The President is Spent (Excuse # 509 for the Debate)

You've seen all the excuses for President Obama's debate flub.  It was the altitude.  He looked tired.  He was worried about a scandal on campaign cash.  Blah...blah...blah...

However, here's my favorite to date.  It comes from an OpEd in the Seattle Times by Danny Westneat.

Part of the problem, ironically, is that most of the obvious tasks for a Democratic president are already done.

We can fight about the details, or whether you like these things, but he stopped the economic free fall, ended the Iraq war, re-regulated Wall Street, saved the car industry, passed national health insurance, got bin Laden, mandated a doubling of car-fuel efficiencies, ended 'don't ask, don't tell' and jump-started, via the stimulus bill, the green-energy industry.

He has gotten too little credit for all that. Still, he owns the resulting policy vacuum. Is he spent?
 

That's right.  Today's excuse is that President Obama is wiped because he was so darn successful.  The problem is that a majority (if not all) of those items Westneat calls accomplishments go directly against what a majority of the country wanted.  Therefore, they aren't items you want to tote to your favor in "polite" company. 

He states that "we can fight about the details, or whether you like these things," but I assure you he doesn't want to do that.  The economic free fall is still in motion and the only improvement to the unemployment rate is reflective of the CBO removing workers from the workforce.  Ending the Iraq war is an interesting accomplishment that is highlighted by Iraq entering into a multi-billion dollar arms purchase from Russia.  The abrupt withdraw of American troops encouraged that relationship and Russia has a foot in the door to influence their foreign policy.

Wall Street has not been regulated in the slightest by President Obama.  In fact, he gave blank checks to five Wall Street banks he deemed too big to fail.   In the most recent fairytale political ad by Obama on the issue, he spouts a record of indicting banking crooks, Ken Lay, Dennis Kozlowski, and Bernie Madoff.  The only problem is that all three were indicted by George W. Bush, not Obama.  Jon Corzine, head of MF Global lost tens of  billions in investor funds, could not explain the loss or detemine the ulitimate location of the funds.  Was he held accountable?  Of course not.  He is a campaign bundler providing millions to the Obama election campaign. 

President Obama hasn't saved the car industry.  For one, General Motors still owes the taxpayer over $46 Billion.   GM is currently selling at $23 per share.  In order for the US Taxpayer to break even, the price would have to reach $53.  How likely is that?

The President passed national healthcare.  Nice...except that over 70% of America didn't want it.   It's, also, become apparent that there are taxes stacked upon taxes associated with the legislation that we had to pass to see what it contained. 

Bin Laden?  Sure, Bin Laden is dead.  Great.  Fantastic.  I'm sure that tired the President out.  Valerie Jarrett must have been up all night making that decision.

And then, there is the "green energy industry" in which the Department Of Energy picked loser after loser to provide great gobs of taxpayer money to squander.   Amonix Solar, Solar Trust of America, Bright Source, Solyndra, LSP Energy, Energy Conversion Devices , Abound Solar, SunPower, Beacon Power, Ecotality, A123 Solar , UniSolar, Azure Dynamic, Evergreen Solar, and Ener1 all failed after they received billions and lost it all.  Of course, a significant number of these sham companies were run by Obama campaign bundlers, but what's tens of billions between pals...huh?

According to Danny Westneat, President Obama has gotten too little credit for all the above listed.  I agree.  Unfortunately, the media continues to protect him from his failures by outright ommission and mistatement.  However, the debates have no such reset button or protective sychophancy.  It's mano al mano, and you can't spin a record as atrocious as this.  In fact, you can't talk about it at all.