I've speculated a number of times (see links below) that Barack Obama won't be President in 2013, at first jokingly and then with increasing seriousness. Regardless of whether or not you buy the notion of his attempt to re-make America into a socialist pseudo-European state, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the plain and simple fact that Barack Obama is -- as we on the Right predicted before the election -- hopelessly and utterly incompetent as a genuine leader. Three stories today really help drive home that point, so here are some excerpts. Obama Doesn't Have A Clue - Dick Morris The sight of his blithering and blustering while the most massive oil spill in history moves closer to America's beaches not only reminds one of Bush's terrible performance during Katrina, but calls to mind Jimmy Carter's incompetence in the face of the hostage crisis. America is watching the president alternate between wringing his hands in helplessness and pointing his finger in blame when he should be solving the most pressing environmental problem America has faced in the past 50 years. We are watching generations of environmental protection swept away as marshes, fisheries, vacation spots, recreational beaches, wetlands, hatcheries and sanctuaries fall prey to the oil spill invasion. And, all the while, the president acts like a spectator, interrupting his basketball games only to excoriate BP for its failure to contain the spill.
Conservatives may dislike Obama because he is a leftist. But liberals are coming to dislike him because he is not a competent progressive.
Meanwhile, the nation watches nervously as the same policies Obama has brought to our nation are failing badly and publicly in Europe. When Moody's announces that it is considering downgrading bonds issued by the government of the United States of America, we find ourselves, suddenly, in deep trouble. We have had deficits before. But never have they so freaked investors that a ratings agency considered lowering its opinion of our solvency. ...
And the truth begins to dawn on all of us: Obama has no more idea how to work his way out of the economic mess into which his policies have plunged us than he does about how to clean up the oil spill that is destroying our southern coastline.
Both the financial crisis and the oil come ever closer to our shores — one from the east and the other from the south — and, between them, they loom as a testament to the incompetence of our government and of its president.
The Coming Resignation Of Barack Obama - Peter Ferrara Months ago, I predicted in this column that President Obama would so discredit himself in office that he wouldn't even be on the ballot in 2012, let alone have a prayer of being reelected. Like President Johnson in 1968, who had won a much bigger victory four years previously than Obama did in 2008, President Obama will be so politically defunct by 2012 that he won't even try to run for reelection.
I am now ready to predict that President Obama will not even make it that far. I predict that he will resign in discredited disgrace before the fall of 2012. Like my previous prediction, that is based not just on where we are now, but where we are going under his misleadership.
Is the President Above the Law?
Watergate was supposed to have established that Presidents are not above the law. If that is so, President Obama may have to resign for breaking the law in the Sestak affair.
Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) is now the Democrat nominee for the Senate seat held far too long by Arlen Specter. President Obama induced Specter to switch parties and give the Democrats their very temporary, 60 vote, filibuster-proof majority, in return for endorsing him for reelection and promising him no opposition in the Democrat primary. But Sestak had already announced that he was running for the seat, and he refused to get out. Two week ago, Sestak defeated the unprincipled, opportunistic Specter for the Democrat nomination, continuing the perfect string of everyone who Obama endorses and campaigns for going down to defeat.
For months now, Sestak has publicly claimed that President Obama tried to keep his promise to Specter by offering him a high-ranking administration appointment if he would get out of the race. The rumor is that Sestak, formerly an Admiral, was offered appointment as Secretary of the Navy. The problem is that a federal statute explicitly provides that it is a federal felony, punishable by up to one year in prison, to attempt to bribe a candidate with a federal job, or anything of value, to influence an election.
As Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has indicated, the White House is now engaged in a coverup that is only making matters worse. Former President Bill Clinton is now claiming that he carried the offer to Sestak of an appointment to an unpaid position on a Presidential Advisory Board in return for dropping out of the race. But that story is not plausible because as a sitting member of Congress he could not have legally served on such a Presidential Board. So is the White House now lying to the American people about the matter?
Moreover, indirectly offering the job through former President Clinton still violates the statute, as does the offer of an unpaid position. That is why Issa, Mark Levin, and others are saying that what the White House is publicly admitting still amounts to a federal crime, which is an impeachable offense. Democrats are going to have to decide if they really believe that presidents are not above the law. Presently, one reason to vote Republican for president is that Republican presidents are subject to the rule of law, but Democrat presidents are not.
Ferrara also hammers the Gulf oil spill, and then moves on to more generalized doom: Now and for the next six months, we will be enjoying the high point of the Obama economy, the tippy top of the Obamanomics, Keynesian, roller coaster. If Art Laffer's Coming Crash of 2011 arrives next year, or if the economy just dips into another downturn, President Obama no longer enjoys the political base to survive it. With African Americans suffering Depression-level unemployment for over a year now, even that most solid of all political bases will weaken and waver in the face of a renewed downturn.
