Wednesday will mark Barack Obama’s 100th day in office as President of the United States. The ‘honeymoon’ for our 44th President shows no signs of letting up anytime soon, as much of the media is still willing to give him a free pass on the hard questions, he continues to enjoy widespread public support, and he still has his trusty ole’ teleprompter feeding him his every line. Except when it messes up, like it did this morning. Or that time on the campaign trail. Classic.
But a closer look at Barack Obama’s first 100 days in office reveals a young presidency rife with errors, doublespeak, and overspending. Oh, and a blossoming friendship between our commander-in-chief and Hugo Chavez. Aren’t those two just adorable?
So we’ll jump in with his changes on the social issues, which have surprisingly gone widely unnoticed. Now here’s the deal, even I get worn out with the culture-issue wars, but when Barack Obama proposes reversing the “conscience clause” that protects doctors who refuse to provide abortions and other services that conflict with their personal beliefs- we have a problem. Add that to his decision to overturn the Bush administration’s ban on embryonic stem cell research and his plans to reinstate the federal ban on assault weapons and we can already see a sharp turn to the left on social policy.
Moving on to bigger and even scarier things- let’s talk spending. And my friends there is a LOT of it going on, with this years budget deficit sitting at $1.5 trillion-with a t. His spending bill containing a whopping 9,000 earmarks sure didn’t do much to help this, but on the bright side he asked his cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million, an astounding .0027% . . . , let’s not get carried away Barack.
On April 15th concerned citizens across the country took to the streets to protest the gross misuse of their hard-earned dollars, and ABC news reported on the same day that the White House said the President was “unaware of the tea-parties.” Umm, seriously? You know it seems like there is someone in his staff that is supposed to brief him on the news events of the day . . . oh well, it was probably the same person that advised him on protocol when meeting with foreign leaders. Such as the Queen of England, who Michelle Obama touched (big no-no) and Barack Obama gave an iPod filled with audio of his speeches to, or the Saudi Prince that Barack Obama bowed to. . . . Cause you know, we typically try and avoid having our President bow to leaders of a country where women are less-valued that livestock.
We’ll shift gears to the war on terrorism– Oops, I mean “overseas contingency operation”- since that’s what we have to call it now. To me this is the issue where we have seen Obama’s naivete at play the most. First there was the plan to close Guantanamo Bay. I was with him on this until I learned that we’re considering releasing these people into the United States! Then there was the declassification of top-secret CIA interrogation memos and his considering dropping a key demand to Iran and allowing it to keep nuclear facilities open during negotiations. For the cherry on top- the Department of Homeland Security’s recent warning against “right-wing extremism,” which was especially ironic considering the fact that the FBI’s newest “Most Wanted” terrorist, is a left-wing extremist.
We can only wonder what the next 100 days will hold. I’m predicting sleepovers at the White House with Chavez, buying “magic beans” from Ahmadinejad, and the United States’ new policy on the proper treatment of detainees reading something along the lines of “You must fan them and feed them grapes,” because heaven forbid we use tough interrogation tactics that actually get results.
Good Post!