poisoning babies and wheeling Grandma off a cliff.
He's right about one thing: Americans don't deserve this.
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Gary Walton of UT 9:11PM September 01, 2012
boondogger of TX 12:47AM January 23, 2012
Ljim of OR 9:42PM December 16, 2011