THYME Magazine Special Shutdown Edition IV

Citizen Journalism with a Better Flavor


Volume VI, Issue XX

America's Obama Problem

The 'other' weekly news magazine last week featured an interesting cover on their Overseas Editions [click to read]. Michael Bloomberg may aspire to be "Mayor of the World," but Barack Hussein Obama seems to be more intent on conquering his own country's Tea Party than asserting the cause of stability, peace and freedom around the world.

Edward Klein, in his book The Amateur [click to read]  has some harsh criticism for the President, presenting us with: "a withering portrayal of a radical adrift, in over his head, drowning in his own incompetency -- while being weighed down by a small circle of "advisers" who are compounding the problem of the Amateur in the White House."

"On issue after issue, President Obama remains his insular self, refusing to seek counsel or input from others with more experience. Critics believe he has made a mess of foreign policy precisely because not only does he have a dearth of experience in this area, but because, under our system, foreign policy is one of the few areas where a president enjoys almost unlimited power. Thus, he is free to formulate his own agenda regardless of the views of others and the damage these policies cause."-- Ed Lasky

Indeed it is Obama's inability to deliver the sort of openness and constructive dialogue he promised in his campaigns that is dogging him now. Seeking to "fundamentally transform" this country, he and his fellow Progressives pushed their unpopular healthcare law through Congress in spite of strong and reasoned opposition. Rather than listen to less disruptive ways to deal with The Preexisting Condition Problem [click to read], Obama insisted that the ONLY solution was to create a massive government driven solution encompassed in a 2000+ page piece of legislation which was merely the outline of a structure to be designed later by bureaucrats. Indeed, the scope of the legislation seems driven by the desire of Progressives to eventually arrive at a Single Payer system, though that end is clearly unpopular.

As the Manhattan Institute's Roy Avok points out: "Obamacare’s approach to pre-existing conditions helps a small number of people gain coverage in the short term, but the law makes the fundamental problems worse by driving up the cost of health insurance and requiring employers to sponsor health coverage for their workers, even when workers would be better off owning their own policies."

So, Obama wrestles with a Congress essentially doing its job. "Legislation by Appropriation" is nothing new. Already scores of Obama friends in business have received waivers from the "employer mandate," the exchange website is beset with glitches and in spite of a fawning media there is no way to gloss over the fact that this legislation is wreaking havoc on the system. Costs are rising, employers are shifting thousands of employees to 'part time' status to control their budgets. When the dust settles it is estimated that there will still be thousands uninsured and projections do not show that there will be funds to care for them.

As Obama fiddles, the world burns. The President is missing the opportunity to speak forcefully into the Iranian nuclear crisis and his generally weak and ambiguious foreign policy leaves a gap that nations like China, who DO aspire to world leadership, are moving to fill. Thankfully there are leaders like Binyamin Netanyahu who are not afraid to assume the authority American Presidents once possessed in world affairs. It is THEIR leadership that will have to carry us through this present time of crisis.