What is the problem with Barack Obama? It would seem that Mr. Obama is not a bad person, per se, but rather the product of a progressive rearing. His mother was a bit of a Hippie, his father a foreign exchange student and spent 4 years with his mother’s second husband in Indonesia experiencing life from the perspective of the 3rd world poverty-stricken people of Jakarta; he is truly a product of his upbringing.
A history of the president’s life from his formative years back in Hawaii, at a time where the native Hawaiians were struggling with angry feelings over the inequalities of the society thrust upon them by those that moved into the state, through his time at Occidental College in California, Harvard and days rallying people in Chicago against the system, created in him a radical left-wing vision of America.
A quote from Obama’s first book, Dreams from my Father, gives great insight into the man created from his unique background:
“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed necolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. “
Obama’s attitudes were not so much learned as indoctrinated; the unfairness of the world, the system, the haves and have-nots. He saw America and its ways as unjust and unequal. As a community organizer he saw the evil corporations take advantage of the little guy and sought to right the wrong. Surely he saw America as a land of promise that had let down its people; his people.
Becoming an effective president requires, to some extent, releasing some of your preconceived notions to be the leader of all people of the country, not only those who share your beliefs. Obama could not do this. He surrounded himself with only people who saw America from the perspective of fairness and justice from a radically liberal viewpoint. He never gave himself the opportunity to consider alternative perspectives or opposing views. He self-described his approach to government as “transformative.”
Newt Gingrich, in his controversial words after the release of the Republican House budget summed it up succinctly: Right-wing social re-engineering is no better than left-wing social re-engineering. You cannot remake America in your vision. During the 2008 election Obama spoke of bringing the country together, “there are no red-states, no blue-states, only the United States,” but that was campaign rhetoric and nothing more. He didn’t run to be the president of the country, but rather the community organizer that sought to right the wrongs, according to his vision of fairness and equality.
With a strong majority in the House of Representatives, led by an equally radical liberal, Nancy Pelosi, and a Senate controlled by the Democrats and Harry Reid, Obama began his transformation of America. He sought to punish corporate America, apportion fairness and mold the country around his vision of equality; however in the midst of a devastating economic downturn, social re-engineering was precisely the wrong medicine for the economy. Obama’s plans for America demanded vast expenditures of money while the country was suffering under the weight of entitlement programs, the cost of two wars and free-wheeling spending during the Bush administration. It was akin to giving bee venom to an allergic person. Obama’s social programs drove an ailing economy into a near terminal state.
Now nearly three years into the Obama administration, the president, despite the desire to finish his reshaping of the nation, faces a re-election where he must try to sell the electorate on completing a transformation they never voted for. Awash with the feelings of elation of electing this young, bright, articulate man of color to the White House, they and the media failed to read between the lines to understand that despite the post-partisan words, what he had in store for them was anything but balanced. He may still have the media on his side, but the electorate will head into the fall of 2012 far more clear-minded and for Mr. Obama that doesn’t bode well.