Farewell President Opposite

President Obama gave his farewell address to the nation last night.

I am not sure we have ever had a President where so many people were so happy...and others so sad...to see a Presidential term come to an end.

It might have been presented as a farewell address, but if Obama was hoping to be compared with Washington and Eisenhower, he missed the mark. From my perspective, it was emblematic of his entire eight years in office.

This is how Bloomberg political columnist Jonathan Bernstein summarized the speech in an article entitled, "What Went Wrong With Obama's Farewell Speech".

The basic problem was that the event, and the speech, couldn't make up their minds about what they were doing. The core of the speech, as far as I could tell, was a classic farewell address in the spirit of George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower -- serious advice to the nation, distilling something he had learned from the last eight years, meant to be taken seriously and remembered.

Unfortunately, that was mostly lost in the mess of a long, split personality speech. Obama ricocheted back and forth between a campaign rally, a recitation of the administration's greatest hits (bin Laden! jobs! Cuba! marriage!), a SOTU-type of laundry list of future policies he supports, an opportunity to personally give thanks to his family, staff, supporters, and voters, and then back around again. And the setting -- in Chicago, with a large cheering audience -- meant that even the serious parts felt more like a campaign rally than something to think about.

To be fair, President Obama tried to talk about the need in the future to work together and to unite our country in common cause. However, his actions over most of the eight years have been the exact opposite. You have to ask what has he been doing about it? The country is clearly more divided today than when he took office.

What happened to the "Hope and Change" and "Yes, We Can!" that we kept hearing about on the campaign trail eight years ago?

That is why I began to refer to President Obama as President Opposite four years ago.

I wrote the blog post below in September, 2012. I could update it with even more material today (Obamacare is even worse, the rise of ISIS, the Iran deal, the betrayal of Israel, cop killings, Black Lives Matter, the IRS scandal etc) but what point would it serve right now?

President Obama fully earned the title of President Opposite in his first four years and the next four only confirmed how accurate the description is.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Opposite

(originally published September 30, 2012)

Take a minute and think back to four years ago.

Day after day and in speech after speech we heard about "Hope and Change".

I have come to the conclusion that to understand where we will end up with President Obama is to convert everything he says to the OPPOSITE of what he says he is going to do.

President Opposite
Photo Credit:FreakingNews.com

He was going to bring us together.  He has worked primarily at creating divisions with endless class warfare rhetoric.

We heard how we would experience a new tone in Washington that would see hands reaching across the political divide for the good of America. We have never been more divided.

We heard how the federal deficit would be cut in half and we would no longer burden our children's future with the enormous federal debt.  The federal debt has increased from $10.6 trillion to over $16 trillion.

We heard how the United States of America would be respected like never before.  Our enemies have gotten angrier and we have angered some of our closest allies.

We heard how we would extend health care to millions and at the same time the tens of millions who liked their health care could keep it and premiums would be reduced by $2,500 per family as a result of healthcare reform.  A 2,300 page health care reform bill was passed on a strict party line vote that will increase our deficit by $1 trillion over the next 10 years, cut Medicare by $716 billion, force religious organizations to violate the most basic tenets of their faith and turn over many medical decisions to a government bureaucracy.  Health care premiums have not decreased by $2,500=they have increased by $2,500 over the last four years.

We heard how green jobs would be created by the millions to spur a economic revival the likes of what we had not seen in decades.  Solyndra and many other "green" companies were given billions of dollars by the federal government and many went bankrupt without providing anything of value in jobs or economic growth.  At the same time, a project that would have increased our energy security and created thousands of jobs, the Keystone pipeline, was rejected.

We heard how we would lift more people out of poverty with a helping hand that would benefit the entire country at the same time.  More people are on food stamps, Medicaid and disability than at any time in history.

We heard how this would be the most open and transparent federal government in the history of the Republic.  The health care reform was drafted behind closed doors, we still don't know what happened with Fast and Furious and a U.S. Ambassador is dead and we hear a different story every day.

I could go on and on about the promises, propositions and predictions that were made as to how our lives were going to be made better by Barack Obama.  Consider just a few other examples of how we have gotten the OPPOSITE of what we were promised four years ago.

• We have fewer people working than four years ago.
• The net worth of American families is lower than it was four years ago.
• Real incomes are lower than they were four years ago.
• We have 47 million people on food stamps-a 50% increase from four years ago.
• We have lost almost 600,000 manufacturing jobs to China and other foreign countries in the last four years.
• Gas prices at the pump are almost double what they were four years ago.
• The United States has fewer allies and more enemies than four years ago.
• We have taken on $3 of federal debt for every $1 in economic growth over the last four years.
• We lost our nation's AAA credit rating.
• Most importantly, President Obama has gotten the formula that made America great exactly backward although he talks about going forward.  He seems to think that government creates prosperity.  If that was the case North Korea, Cuba and Greece would be economic giants.  The only way forward is with productivity gains in the private sector.

President Obama's 2012 campaign theme is FORWARD. However, I have not been able to discern one new idea or new policy that he is proposing that is any different than we have heard for the last four years. There is nothing to look FORWARD to as everything that he is proposing we have already seen how it will turn out... all we have to do is look BACKWARD.

The man in office is simply President Opposite.  He has us going in the wrong direction with every step he takes.  If you still have doubts go BACKWARD to the beginning of this post and read it again.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President Opposite leaves office at the end of next week. He will leave one big legacy going FORWARD. The people of the United States looked at the record of the last eight years and have decided they want to go in an OPPOSITE direction for the next four years.

Democrats and the liberal media are in full-fledged panic over that thought. However, Donald J. Trump would never have been elected but for the record of Barack Obama as President Opposite. If they want to blame someone, start with Mr. Obama. As for me, I bid him farewell and thank him for such a wonderful legacy.