President Present
By Derek Hunter
TownHall.com
President Obama’s re-election campaign is in full
swing. He’s flying to swing states,
on our dime, to convince voters he deserves a
second term based upon…I’m not exactly sure what.
Obama 2012 released its first ad this week (you
can watch it here). It’s a call for volunteers.
Maybe the campaign thinks since the president’s
policies have driven so many people into
unemployment, there are a lot of people out there
with time on their hands to go door-to-door for
Obama.
The most telling part of the ad is the line, “…the
outcome (of the election) will depend not on what I
do but on what you do.” Which, come to think of it,
says a lot about his presidency.
Barack Obama is not only running away from his
record, he’s Air Force One-ing it away from it as
fast as he can, probably to a waiting tee time on a
golf course somewhere.
He can’t run on his record because it’s a record of
failure and unpopularity. But it’s less a record he
earned than one he sat by and watched happen. Which
actually makes it worse. As he said, it didn’t
depend on what he does.
In a time when the country needs leadership, Obama
has been a spectator in the Oval Office. Even with
his “biggest accomplishment,” Obamacare, he was
involved mainly on the conceptual level, leaving the
details to Democrats in Congress.
In a time when the country needs a positive voice,
Obama has been a critic. Americans have “gotten a
little soft,” he said. They are getting “lazy.”
Sure, some people do respond to negative motivation,
but it’s hardly inspiring.
In a time when the country needs a champion, Obama
has reverted to voting “present.” He’s there, he’s
president, and when he absolutely has to, he’ll do
something. But his “doing something” usually means
he gives a speech, then leaves the room. You can’t
expect much more from a man who has golfed more
times than he’s met with the Speaker of the House.
How often have you heard the President talk about
the greatness of America? When not apologizing for
this or that, he’s busy golfing and telling us how
horrible we are. He says how he wants to
“fundamentally transform” the country more often
than he talks about its greatness. Try this: Next
time you talk to your husband, wife, boyfriend or
girlfriend, tell them you love them but you want to
“fundamentally transform” them and see how well that
goes over.
If you love someone or something you may seek to
change a habit or two – slightly. But you don’t seek
to “fundamentally transform” them. If someone tells
you they love you but want to dramatically alter
you, you have to wonder what they loved about you in
the first place.
I don’t doubt Barack Obama loves this country. I
just don’t think he gets it.
He, and “progressives” like him, see only the end of
the marathon, with runners crossing in whatever
order they finish, and think, “That’s not fair! Why
are some of those people finishing with better times
than others, and some aren’t finishing at all?” They
miss the start of the race, when everyone is on the
same line with the same distance in front of them.
And they miss the hard work and discipline that goes
into being able to run long distances.
When they talk about “leveling the playing field”
they are really talking about the end of the race,
not the start.
Sure, some people are born on third base (and act
like they hit a triple) and others are born in the
dugout. But where people finish is entirely up to
them. People born on the bench can pinch-hit a grand
slam, and those born on third can get picked off.
Progressives always ignore this reality.
President Obama rejects this reality. He thinks
government has to be the arbiter of the finish line
to make things “fair.” He does so seemingly without
thinking how his own life story, of rising from
modest means to the presidency, undercuts his
philosophy.
It can’t be that he doesn’t know. He has written two
– yes two! – autobiographies! It has to be that he
doesn’t get it.
Since we know so little about his background – his
grades, how he got into college, who his friends
were then, etc. – we are left to look at the things
we do know. He spent his professional, non-elected
life as a rabble-rouser. “Community organizers”
don’t try to inspire people to better themselves;
they encourage people to demand more from others,
from government. No one ever took to the streets to
demand more from themselves.
President Obama has lived his professional life this
way. He gets people worked up, then sits back and
watches what happens…usually from the golf course.
He’s around, but not engaged. Some people have
called it “leading from behind,” but that implies
he’s leading on some level. He’s not. Much like the
tough votes when he was a state senator in Illinois,
he’s simply “President Present.”
A Quick Note About The Unemployment Numbers
The unemployment rate dropped this week from 9% to
8.6%. Democrats and MSNBC employees (redundant?)
took to the streets to do a celebratory dance that
rivals the Icky Shuffle in obnoxiousness. But unlike
the Icky Shuffle, no one scored a touchdown, or even
accomplished anything.
In a con that makes three-card Monte on a folding
table in Times Square at 3:00 AM look honest, that
number is cooked.
The economy created 120,000 jobs last month, many of
which are temporary holiday jobs. That’s great, jobs
are jobs and we need jobs. But we need to create
200,000 jobs per month simply to keep up with
population growth. Without breaking out my
calculator, in real terms that seems like a shortage
of 80,000 jobs.
Anyway, forget that, 120,000 is more than zero and
every job helps.
But how does the unemployment rate drop .4% from a
“gain” of 120,000 jobs? Because the government does
not count people who’ve been unemployed longer than
99 weeks, the length of unemployment insurance
payments, they just disappear. And last month
315,000 Americans hit that magic number, thus
dropping off the planet in these statistics. Since
the labor force is what the unemployment rate is
calculated against, and nearly a third of a million
Americans went “poof” off of it, you begin to see
what’s happening.
American Enterprise Institute’s economics blogger
Jim Pethokoukis put it the following ways:
“If size of labor force had not declined so sharply
from Oct., Nov. unemployment rate would be 8.9
percent.”
“11%: That would be the U-3 unemployment rate if
laborforce was same size as when Obama took office
in Jan. 2009”
On the dropped 315,000, he said:
“If labor force size was same as Oct., U-3
unemployment rate would be 8.9%; same as when Obama
took office, 11%”
Finally, considering the dissolved third of a
million, he pointed out:
“Labor force participation rate falls to 64.0
percent from 64.2 percent.”
Essentially he’s pointing out that the books are
cooked, the numbers are meaningless, and we’re being
lied to by willing cheerleaders in the media.
All of that is a mouthful to recite at the dining
room table or at the bar, so I came up with a way to
put it in plain English that anyone can understand.
If you applied the same logic behind how the
government measures the unemployed to, say, health
care, you could sum it up this way:
“If we'd just kill all the sick people we'd be the
healthiest country in the world!”
It’s really that simple. When you don’t like the
measurements you’re getting, change the unit of
measure you’re using until you get the numbers you
want.
This isn’t unique to the Obama Administration, but
the media cheerleading is. They used to report not
only what a politician said, but also whether or not
it was true. Now they seem to just feed White House
talking points directly into the teleprompter, turn
on the cameras and go.
On a personal, self-congratulatory note, Sean
Hannity quoted me on that on his radio show Friday.
I was driving at the time and have to imagine that
feeling is as close as someone who couldn’t carry a
tune if it had a handle will ever come to hearing
their record played on the radio for the first time.
I managed not to drive off the road and kill
anyone…mostly because I was stopped at a light at
the time and it took about 10 seconds and 10 emails
from friends for me to realize I actually heard what
I heard. Anyway, it was a very cool feeling.
And One Last Note On The Week
General Motors announced this week that they would
be offering to buy back all the Chevy Volts they’ve
sold because some of them have an annoying habit of
bursting into flames. While this will probably
impact GM stock prices, it might not be that much
since they barely sold any of the cars. It’s kind of
like offering a refund to anyone who bought a
“Razor-Wire Dodge Ball” from Wham-O. There were very
few people who bought them and those who did are
kind of crazy. I’m kind of wondering where Ralph
Nader is in all this. A search on Amazon.com for his
forthcoming book “Unsafe Parked” yielded no results.
Couldn’t be because it’s a “green” car now, could
it? Hmm…
That is all, go about your week.