House of Eratosthenes

Some time ago the former Governor of Alaska asked “How’s that hopey, changey thing workin’ out for ya?” Now that it’s been a couple of months, someone at DailyKOS figured out hey, that sounds like it could be a valid point, we’d better put together some stuff to at least pretend to answer it.

The end result looks pretty impressive.

Pretty damn well actually, in just one year President Obama…

Passed Healthcare Reform (ending preexisting conditions, giving small business subsidies for providing insurance, Creating 3.2M HC-related jobs over the next 10 years, closing the medicare donut hole in drug coverage, ensuring coverage for all kids up till the age of 26, covering 32 million americans, expanding medicaid to cover the rest, all while cutting the national debt by a 100 billion dollars) – Check.

Signed into law Tax Cuts for all middle income families, and 95% of all Americans – Check

Signed an Arms control agreement with Russia to dismantle nuclear weapons – Check

Reauthorized SCHIP to cover all Children – Check

Saved the entire stock market from collapsing (from a low point of a dow of 6000 within a month of Obama taking office, to close to 11,000 just an year later, basically preventing millions of retirement accounts from getting wiped out) – Check

Ended the ban on travel for people with HIV – Check

Stopped the dismissals of homosexual individuals serving in the military by the Pentagon (It’s the first step to dismantling DA,DT completely) – Check

Ended the federal crackdown on Medicinal Marijuana centers in CA – Check

Passed into law Mortgage Fraud Protections – Check

Ended the ban on Stem Cell Research – Check

Passed Student Loan Reform, and Used The Savings to Significantly Increase Financial Aid Loans and Grants – Check

Engaged in diplomatic dialogue with Middle Eastern countries, instead of using language like “Axis of Evil” that achieves nothing other than to piss them off some more. – Check

Passed Credit Card Reform (Minimizing Predatory Lending, Making the terms of credit cards clear, eliminating arbitrary rate increases) – Check

Since the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, have had the new job loss numbers from their peak right as Obama took office, go down steadily month after month, every single month like clockwork to the point that finally, this month is going to have job growth in the six figures (a trend expected to accelerate this whole year) – Check

Reversed the ban on sending foreign aid to countries with legal abortions (The Mexico City Policy) – Check

Signed the Expanded Hate Crimes Bill – Check

Helped stem down employment discrimination by passing the Lilly Ledbetter Act – Check

Of course, George Bush had a list like this; so did Bill Clinton. It’s really not that hard. Every little thing that promotes the President’s agenda, like halting the ban on stem cell research, you act like it’s an “accomplishment” on par with replacing a toilet, repairing a car’s busted exhaust manifold, patching a roof…

…and, of course, everything that costs money you pretend like it doesn’t. Or even better still, hazily imply that the President Himself is busting out His own wallet to cover everything. No burden being put on the backs of the taxpayer; Obama’s just “covering” everybody.

Go ahead and confuse the gonna-dooz with the hav-dunz. That’s always a favorite game among losers. Oh look, Obama saved us hundreds of billions of dollars on our deficit.

Interestingly, if you buy Palin’s book and look in the back of it, she’s got a “brag sheet” of her own and it doesn’t read like this. Hav-dunz are hav-dunz, period.

Perhaps that’s why the voters aren’t buying it…poor Obama…

In the survey last Friday through Sunday, the president gets tough treatment:

• Obama’s standing on four key personal qualities, including being a strong and decisive leader and understanding the problems Americans face in their lives, has dipped. For the first time since the 2008 campaign, he fails to win a majority of people saying he shares their values and can manage the government effectively.

• Twenty-six percent say he deserves “a great deal” of the blame for the nation’s economic problems, nearly double the number who felt that way last summer. In all, half say he deserves at least a moderate amount of blame.
:
• By 50%-46%, those surveyed say Obama doesn’t deserve re-election.

Now, 2012 is still a ways off and the landscape of America’s politics is a rocky, jagged, sloped and complicated terrain. A lot can change in the time that remains.

But where American politics is complicated, Barack Obama is not. Words like “freedom” and “liberty” do not appear in Obama’s brag sheet and will not appear in any released between now and then. Everything He gives us, He takes away from somebody else. The rules He passes that supposedly make us safe, and supposedly improve our lives, are concerned with gladdening the hearts of extremist liberals from Haight-Ashbury first, and improving the lives of ordinary Americans, second. Ah, and if you’re paying your own way you are not what Obama thinks of as an “ordinary American.”

So He cannot, and will not, do anything to reverse course on this sagging approval rating. The only thing that will halt the decline is when it reaches bedrock. In Obama’s case, there are a lot of layers that will look like bedrock that really aren’t. I’m thinking…young people, inwardly realizing they’ve made a dreadful mistake, remaining egotistically invested in it and refusing to admit it was a mistake.

Those scaffolds will crumble as Obama’s approval continues to dip. Generally, young people who are enamored of a popular position, aren’t going to stick with it too long when it becomes unpopular. They want to be the first to drop it and move on, not the last. And then there is this natural curvature of time to consider. As a 43-year-old man, I may jealously guard some of the dumbass decisions I made when I was 41 and pretend they were wise decisions…or at least…not dumbass.