Under the President's leadership, Congressional Democrats continue to pile more and more taxes on the investment necessary to create jobs and prosperity, "the most punitive tax rates on investment income since the late 1970s," as The Wall Street Journal reported on May 27. Even before Obama and the New Left takeover of Washington, the top 1% of taxpayers were already paying more in income taxes than the bottom 95% combined, as the Tax Foundation has accurately reported based on official IRS data. ...
This punitive tax piracy is already starting to cause capital flight from the U.S., which will accelerate into an outright capital jail break from America next year. That will only hasten a renewed downturn, cripple job creation, and restore rising unemployment.
Moreover, with the federal deficit already at a record smashing $1.6 trillion this year, a renewed recession next year will only cause it to soar further. How long can that go on before we arrive at Greece, where the markets refuse to buy the bonds necessary to finance the deficit, at least without soaring interest rates, which would only cause further economic decline.
Meanwhile, the Fed has long been busily creating new economic bubbles with its overly extended easy money and zero interest rate policies. Monetary policies so loose that they should be considered pornographic are creating new vulnerabilities for the President, which will arise as sudden surprises involving new dollar, interest rate or inflation scares.
Another blind spot for the President is energy policy itself. Those opposed to further offshore drilling need to end their hypocrisy and stop using the remaining oil and gas still available to the rest of us. Cap and tax is one of the biggest economic and political blunders in history just waiting to happen ... As the price of gas climbs over $4 a gallon due to that and to President Obama's anti-production policies, the public riot demanding immediate change in leadership will surprise establishment Washington.
Adding to all of this are the grave vulnerabilities posed by Iran successfully developing nuclear weapons, and President Obama's foreign policy weaknesses generally, which just invite war. Devilishly pursuing the opposite of every one of Reagan's policies, instead of Peace Through Strength, Obama is inviting War Through Weakness. If Iran launches a bloody attack on Israel, open calls for his resignation will be widespread. If Iran uses a nuclear weapon in that attack, or in any other attack against American interests, the Obama Administration will be over politically.
The President himself has laid the foundation for his biggest political vulnerability of all. He won our votes and the election in 2008 with "the firm pledge" not to raise taxes "in any form" on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. Now he has already backed away from that pledge to the American people by creating a Presidential Deficit Commission, with "everything on the table," including tax increases on working people in direct violation of the pledge. The much discussed Value Added Tax (VAT) could not be a more direct violation of the no tax increase pledge, increasing the prices of everything working families buy.
When the President directly violates the pledge that got him elected by openly endorsing such a tax increase, his resignation will immediately become a central political issue. The above problems and vulnerabilities will come together to increase the pressure for resignation to unbearable levels.
While I would welcome such calls for his resignation with open arms, that unfortunately means that things have gotten so bad in this country that people are desperate for change IMMEDIATELY, and I don't relish the thought of living through that kind of scenario. Ferrara thinks that all of this will combine into so much pressure that Obama will basically get shoved out the door by the Democrat party because they'll realize the party itself is in danger of extinction if they hang onto him. They'll dress it up in health problems, spending more time with family, or something like that, but the bottom line is that he will not be given the Democrat nomination in 2012. This suggestion is actually quite similar with my previous assertions, though perhaps a bit more fleshed out. How realistic is it? We'll find out over the next two and a half years, but with each passing day, we see more examples of not only Obama's radical Leftist nature (which most of America rejects) as well as his complete incompetence in basic leadership (which no one on either side will put up with), and this scenario becomes more and more realistic. And we may already be seeing the early warning signs of the abandon ship... Elected Officials Say No Thanks To Obama Congressmen Jason Altmire and Tim Murphy have previous engagements. Sen. Bob Casey Jr. and Rep. Mike Doyle are out of town on anniversary trips with their wives. Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato will be campaigning in Philadelphia.
When President Obama and Sen. Arlen Specter land at Pittsburgh International Airport today, Mayor Luke Ravenstahl will receive them by himself.
The rest of the region's top elected officials declined White House invitations to attend Obama's speech at Carnegie Mellon University this afternoon, their offices said.
This could also be because of what Ferrara mentioned above - Obama is 4-for-4, with all four of his preferred major national candidates losing in their recent elections. And when the President suddenly becomes anathema to success, well, you can see where the end of that road goes. That's great - the sooner the better, if you ask me. I'd much prefer Barack Obama going down in political flames long before he takes this great nation down in real flames with him. There's my two cents. Previous LinksTake off the tinfoil hat! A year of hope-n-changeThis is why I'm suspicious Conspiracy theory fun house Hillary must be plotting How deep does the rabbit hole go?
