After receiving a brief bump in the polls following the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the President’s numbers have come down in recent weeks. In fact, to below a 50% approval rating, according to a CBS News poll released on Wednesday. He’s at 48% approval, down from 57% following the killing of Bin Laden.
Why?
The economy just really is that bad, and the death of a terrorist leader every month couldn't make Americans forget that.
More Americans than ever are on Food Stamps.
The new unemployment figures are 9.1%.
That’s not even counting the underemployed, or even those who have stopped looking for work.
No president has been re-elected with unemployment numbers higher than 7.2% since FDR.
At one point, some predicted easy re-election for Obama, citing that the Republican field was just “too weak.” In that respect, the economy may act as the great equalizer between big-name fundraisers like Obama and the likes of a Tim Pawlenty. There is much to be gained politically by harping on the economy and unemployment from a Republican point of view, and Mitt Romney was smart to focus on these issues in his opening salvos the other week. (If only the guy had a personality. Also, the whole RomneyCare issue is just embarrassing for him.) It wouldn’t even be demagoguery to do so. That’s real human pain and suffering. Real people out of work. Real people trying to put their kids through school.
Know what’s happening to the President?
Blaming things on Bush isn’t going to fly anymore.
More and more Americans are beginning to hold Obama responsible for current conditions, and less and less are blaming his predecessor. It was just a matter of time as things continued to get worse.
The vulnerabilities are glaring from a strategic standpoint: jobs and the economy are becoming the President’s glass jaw.
All that is needed is someone mighty enough in the Republican field to wield the knockout blow.
From a Democratic perspective, these are liabilities that can and must be shored up, and doing something unorthodox just might be the key to Obama's re-election.
Let's be honest: Bernanke and Co. don't have too many arrows left in their quiver. The stimulus failed horribly. We just finished a second round of quantitative easing. We can't keep buying our own bonds.
The ball is in President Obama's court, fully and totally.
He is the master of his own destiny.
Just calling it like I see it.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Worm Food.
As I'm sure you've heard, Osama Bin Laden, figurehead of Al Qaeda, is now worm food.
With the death of the Bush Administration's favorite boogieman (I do believe he is dead, but I really wish they'd release some photos), at least two other things are made clear:
1) The aforementioned Bush administration's incompetency.
2) The schizophrenic nature of Pakistan's government, military, and intelligence apparatus toward the U.S.
Why am I calling the Bush administration incompetent? They had about seven years, beginning with the American incursion into Afghanistan, to capture or kill this man. They didn't get the job done. I have my disagreements with the Obama administration, but Obama the president kept a pledge that Obama the candidate had made: to capture or kill Bin Laden whenever the chance arose, even inside of Pakistan itself. I guess he kept that promise.
As per the complicated, convoluted relationship that exists between Washington and Islamabad, nothing is more indicative of a lack of trust than carrying out the Seal team mission without Pakistani knowledge or approval. Later, however, the Pakistani government issued a statement basically saying that they should have been included in the planning and logistics of the mission. They had absolutely no idea.
On the other hand, some U.S. sources claim that the mission HAD to be kept a secret, as it might have been compromised had they taken a more inclusive route.
Bin Laden's body was washed, wrapped in a white sheet (in accordance with Islamic law), and buried at sea.
Did he really deserve all of that consideration? Probably not. He never gave any of the same to any of his victims. But anything less would have been inappropriate, as we're not a bunch of barbarians. We're better than that. The peanut gallery should stop complaining.
What's intriguing about this whole ordeal is where Bin Laden was actually found hiding compared to where most experts believed he was. He was found in a compound just north of Islamabad, not along the Afghan/Pakistani border region. He was less than a mile away from Pakistan's version of West Point, in a military town. It is inconceivable to me that no one in the Pakistani military and intelligence communities had any idea that he was hiding out just outside the capitol.
We've sent $20 billion in aid to Pakistan since September 11, 2001. Maybe we ought to re-examine both our relationship with the Pakistani government as well as think twice about how U.S. tax dollars are being spent. Has sending aid to Pakistan made us any safer? What are the true aims of the Pakistani government?
I can only hope that the success of this raid will serve as an example for future dealings: relying on solid counterterrorism, intelligence gathering techniques, and precision strikes instead of counterinsurgency techniques, nation-building, and hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground.
It's the only cost-effective way to accomplish our security goals, and I hope we can focus on that going forward. Taking out only individuals who are genuine threats to our nation's security.
Doing more with less.
Working smarter, not harder.
With the death of the Bush Administration's favorite boogieman (I do believe he is dead, but I really wish they'd release some photos), at least two other things are made clear:
1) The aforementioned Bush administration's incompetency.
2) The schizophrenic nature of Pakistan's government, military, and intelligence apparatus toward the U.S.
Why am I calling the Bush administration incompetent? They had about seven years, beginning with the American incursion into Afghanistan, to capture or kill this man. They didn't get the job done. I have my disagreements with the Obama administration, but Obama the president kept a pledge that Obama the candidate had made: to capture or kill Bin Laden whenever the chance arose, even inside of Pakistan itself. I guess he kept that promise.
As per the complicated, convoluted relationship that exists between Washington and Islamabad, nothing is more indicative of a lack of trust than carrying out the Seal team mission without Pakistani knowledge or approval. Later, however, the Pakistani government issued a statement basically saying that they should have been included in the planning and logistics of the mission. They had absolutely no idea.
On the other hand, some U.S. sources claim that the mission HAD to be kept a secret, as it might have been compromised had they taken a more inclusive route.
Bin Laden's body was washed, wrapped in a white sheet (in accordance with Islamic law), and buried at sea.
Did he really deserve all of that consideration? Probably not. He never gave any of the same to any of his victims. But anything less would have been inappropriate, as we're not a bunch of barbarians. We're better than that. The peanut gallery should stop complaining.
What's intriguing about this whole ordeal is where Bin Laden was actually found hiding compared to where most experts believed he was. He was found in a compound just north of Islamabad, not along the Afghan/Pakistani border region. He was less than a mile away from Pakistan's version of West Point, in a military town. It is inconceivable to me that no one in the Pakistani military and intelligence communities had any idea that he was hiding out just outside the capitol.
We've sent $20 billion in aid to Pakistan since September 11, 2001. Maybe we ought to re-examine both our relationship with the Pakistani government as well as think twice about how U.S. tax dollars are being spent. Has sending aid to Pakistan made us any safer? What are the true aims of the Pakistani government?
I can only hope that the success of this raid will serve as an example for future dealings: relying on solid counterterrorism, intelligence gathering techniques, and precision strikes instead of counterinsurgency techniques, nation-building, and hundreds of thousands of troops on the ground.
It's the only cost-effective way to accomplish our security goals, and I hope we can focus on that going forward. Taking out only individuals who are genuine threats to our nation's security.
Doing more with less.
Working smarter, not harder.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
This was inevitable.
I guess I just needed a spot to get things off my chest, and serve as a creative outlet, too.
So, here I am.
I had an awesome dream a week or two ago.
I was walking down the street, and I stopped to take a little stack of bills out of my pocket.
The bills looked totally normal, minus one important difference.
I looked at the top where it said "Federal Reserve Note."
That spot was totally blank.
It had to be an omen.
So, here I am.
I had an awesome dream a week or two ago.
I was walking down the street, and I stopped to take a little stack of bills out of my pocket.
The bills looked totally normal, minus one important difference.
I looked at the top where it said "Federal Reserve Note."
That spot was totally blank.
It had to be an omen.
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