by Peter Wehner
08.26.2011 - 12:41 PM
Commentary
“Tell me again why Barack Obama has been such a bad president?” Jonathan Alter writes in his column.
Alter tells us he’s not talking here about Obama as a tactician and communicator, and he’s not interested in hearing ad hominem attacks or about people’s generalized “disappointment.” (Neither am I.) He wants to know on a substantive basis why Obama should be judged to have failed so far.
In Alter’s words, “Your mission, Jim [or anyone else for that matter], should you decide to accept it, is to be specific and rational, not vague and visceral.”
Consider the mission accepted.
In one sense, the answer to the Alter challenge is obvious: Obama has failed by his own standards. It’s the Obama administration, not the RNC, that said if his stimulus package was passed unemployment would not exceed 8 percent. It’s Obama who joked there weren’t as many “shovel-ready” jobs as he thought.
ItÂ’s Obama who promised to cut the deficit in half. ItÂ’s Obama who said if we passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the health care cost curve would go down rather than up. ItÂ’s Obama who promised us recovery and prosperity, hope and change. What weÂ’ve gotten instead is the opposite.
. . . And it is on the common ground of facts that we can declare–in a calm, specific, reasonable, rational and empirical manner–Obama to be an utter failure.
LINK
You Think ObamaÂ’s Been a Bad President? Prove It: Jonathan Alter