200 Days From 30,000 Feet

Upon taking office without deep connections in either politics or business, President Obama falls back on cadre of ex-Clintonites (Podesta, Panetta, Summers, Clinton, etc.) to staff his administration. When several (I stopped counting at four) of his high level appointees ran into confirmation trouble over taxes (they didn't pay them), Obama had to resort to populating his administration with the B Team. He then had a series of embarrassing diplomatic gaffes on his first meetings with major American allies. In tackling the most important issue facing the nation, the economy, he let his team of economic all-stars bicker and fail to even meet, while he outsourced the economic stimulus package to Nancy Pelosi who crafted one that had zero chance of working because it was not an economic stimulus package but a wishlist of Democratic priorities sold to the American public as a stimulus. The President embarked on a sales pitch of said stimulus claiming that Caterpillar would hire back laid-off workers if it was passed, only to be contradicted five minutes later by the CEO of Caterpillar (ah no, the stimulus would not prompt any rehires). Then President Obama fired GM's CEO and ran roughshod over Chrysler's secured bondholders in order to lay the groundwork for GM bondholders' quiescence so that the government and its UAW allies could own two of our three large automakers. Somewhere in there he met and warmly greeted Hugo Chavez. He gave several speeches, many of which apologized for America in some way. He bullied Bibi Netanyahu and demanded that Israel not build houses in the Israeli capital of Jerusalem among other places. When Iran blew up after a clearly fraudulent election he dissembled and threw the Iranian people to the wolves (hundreds, perhaps thousands have been murdered, jailed, and tortured) in the hope of getting a deal with the Iranian regime, which has heretofore told him to expect nothing. When Honduras's Supreme Court and legislature ordered the removal of their President for illegal, extra-constitutional activities, Obama completely misread the situation, attacking Honduras and demanding Zelaya's reinstatement, agreeing with the likes of Hugo Chavez, and even going so far as to revoke diplomatic privileges for the interim Honduran government. He went to Russia, not to tell them to act like a normal country (i.e. don't murder journalists), but to offer to destroy perfectly good American nukes if the Russians would destroy decrepit and crumbling Russian nukes. The Russians accepted. He also proposed a budget that so shockingly expanded the budget deficit that the Chinese hinted they would stop buying US Treasury bonds so he sent Tim Geithner on a mission of reassurance to China, where an audience of college students laughed at Geithner's claim that the USA's finances are on sound footing. Somewhere in there, he released plans to tinker with corporate taxation policy, prompting well-known Republican idealogue Steve Ballmer, CEO of the raging right-wing corporation Microsoft, to criticize the policy as a job killer. And don't forget, Presidetn Obama appointed a whacky scientist who favors forced sterilizations to be his science advisor. During this time the President did some good things - he maintained terrorists in detention at Guantanamo, he barely altered the US's ability to fight terrorism through enhanced interdiction and interogation techniques, he order the whacking of some piss-ant pirates in the Gulf of Aden that hijacked a US-flagged ship, he checked out a fine young Brazilian's ass, he gave a speech in Ghana where he told Africans to get their act together, and...that's about it. But he also embarked on a major campaign to "reform" healthcare, the nuts and bolts of which he is unfamiliar with, having outsourced the legislation to Henry Waxman. In the process of selling this major revision to the American people he got one of his czars to ask other Americans to snitch on their fellow citizens who disagree with the current Waxman/Pelosi proposals for healthcare. While this is going on, his economic advisers are on the Sunday talk shows essentially saying that the President will have to eventually break his campaign promise not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000, while his press secretary is saying "Ummm, no." Oh, and unemployment climbed to just shy of 10% because businesses are scared sh&tless over the array of attacks on their ability to conduct business emanating from Washington. Also, the President lent his support to Cap and Trade legislation and "Card Check" legislation meant to expand union membership throughout American businesses. India and China have stated that the US is free to hamstring its own economy through Cap and Trade, but that they won't consider such stupidity. Corporations have waged an aggressive under the radar campaign to kill cap and trade. Thus these efforts are dorment because there has been a backlash against them that is miniscule compared to the backlash that is building in response to the President's signature issue of healthcare reform. Then President Obama insulted law enforcement officials everywhere by implying a Cambridge, MA officer was either racist or just did't know how to do his job or both. That's about it, I think, although I am sure I missed something. Whew! Oh wait, forgot...the Administration has chosen to bestow America's highest civilian honor on an obscure Irish diplomat who organized a UN "racism" conference that got so out of control as a virulent anti-Israel rant that the Obama administration itself even chose to boycott its second installment. The Administration now admits that Mary Robinson wasn't vetted. Got that? Highest civilian honor America can bestow. Not vetted.

OK, now I am done. Whew! 200 down, 897 to go.

UPDATE: And now he is deploying union goons to "give cover" to Democratic congressfolk from their concerned constituents. Awesome!