Obama...Let Me Count The Ways

The Perspective:

In his commencement address at Arizona State University on May 13, President Obama said that, “building a body of work…is about the daily labor, the many individual acts, the choices large and small that add up to a lasting legacy.”

As he fulfills this definition in his presidency, let’s look at eighteen hard and soft positions belonging to Barack Obama and his administration to evaluate whether—so far—the results are good or bad for the country.

1. ENEMIES LIST

• Hard on condemning their critics (especially Rush Limbaugh).

• Soft on condemning radical Islamic terrorism (even to the point that Obama’s Homeland Security Secretary avoids the term, preferring “man-caused disasters”).

2. TERRORISM

• Hard on closing the Guantanamo Bay prison by the end of the year and halting tough interrogation procedures.

• Soft on explaining what will happen if released terrorists do more harm at home or abroad and also explaining how easing up on captured terrorists helps prevent future attacks that are as bad as or worse than September 11, 2001.

3. MIDDLE EAST

• Hard on demands on Israel (asking it to make even more concessions to its enemies).

• Soft on pressuring the Palestinians, the Iranians and those who want to see Israel destroyed.

4. TAXES

• Hard on increasing taxes on those who pay the most (while assuming their commercial behavior won’t be affected by confiscations of their wealth).

• Soft on justifying why more money should be given to those who pay little or no taxes (while assuming they’ll paid back for “spreading the wealth around” by voting for Democrats).

5. GOVERNMENT

• Hard on mandating government control and spending.

• Soft on curtailing government deficits, bailouts and takeovers (federalization and nationalization).

6. GROWTH

• Hard on the need for growth in new businesses, jobs and investments.

• Soft on a willingness to cut taxes on capital gains, corporations and personal income, which would bring that growth, plus produce higher government revenues.

7. BLAME

• Hard on punishing financiers whose excesses were spurred on by risky credit incentives created by Congress and the Federal Reserve.

• Soft on censuring the Fed and fellow Democrats like Rep. Barney Frank and Sen. Chris Dodd, whose policies caused irresponsible lending and speculation, set off a debt bomb, caused a credit crunch, led to home foreclosures and finally an economic implosion.

8. ETHICS

• Hard on changing a Washington culture of lobbying, corruption, conflicts of interest and law breaking.

• Soft on instances where Obama’s appointees are involved in the same practices.

9. BUSINESS

• Hard on excoriating profitability, executive pay, tax minimization strategies and labor relations of large and small businesses.

• Soft on reining in pension benefits, pay, power and other perks for unions.

10. ENERGY

• Hard on attempts to use the tax code to limit the use of carbon energy (one plan to tax oil, coal and natural gas use would cause the largest tax hike in American history).

• Soft on challenges to anything the Obama administration considers “green” (including cars and alternative energy sources) regardless of expense, market demand or feasibility

11. PRIVATE VS. PUBLIC SECTOR

• Hard on the belief that Big Government rather than free market capitalism is better able to revive the economy and create private sector jobs.

• Soft on reducing Big Government’s waste, abuse and mismanagement in areas such as special interest/pork spending and entitlements, while putting more people on government payrolls (or the dole).

12. DISCLOSURE

• Hard on criticism of past government deception and hiding of information.

• Soft on current details of government “stimulus” spending and results, despite promises of “transparency, responsibility and accountability.”

13. HEALTH CARE

• Hard on insistence that health care can only be improved if it is managed, rationed and priced by Big Government and its bureaucrats.

• Soft on openness to consumer-driven health care reform, featuring doctor-patient choices.

14. EDUCATION

• Hard on a nearly unequivocal support for teachers’ unions.

• Soft on granting educational choice to parents and children, including many minorities trapped in failed, dangerous schools.

15. IDEOLOGY

• Hard on warnings about “right wing extremism,” suggesting that this includes opponents of abortion, illegal immigration, gay marriage and some returning military veterans.

• Soft on worry about “left wing extremism.

16. POLITICS

• Hard on lamentations about Republican partisanship and obstructionism (“the party of no”).

• Soft on allowing Republicans in Congress access during the shaping of legislation.

17. CHANGE

• Hard on insisting that all of Obama’s sweeping reforms must be passed quickly.

• Soft on forecasts of the economic consequences of those reforms on future generations (aka “inter-generational theft”).

18. AMERICA’S IMAGE

• Hard on apologizing for America’s actions (emphasizing guilt, regret and other forms of hand-wringing).

• Soft on disparaging America’s detractors (who seem to forget that the USA, while not perfect, has liberated and lifted up more people than any other country in the history of the world).

The president could have been speaking of himself when he told the ASU graduates, “Your body of work is yet to come.” We are still in a period when, in the estimation of many people, President Obama’s assurances about change and recovery haven’t been tested long enough as leading indicators.

But every test eventually gets graded and when it comes to our presidents cataclysmic events may also hasten the report card. In any case, by Election Day 2010 we’ll get an update on whether voters believe “the body of work” of President Obama and his administration is properly moving our country to where it should be hard and where it should be soft.