This is good stuff... All is not well in Obamanation..



During the 2008 campaign, I strongly endorsed Barack Obama for president. I did so early, when many Democratic leaders — including many prominent African-American politicians — believed the safe bet was to back then-frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

I backed Obama not because of skin color but because he convincingly made the case that he stood for “change” that this country needs. Now, across many fronts — in public policy and politics alike — people have rightly been questioning whether the change has been for the better. Unfortunately, the answer so far is clear: Not yet.

I still believe Obama can stand for positive change. But first he must make some hard changes of his own.

The need is becoming more obvious by the day: He must overhaul his own team, replacing the admittedly brilliant advisers who helped elect him with others more capable of helping him govern.

Getting elected and getting things done for the people are two different jobs.

I am an admirer of Tim Kaine, who I backed in his current position as one of my successors as Virginia governor and even recommended for the vice presidency. But a spate of recent losses in races that Democrats should have won underscores what has been obvious to me for a long time: The chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee is the wrong job for him.

The changes must go much deeper. Obama’s West Wing is filled with people who are in their jobs because of their Chicago connections or because they signed on with Obama early during the presidential campaign.

One problem is that they do not have sufficient experience at governing at the executive branch level.

The deeper problem is that they are not listening to the people.

Hearing is one thing; listening is another.

Some are even questioning whether Mr. Obama has forgotten how he got elected and the promises he made to the people who elected him.

Don't take my word for any of this. Look at the clear message the American people have been sending at the polls these past few months.

In my native Virginia, voters went to the polls and turned the Democrats out of the Executive Mansion with more votes and by a higher percentage than had ever happened since we ended one- party government rule fifty years ago. I told the president that this could very well happen and did not support his candidate.

Indeed, even before Bob McDonnell’s resounding victory the canary had been dead on the floor for months. In Virginia's most Democratic friendly regions, the Democrats had been narrowly winning - - or out-right losing - - special elections that should have been taken easily.

The same trends that are evident in Virginia are obvious elsewhere—even in states that historically are much more Democratic. New Jersey voters, given a chance to reelect a Democratic governor who promised to be the president's partner in the state capital and for whom Obama vigorously campaigned, instead chose a Republican prosecutor who had been appointed to his job by George W. Bush.

After both these debacles, people at the DNC and the White House insisted these were local results with no deeper meaning.

Then came Massachusetts. When Scott Brown promised voters he would be the 41st vote in the U. S. Senate to halt the Obama agenda, generally - - and the health care plan in particular, his rise in the polls was meteoric.

It's not rocket science where the American public wants the president to concentrate his energies. In all the above elections I cited, voters were practically screaming one word with four simple letters: Jobs.

People will rightly hold Obama accountable. Obama must in turn hold the people on his own team accountable.

Tim Kaine is a friend who I respect. I personally pushed for his consideration by Obama for the vice-presidency because Tim was the first governor outside of Obama's home state to endorse him, and it was a bold step away from our state's past history.

Though I discussed with Tim what I was doing relative to the vice presidency, he and I never had any discussions as to whether he should be the national party chairman. There are several reasons why I felt then and do now that it is not a good fit for Tim, the party, or President Obama.

Positioning Democrats as "Tax and Spend" has been a favorite pastime of Republicans. Another has been "Soft on Crime".

Republicans are surely going to remind voters, nationwide, that Chairman Kaine tried to balance his budget in his last days by proposing a $1 Billion Dollar plus personal income tax increase. This measure was "shot down" in the first week of the legislative session with not a single person, including Democrats, voting for it (0-97). Even the patron of the bill abstained.

Kaine's recommendation to the Justice Department to transfer one of Virginia's inmates to a Federal Jurisdiction and ultimately to Germany, for possible parole in two years, was almost immediately withdrawn by the incoming Republican Governor and the Republican Attorney General. Due to the serious nature of these heinous murders and the clearest evidence of guilt, many are still asking why?

Is that who this president wants to be arm-in-arm with as we enter a pivotal election year? For his sake, it shouldn't be. The President has enough to worry about and defend without this detracting sideshow as to feckless party leadership.

The President was elected to lead, not the people around him. He was elected to be in front, to take charge. Leadership is a tautology, it defines itself.

President Obama's job approval ratings are sliding, but we Democrats are told not to worry. We are told that he remains personally popular with the American people.

It would be a grave mistake for the president and those around him to misread the current polls and analyses. They suggest that (1) the American people do not like the direction in which the country is heading; (2) they do not believe that either Democrats or Republicans are showing that they get the message and are doing the business of the people; (3) that they hold the Congress in very low regard; but (4) they really LIKE the President. Yet, they keep going to the polls at every chance presented to rebuke him resoundingly every chance it is presented.

When the time comes for the voters to show how they really feel about the President, his policies and the messages he sends directly or through the people around him, unless changes are made at the top, by the top, the President will discover that Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts were not just temporary aberrations, but rather timely expressions of voters who always show that they are ahead of the politicians.

