Wow! What you learn from the Brits perspective…

From the UK Telegraph via Drudge.

You’ve gotta read the whole article. I always like to read how the foreign press portray us. This is a really good article.

The end of the road for Barack Obama?

“Obama’s big problem,” a senior Democrat told me, “is that four times as many people watch Fox News as watch CNN.” The Fox network is a remarkable cultural phenomenon which almost shocks those of us from a country where a technical rule of impartiality is applied in the broadcast media. With little rest, it pours out rage 24 hours a day: its message is of the construction of the socialist state, the hijacking of America by “progressives” who now dominate institutions, the indoctrination of children, the undermining of religion and the expropriation of public money for these nefarious projects. The public loves it, and it is manifestly stirring up political activism against Mr Obama, and also against those in the Republican Party who are not deemed conservatives. However, it is arguable whether the now-reorganising Right is half as effective in its assault on the President as some of Mr Obama’s own party are.

….

The root of the problem seems to be the management of expectations. The magnificent campaign created the notion that Mr Obama could walk on water. Oddly enough, he can’t. That was more Mr Axelrod’s fault than Mr Emanuel’s. And, to be fair to Mr Emanuel, any advice he has been giving the President to impose his will on Congress is probably well founded. The $783 billion stimulus package of a year ago was used to further the re-election prospects of many congressmen, not to do good for the country. America’s politics remain corrupt, populated by nonentities whose main concern once elected is to stay elected; it seems to be the same the whole world over. Even this self-interested use of the stimulus package appears to have failed, however. Every day, it seems, another Democrat congressman announces that he will not be fighting the mid-term elections scheduled for November 2. The health care Bill, apparently so humane in intent, is being “scrubbed” (to use the terminology of one Republican) by its opponents, to the joy of millions of middle Americans who see it as a means to waste more public money and entrench socialism. For the moment, this is a country vibrant with anger.

Doing what he does best

It’s all about the votes.

Doing what he does best. (NYDailyNews)

The same states that Obama targeted to win the White House are seeing an awful lot of the president, Vice President Joe Biden and top Cabinet officials. Only this year, the taxpayers are footing the multimillion-dollar tab for the trips, and Obama officials are delivering wheelbarrows of economic stimulus money – also compliments of taxpayers.

An Associated Press review of administration travel records shows that three of every four official trips Obama and his key lieutenants made in his first seven months in office were to the 28 states Obama won. Add trips to Missouri and Montana – both of which Obama narrowly lost – and almost 80 percent of the administration’s official domestic travel has been concentrated in states likely to be key to Obama’s re-election effort in 2012.

Philip Elliot/AP

He has not governed, he has campaigned. From selling the stimulus package to his world apology tour to his failed bid at the Olympics, TheOne is doing what he knows best: campaigning.

If he were actually governing, he’d have to be at home in the oval office. Instead he’s flying all over – at taxpayer expense – to sell his Marxist agenda to crowds of adoring, fawning crowds. He’s yet to figure our that he’s preaching to his own choir and ignoring the ones who really do need to be won over (see his Fox Feud).  And he’s laying the groundwork for his re-election by pandering to and paying off those states that will be crucial to him in 2012.

Do you get this? He’s campaigning for 2012 on OUR DIME!

Now to be fair, I don’t know what President Bush did during his terms. And it would be interesting to be able to make a comparison. But I do know that this is not the candidate I wanted as president last year and he will not be the candidate of my choice in ’12, so I resent that my tax dollars are paying for this… and other things like flying a pizza chef into DC for lunch (even the UK Daily Mail did a story on that) or flying Oprah to Copenhagen at the taxpayer’s expense or a gratuitous fly-over of Manhattan that scared the crap out of thousands.

Notice how so much of his taxpayer use is for flying? I guess if I had an Air Force One parked in my yard, I’d want to play camping-out in it, too.  Eventually, I expect the novelty to wear off for the Obamas.

What’s most amazing in all this is that the AP is actually doing a story about it.