One Middle East analyst interviewed in connection with Obama's Nobel Prize award ceremony this month said that despite his good intentions, Obama hasn't accomplished much as far as resolving crises, especially on the Israeli Palestinian issue.
Good intentions? I suspect that we're beginning to see that not only are the outcomes on so many crucial issues the opposite of what we would wish, but we're beginning (we latecomers) to be forced to conclude that the intentions were not what we imagined.
Which brings us to the question of presidential lying.
All presidents lie, it comes with the territory.
Yet we wonder if BHO’s lying is perhaps among the worst in post war history, up there with LBJ, Nixon, Reagan and Bush-Cheney?
At least with Bush Jr there was something good-natured with his lies in the sense that his pronouncements weren't intended to be taken seriously – except as media fodder. He and Cheney couldn't care less that their political opponents knew they were lying. What was important to them was their power to pursue their agenda. And as for their supporters, the regime's real agenda was always clear and the lies were viewed simply as the necessary cover story.
The difference with Obama is that he's lying to his base, intending to fool us -- perhaps less and less successfully after about a year -- into thinking that he’s on our side.
It would seem that the difference between Obama's rhetoric and the agenda he's pursuing, -- replicating and consolidating the worst policies inherited from the most criminal regime in U.S. history -- contributes to his falling popularity and makes him a potentially weak candidate in 2012. Perhaps that is why Art Cullen, editor of The Storm Lake (Iowa) Times is predicting that “Cheney Will Visit Iowa.” According to Cullen:
Cheney thinks Obama is a pipsqueak and that he can beat him. Most important, Cheney believes in his bad ideas and is perfectly willing to run on them. http://www.populist.com/09.22.artcullen.html
We're fortunate to live in an age that has produced the first Black president, and a smart, eloquent one at that. But it appears that we're just as unlucky that our first minority president has turned out to be some combination of too young and inexperienced and too feckless to rise to the challenge of providing us with the leadership so desperately needed.