The President should keep uppermost in his mind the biblical admonition as to what happens to those trees that do not bear "good fruit". The axe is already at the tree.

L. Douglas Wilder was the nation’s first African American to be elected governor. He served as governor of Virginia between 1990 and 1994.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/32741.html

Considering that Obama and Democrats will bear the burden of Bush's mistakes, which he does to this day.

It is going to be a rocky road for him and them.

This country is still paying for the sins of the past president.

Although there are those who want to hate this president regardless to what he does that is positive and others who are too ignorant to know that he cannot change things over night.

President Obama has stopped us from a depression so far which we were headed for.

Depression would have meant many many more years of suffering for the American people than they are currently suffering.

The president is also learning how difficult it is to make choices if you try to please everyone all the time.

If the dems lose in the next elections it will be because of the ignorance of the American people in all forms of ignorancy, not because they failed at their job.

Mistakes….like 4.+ unemployment?

yep...I remember those days well...under employment...when there weren't enough people to fill ALL the jobs available...the day Obama was elected...the unemployment rate was 6%...how GW Bush got it up to 10% is beyond me...in GW Bush's last year...the budget deficit was 454.8 billion...now we're running 1.35 trillion dollar deficits...how GW Bush more then tripled the budget deficit is beyond me...

how is unemployment Obama's fault? If someone's product isn't a quality product and noone's buying your services, that business fails and people lose jobs.

That has nothing to do with what advice Wilder offered.. He didn't say "blame Bush".. He said the people Obama brought with him are inept and can't get the job done. Even when a Democrat of Wilders stature says Obama is surround by kindergarten spendocrats, it's always the same reply..

BLAME BUSH... It's Bush's fault..

And the idea that we were headed for a depression is total BS.. Or the idea that Obama saved us from it is also BS.. He has done nothing, but make things exponentially worse. I suppose only the most well educated intellectuals voted for Obama and the rest of us ignernt fools just couldn't figure out how great he would become. LMAO

it's his fault because:

#1: His daily anti-business rhetoric...his constant attacks on Wall St...and...big business...
#2: Allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire...means less working capital...hence...layoffs...
#3: His healthcare monstrosity would mandate that business's insure ALL workers and if the don't...they are taxed / fined at 8 1/2 per employee...so...if you own a business and you need to make up this shortfall...layoffs...
#4: His cap and trade bill would cost business billions of dollars to either retool to meet stricter EPA standards or face massive fines...so to make up for the shortfall...layoffs...
#5: his tax policy to raise taxes on people that make more then $200,000 a year...those are small business's that you're hitting...with less working capital...layoffs...

ummmm...does that help you out a bit...see when you own a business...and the government confiscates your income through higher taxes...you either pass that on to the comsumer in higher prices...or...to keep the bottom line in check...you lay people off...

He said yesterday that small business won't hire new employees because they can't get loans to pay them... what the hell is he talking about? what kind of business takes out loans to hire new employees? WTF

Oh wait... He has never held a real job or owned a business.... I guess we shouldn't expect him to know everything...LMAO

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
A lot of mid size co's brorrow money each week to pay there bills because they haven't collected there money yet .
OBAMA did not cause the unenployment but he hasn't done enought to end it . he is surrounded by a staff of people who require basic training and refuses to get rid of them . and they are takeing the whole party down with them and when history writes about him that is what they well say . he couldn't do his job .

Bush tax cuts haven't expired yet..so your number 2 is either a blatant lie or miss information.

You are wrong.

Unemployment rate was predicted to go as high as 10 percent the last year that Bush was in office.

All that they have predicted has come to be with the exception of the depression so Obama did what he was suppose to do by stopping the depression at all cost.

The economists said to worry about the deficit would make us drop into depression for sure. The system needed to be flooded with money to stop the depression.

We are not in depression so it worked.

None of us want the copy and paste crap from racist Rush.


This list in not correct anyway.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
i MAY NOT AGREE WITH Rush but not being a liberal I don't want him censored . Only liberals think they have some umgodly right to stop free speach ..

As long as folks realize what they are listening to, a racist, fearmongering fool who is a major narcissist that is all that is needed.

I don't believe he is a racist , he may not say what is politically correct but it comes from what he believes and not from hate of another group ....

Well he is a racist. I know it I have listened to him.

that list are my words...not the Mobfathers...oh !...thanks for the compliment...

son I don't lie...I just happen to know what I'm talking about...in 2001 when bush took over...he couldn't get permenant tax cuts implemented because of the Dems...so he agreed to a 10 year tax cut plan...top rate went from 39 1/2% to 36%...the middle rate went from 28% to 25%...the bottom from 18% to 15%...those rates will expire at the end of this fiscal year { October }...and we will return to the old rates...which will stifle any economic growth...

when Bush left office the unemployment rate was 6%...and I hate to burst your Obama bubble...but we are in a depression...and his approvals are in the low 40's...