I told you all two years ago

[fpb]

As for President Obama:
1) he has broken his own promise on Don't Ask Don't Tell, something to which few reasonable people would have seen an objection. (That at least one right-wing columnist broke Godwin's Law in trying to find an argument against accepting homosexual soldiers just shows how poor the arguments for this really are.)
2) He has broken his promise on torture and even let into his administration a couple of people whose hands are dirty in the matter, such as Robert Gates.
3) He is wrecking his own proposals for health reform rather than give up a sneaky and unprincipled attempt to break the consensus on abortion (no federal monies for), and he is lying about it.
4) He is guilty of deliberately stirring up trouble against Israel, with the miserable Quartet all too happy to follow his lead.
5) He has ignored both the hideous threat of an Iranian atom bomb and, more disgracefully, the desperate struggle of the Iranian people against a bloodthirsty and disastrous tyranny. He has repeatedly spoken as though the mullah's government were the legitimate leadership of that unhappy country.

Oh, and strictly for Catholics:
6) According to Life Site News International, he has deliberately egged on Catholic Health Association, and possibly the Leadership Conference of Religious Women (although that lot don't need much egging) to revolt against the Bishops. I quote: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs revealed to reporters today that President Barack Obama actively promoted the Catholic Health Association's public break with the American Catholic bishops to support his health care legislation.
Gibbs also suggested that the CHA and the Leadership Conference of Women Religious' (LCWR) break with the U.S. Bishops has provided legitimate political cover for pro-life Democrats to switch their votes from "no" to "yes."
(...)
Gibbs said that the president had been engaged on the issue, and a reporter asked if he had reached out personally to the groups.
"The President met earlier this week with Sr. Keehan of the CHA," said Gibbs, saying the meeting took place in the Roosevelt Room, but that he "did not get a detailed run-down of the pitch that [Obama] made."
"I do know that he was effusive about her support and her as a person for making the courageous statements that she has," he said.
Well, at least he was not shameless enough to tell his own spokesman what he had done with or offered to this rebel nun.
During the Paris negotiations of 1782-3, the reigning Pope offered Franklin and Adams that the USA government could have a veto over the nomination of Catholic bishops (something that many European governments had at the time). In keeping with their principles, the Founders - few of whom had any sympathy for the Catholic Church as such - nonetheless refused this offer and allowed the Church to organize itself in the new nation as it saw fit. Since then, I know of no President who has ever, for any reason whatever, thought to meddle in the Church's internal affairs and organization.

Hope? Change? Change, all right; hope - that he does not get re-elected.

Comments

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I can say that like you, I never had any illusions at all on hope 'n change Barack - but that ain't much comfort, is it?

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Curiously enough, at the start I disliked his supporters a lot more than I did him. He struck me as a good and interesting candidate, although I made it clear that if I were American I'd have voted McCain. What I hated was the mean-minded spirit of triumphalism, the gambler obsession of betting on "hope", the real contempt for opponents and the "whatever can go wrong?" self-blinding - the implication that everything must work out just right just because a nice person had replaced that nasty Mr.Bush. I was actually banned and deleted from tree_and_leaf for pointing out the similarities with 1997 and a certain Mr.Blair - not, one would think, the most offensive thing I had ever said. The Obama supporters not only were glad, they were vindictive and out to squash opposition; and the fact that it was tree_and_leaf, of all people, who showed that spirit to such an extent, really showed just how far the poison had spread. tree_and_leaf likes to cultivate a courteus and tolerant image, but that autumn day, she was just as brutal as all the others.

So, yes, believe it or not, I felt Obama himself was not as bad as that. So, yes, he has actually been a bit of a disappointment, in the sense that all my worst fears rather than my hopes have come true. (As I told the wonderful ashesofautumn, who is Jewish, I hoped all my fears about Israel would prove wrong. Well, guess what?) But the thing is that the worst of what has been happening is not just bad morality but incompetent politics. The saga of the health reform is the most atrociously mismanaged political campaign I have ever seen, with Obama losing a certain victory mainly because he would insist on a stupid little pro-abortion bit and lie about it. During the elections, he had shown an almost preternatural ability to split possibly dangerous combinations and defang potential enemies; in the matter of the health reform, he has made mistakes that a child would avoid. Is there a politician in the house?

[shezan.livejournal.com]

I knew from the start he was bad, bad, bad for Israel. You don't cultivate someone like Samantha Power and spend time in Rev. Wright's church - or, for that mater, go vote-hunting in the Palestinian fraternities of Dearborn - without buying into these people's noxious tiers-mondisme. Obama made it clear in his memoirs that Europe was alien to him. When you think about it, it is a negation of everything the Founding Fathers stood for - and it makes a mockery of the hope 'n change thing, because it negates America's positivity.

His incompetence was to be expected, but it's the only saving, er, grace of his benighted administration - if he actually manages to fail passing Obamacare tomorrow with two chambres bleu horizon, it will be a blessing. Of sorts.