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By Bradley Blakeman
FOXNews.com
George W. Bush declared when he was president that he was “the
decider.”
And now we know that after 2 years in office
President
Obama is the “blamer.”
President Bush’s mantra as commander in
chief was “personal responsibility.” He practiced it. He preached it. President
Obama on the other hand, takes no personal responsibility for any of his
actions. He continues to blame Bush for all that ails us.
Obama is not a
leader he is a reactionary. He lets events lead him. Remember his sluggish
response to the BP oil spill? It took days for him to respond and only did so
after overwhelming criticism for his inaction.
It is ironic that as
candidate for president, Obama had all the answers to cure everything that ails
us as a nation but now, as our president, he has none.
On August 2, Obama
declared that Republican policies caused the recession. “We got here after 10
years of an economic agenda in Washington that was pretty straight forward,” he
said. “You cut taxes for millionaires, you cut rules for special interests, and
you cut working folks loose to fend for themselves. That was the philosophy of
the last administration and their friends in Congress.”
The
Democratic
National
Committee is currently running an ad depicting former
President Bush with a script that warns voters this fall not the be “fooled
again” into electing people who favor the “policies that got us into this mess.”
When do this president and his party take responsibility for their own
actions and inaction?
The president, who was supposed to be the great uniter
has managed to alienate moderates, liberals, independents and conservatives. He
has pitted rich against poor, states against states, and even the federal
government against the states.
I dare say, Americans have
almost never been more divided except when it comes to the dissatisfaction they
are feeling with their president.
According to recent polls, most Americans
do not approve of his job performance. According to Rasmussen Reports as of
August 18 only 28% of likely voters this fall believe America is on the right
track. Seventy-seven percent of voters not affiliated with either major party
feel the country is headed in the wrong direction. This number is especially
troubling for
Democrats in light of all their legislative “achievements.”
The president and his fellow Democrats have led by the exercise of raw power,
arrogance and a sense of entitlement. As a result, the American people feel that
they have been neglected in the process.
In spite of all the Bush bashing
by Obama himself and his cohorts, Bush’s Gallup Poll ratings since March of 2009
have climbed by ten percent. Obama’s favorability on the other hand has declined
more than 20% during the same period.
The only thing the president can do
at this point is to take his lumps this November and regroup in January of next
year.
Either Obama will learn from his mistakes and seek to radically
change his governance in style and substance or he will surely be soundly
defeated in 2012.
In America, the ³buck stops² with the president, it is not
passed by him.
The American people elected President Obama with such
great “hope” but now all they want is “change.”
Bradley A. Blakeman
served as deputy assistant to President George W. Bush from 2001-04. He is
currently a professor of Politics and Public Policy at Georgetown University and
a frequent contributor to the Fox Forum.