Back when I was 23 and even more dumbass and more stubborn, how did I feel about the dumbass decisions I made when I was 21? Would I have resorted to extremes to pretend those were wise decisions? Eh, not so much. The nature of youth is transience; I was flipping from one Morgan to another Morgan much more frequently. The ego was sensitive enough, but it just wasn’t there to be invested or protected.

Obama cannot count on young people. It’s just a fact. Exuberance is no substitute for real dedication.

And the biggest factor in deciding if we can have a Sarah Palin taking the oath in three years, is whether she wants the job. Oh sure you can look smart by bashing her and making fun of her for leaving the “G” off the ends of her words. But if you can’t keep her from winning the nomination that way — and you can’t — then, once that takes place, it’s a whole different ball game.

The Obama choice then becomes one of keeping all kinds of hardcore lefty policies in place, which we’ll be feeling in our pockets that we cannot afford…just to make sure people in the White House put the letter G on the ends of their words. Rejecting the quaint midwestern accents — in favor of the filthy, notoriously corrupt Chicago machine. Well, teleprompter or not, “cool” can’t cut through that. A well-timed quip from Tina Fey can’t cut through it either.

When the time comes for Obama’s advisers to say “That’s enough, Mister President; You must stop immediately and turn right, or lose in 2012” — He won’t stop. He doesn’t have what it takes. He lacks the humility.

Bottom line: If she wants it, the job is hers.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Of course, let me point out again that THERE NEVER WAS A BAN ON STEM CELL RESEARCH

There was a ban on federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research which used lines of embryonic stem cells not already in use at the time of the funding ban.

Any of the do-gooders in Hollywood have always been free to fund embryonic stem cell research to their little hearts’ content, on existing or even new embryonic stem cell lines. They can start private organazations to help raise the money, however much they want. Perfectly legal. But like abortion funding, Nanny Staters want to take money from everyone to fund things they believe are right that some of the people they’re taking the money from believe are dreadfully wrong, and then defend their mandates by calling those people “backwards”

And of course on top of all that — there was no ban whatsoever, funding or otherwise, on any non-embryonic stem cell lines.

It’s an important point I tend to have to make often.
- philmon | 04/02/2010 @ 12:50
blah blah blah…check.
some other stupid thing….check.
a bunch of socialist feel good hogwash….check.

Uh…what if every one of those items strikes you as a step in the WRONG direction? Does it still count as an “accomplishment?”

Meanwhile I’ve got my own list:

Emboldened terrorists in Iraq – check.
Shaken the military’s confidence in its civilian leadership – check.
Emboldened bad state actors in Russia, China, Iran, and Venezuela – check.
Initiated a takeover of 1/6th of the national economy over the objections of 70% of the American people…check.
Thrown a bone to the “Drill here, now” folks without actually doing anything to reduce our dependence on foreign oil…check.
Thrown allies Poland and Czech Republic to the tender mercies of the Russian Bear…check.
Staffed administration with corruption, anti-Americanism, and incompetence…check.

Shall I continue?
- cylarz | 04/02/2010 @ 14:34
Uh…what if every one of those items strikes you as a step in the WRONG direction? Does it still count as an “accomplishment?”

Egg-zactly.

Feel free to continue. It can be cathartic. For all of us.
- philmon | 04/02/2010 @ 16:06
Looted $1.5 trillion from the American taxpayer. Spent more money than all previous administrations combined. Denounced all critics and said nothing while same were accused of “racism” simply for supporting free-market solutions over government ones. Said nothing while ACORN engaged in all matter of criminal activity, some of which was actually caught on tape. Humiliated US prestige abroad by insisting on bowing to every foreign head-of-state. Alienated United Kingdom (our most stalwart ally) and snubbed its leadership by reciprocating its one-of-a-kind gift with a bunch of cheap toys and DVD’s that won’t play outside of the US. Further insulted same by returning bust of Winston Churchill, whose support was critical to US effort during World War II.

Check, check, check, check, check, check…..and check.
- cylarz | 04/02/2010 @ 23:28
Those young voters will be four years less young, and a lot of them are unemployed and will stay unemployed. Might be a lesson in there even for the young.
I believe Bam is looking to pass Amnesty “reform” with a little help from the RINO’s, and replace the ten million votes he’s lost already. Then maybe a war in ’12.
- jamzw | 04/03/2010 @ 22:50
[…] months ago I had it figured out: If She Comes Gunnin’ For it, the Job’s Hers. Last week I took a hard look at this statement hers that she could snag it, placing a little more […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 11/21/2010 @ 18:34
[…] however, is constitutionally eligible to run in an election for that office. And, I still maintain, if she comes gunnin’ for it the job is hers. I maintain, furthermore, that deep down everybody with a working brain knows this, including […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 12/04/2010 @ 12:22

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If She Comes Gunnin’ For it, the Job’s HersFriday, April 2nd, 2010

If She Comes Gunnin’ For it, the Job’s Hers
Friday, April 2nd, 2010