Hope And Change, Or Harp And Charge?

Hope and Change was what we were promised by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign. The American people were transfixed with the idea of a young, bright African American as our president. The promise of an end to partisan politics, and the beginning of a post racial era that all Americans would celebrate, has fallen flat and left most feeling deceived. Most Americans are willing to forgive almost every political sin, but deception is a tough one. "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me," is the mantra of most voters entering into an unknown spring, full of every conceivable twist and turn leading up to the mid term elections.

There are of course still many hard core Obama supporters, but their support came from an understanding of who he actually was, and they liked that. They knew he really couldn't reveal his true self, during the campaign, and still get elected. But, many independents and republicans were duped, and now are in no mood to succumb again. Every Obama speech is now greeted with a healthy dose of skepticism. Every campaign speech was replete with Hope and Change, but now, every presidential speech is full of Harp and Charge. Change a couple vowels and consonants  and you have a perfect description of the difference between a masterful campaign and a very disappointing first year presidency, marked by excessive finger pointing.

The lofty rhetoric of, "no more blue state or red state, but just the United States," has been replaced with,  "the republicans are obstructionists, and have brought  nothing to the table " His speech on Wednesday, celebrating the one year anniversary of the stimulus bill was full of accusations targeted at the previous administration. "We came into office with a trillion dollar deficit, and an economy close to depression," he said. He talked about a lost decade, another reference to his predecessor. He hasn't taken any responsibility for the 4 million jobs lost since he took office, but instead he contorts the idea that the stimulus has saved or created two million jobs. He lectures the public on the idea of fiscal responsibility, while he submits a budget with a 1.56 trillion dollar deficit. But of course we all know that's necessary to correct the mess that the previous administration got us into. According to him, we have to quadruple the deficit to correct the deficit that was left us.

The stimulus was sold to us with the promise to keep the unemployment rate below 8%, and if it didn't pass it might reach 9%. Wednesday his press secretary said unemployment would be 11%  without the stimulus. The legislative process has been anything but bipartisan. Democrats have written and rammed through every Obama agenda item they could, while locking republicans out, and securing votes with back room deals and payoffs. Far from the transparency promised by candidate Obama. Suddenly it seems there's been an epiphany, as Obama wants to gather with republicans to discuss health care. Of course by this time the well has been poisoned, and everyone perceives a trap to use the GOP as a prop to label them obstructionists once again.

Not only has this administration decided to assign responsibility for every negative aspect of the economy on the previous president, but now they're trying to co-opt their successes. Joe Biden on Larry king last week actually said, "the Iraq success may be the greatest achievement of the Obama administrtion." Talk about the Audacity of Hope. Both Obama and Biden opposed every aspect of the Bush administration prosecution of the Iraq war, including the surge, and now they want credit for its success. At least that's change they can believe in. Remember Mr. President, "fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." In conclusion, Harp and Charge is not a whole lot different from Hope and Change. like I said, just change a couple vowels and consonants, and Idealistic dreams become stark reality. Barack Obama sold us a bill of goods.
Read: It Just Wasn't Funny......at my other blog.....Con Men 4 palin

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