Given these two decision options, see if you agree with my assessment of his past and likely future behavior:
1) To be strong Presidential timber, a person needs to be a leader of and a representative of all Americans, not just those that voted for him. Given that the President has refused to step up and try to unite the country, allowing his Democratic Party associates to call others un-American, Neanderthals, gerbils, a__h____s, cuckoos, racists, Klan members, and other derogatory names just for having contrary opinions, I rate him as balsa wood on this important leadership principle. A President should respect diversity and welcome contrary opinions in order to make the best decisions for the country. He should not sit back and have fellow Americans degraded for simply having an opposing opinion by his political allies.
2) An Associated Press report yesterday described how the President was going to have an all afternoon meeting in the near future to discuss our lack of an immigration strategy and plan. He was going to invite a wide range of organizations including law enforcement and immigration rights groups. Nice try, but still balsa. This would have been a good start two years ago if it lead to anything concrete and actionable.
However, I believe that this is just political balsa, a showy meeting to present the President as a caring and action oriented leader. If something comes out of it, that leads to a true and sane immigration policy, I will change my rating. However, I believe that this is just 2012 election posturing and nothing will be done as a result of the meeting.
3) Standard & Poors came out with a dire warning yesterday, stating that it is about to downgrade the quality of U.S. bonds unless the political class gets government spending under control. The President's proposed budget from just a few months ago set forth a structure that would add more than $9 TRILLION to the national debt of the next ten years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This is hardly the kind of behavior that S&P is looking for. However, once the President looked at the proposed Republican budget from Paul Ryan, he then came out with his revised budget that supposedly will reduce spending by $4 TRILLION over ten years.
Not the mark of a leader, the President is trying to lead from behind. If this was such a big deal, his original budget should have reduced spending by $4 TRILLION. Instead, he put in a business as usual budget, buying time to see which way the political winds were blowing and then making his move. As a real leader, he should have told the country the truth with his original budget, our government spends too much and cuts need to be made. He waited for the wind to be right form the rear, another mark of a lightweight politician.
4) In foreign affairs, I would give him a weak timber vote for his speech in Cairo at the beginning of his administration. He gave a well received and inspired speech that spoke to freedom and dignity of everyone. It was a good start.
However, it is a weak timber vote in that there was no effective follow up. The actions fell short of his words and as a result, Arab world opinions of him and the United States fell steadily after the speech as his words went unfilled. Nice try, effectively delivered with little or no back up actions.
5) The BP oil spill is definitely a lightweight balsa response. While oil gushed into the Gulf, causing environmental and economic havoc, the President played golf six or seven times, took three vacations (none of which were in the states most adversely affected by the spill), and made two cross country trips to campaign for Democratic candidates.
Someone of Presidential timber would have at least looked like he cared about what was going on and was working hard on solutions as opposed to leaving the impression that his administration and the government it ran had no clue how to fix the problem. There was no reassuring that the government could solve the problem.
6) Someone of Presidential timber would respect the traditions and guidelines laid out in the Constitution and the laws of the land, having enough maturity and respect to understand there are things that even the President of the United States is not allowed to do.
That is not the case with this President. When a Federal judge ruled his Gulf drilling moratorium as illegal, the President rescinded the moratorium and just issued another one that was basically a clone of the first. This drew the ire of the judge in the case along with a formal reprimand from that judge.
Since the President did not agree with the Defense Of Marriage Act (DOMA), even though it is the law of the land, he unilaterally decided that it was unconstitutional and decided his administration would not enforce it. Our system of government is based on a series of checks and balances and clearly delineated responsbilities, he had no right or power to decide if DOMA, or any law, was unconstitutional.
When the President could not get Congressional authorization to regulate green house gases from Congress, he decide he did not need their approval and decided he could do anything he wanted in this area by stretching the formal, legal duties of the Environmental Protection Agency to get his wishes decided. Very immature, balsa behavior; if I cannot get my way the right, legal way, I will unilaterally decide to get my way another way. Presidential timber people lead by developing consensus and unity, not by bypassing our laws to satisfy our egos and desires.
This is obviously a political move, not a Presidential move, since if this law was unconstitutional in 2011, it certainly was unconstitutional in 2009 when he came into office. The only difference is that the 2012 election is fast approaching and he needs the votes. This is political balsa, not Presidential timber, reacting to votes not the Constitution.
7) People of Presidential timber lead by example, lead by being honest and forthright, lead by blazing new ideas and trail, breaking from past behavior while respecting our traditions and customs of freedom and compassion. President Obama has shown none of these traits.
In fact, I have made the case several times that we are living through the third term of George W. Bush. Obama is withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq under the Bush time table, the war on rugs is the same as under Bush, the stalemate in Afghanistan is the same as under Bush just with more U.S. troops deployed, there has been no change in our approach to our failing public schools in this country and the Federal government's inability to change the status, Obama rubber stamped the renewal of Bush's Patriot Act, both President ran up record deficits with Obama besting Bush by orders of magnitude in this area, the prisons at Guantanamo is still open, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid continued to plunge towards insolvency under both Presidents, etc. Obama has presented no coherent or different path that would lead to a better America.
8) A month of so ago, Japan was facing a nuclear disaster, unemployment numbers were still high, the President unilaterally committed us to military action in Libya, the Middle East was ablaze in freedom protests and government repression and violence, and the Federal government was about to be shut down since the political class was six months late developing and delivering a basic one year budget, What was the President spending a lot of time on during these trying and dangerous times? He was busy creating and explaining on national television his NCAA basketball picks and brackets for March Madness for BOTH the men and women's tournaments. Presidential timber people lead during times of crises, they do not waste time on pontificating about their college basketball knowledge.
My bottom line assessment: President Obama is not Presidential timber, much like many of his predecessors were not Presidential timber. No new ways of doing things, no pressing desire to resolve issues, no improvement in government processes of efficiency, no regard to deficits and bad budgeting, just the maintenance of the status quo for the benefit of the political class and there perpetual reelection. Much like most others in politics, President Obama has shown himself to be just another Chicago politician, ruthless against his opponents even if they have legitimate contrary positions, bending or breaking laws to get his way, and posturing for votes as opposed to taking the hard leadership positions for the good of the country.
Bottom line: Massive balsa without much timber mixed in. And you cannot build anything of lasting endurance and performance with balsa wood. Thomas Jefferson once said something to the effect: "A statesman worries about the next generation, a politician worries about the next election." Unfortunately, when it comes to Presidential timber, President Obama is just a balsa politician.
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http://www.cato.org/
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http://www.repealamendment.com
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