Reuters has a report today that says “Moammar Qaddafi has consolidated his position in central and western Libya enough to maintain an indefinite standoff with rebels trying to end his four-decade rule,” according to U.S. and European security officials. “Qaddafi’s people are feeling quite confident,” a European official added.
Rest assured that President Obama will get right on top of that… as soon as he knocks out six political fundraisers over the next two days.
This presidency has gone through three stages. The first was a desperate power grab to “transform America.” Trillions were piled onto the national debt. Billions were poured into political slush funds. The physical size of government was increased, as thousands of new federal employees were hired, even as private-sector employment collapsed. Massive bailouts extended government control into banks and automakers. The health insurance industry was nationalized, the beginning of a process that will permanently re-define the relationship between American citizens and their government, if allowed to proceed to its logical conclusion of single-payer socialized medicine.
This phase climaxed with the passage of ObamaCare. It’s tricky to pinpoint its precise ending, but I like to date Phase Two from the first time Obama suggested voters were only thinking about tossing out Democrats in the midterm elections because they were stupid.
Phase Two was a time of stunned confusion for Obama. Look at everything that has occurred from the run-up to the midterms until now, and you’ll see a portrait of a man who has no idea what to do. He’s been consistently flummoxed by the demands and duties of his office, now that he’s exhausted all the opportunities.
During Phase Two, Obama simply disappeared for long stretches of time. He had nothing to say when American citizens were murdered by Somali pirates. He spent weeks trying to figure out which side of the Egyptian uprising he should be on, and finally came down hard against Mubarak when he was convinced the old dictator was doomed. Numerous other domestic and international crises flew right past him.
Obama sat helplessly at the center of a burning world and collapsing American system. He watched aliens eat his Marine squad from the safety of his armored command vehicle, jaw flapping uselessly, while Ripley screamed at him to do something.
Phase Three began with Obama’s budget speech at George Washington University, and it will last until November 2012. It’s all campaign, all the time, from here on out.
His “budget address” was a nasty partisan attack wrapped in campaign rhetoric, not a serious policy discussion. His little “open mike” incident – which CBS News is still doing its best to hide, by refusing to release most of the audio – revealed that he thinks about nothing except political advantage, even as the reality of unsustainable spending threatens the entire American landscape.
The debt ceiling rapidly approaches, and even some Democrats, such as Mark Pryor of Arkansas, are expressing reservations about a “clean bill” to raise it without conditions.” According to the Associated Press, Pryor said “What I've told anyone who will listen to me in Washington, including my leadership, is that I'm not going to vote for that unless there is a real and meaningful commitment to debt reduction.”
Irresponsible spending and mounting debt have led Standard & Poor’s to threaten downgrading the AAA credit rating of the United States, a fiscal disaster that would drop hundreds of billions in new debt service costs on our bankrupt government. Obama responded to this by trying to suppress the Standard & Poor’s report – thus depriving Americans of a vitally-needed warning about the dangers of our current path. That’s an attempt to control political damage, not a strategy to deal with the problem.
Obama’s war in Libya is falling apart. NATO is on the verge of humiliation against a two-bit dictator, as the “humanitarian disaster” it swore to prevent occurs before its eyes, and photojournalists die in the course of showing it to the world. And yet, he’s off to raise funds and test out campaign speeches. We don’t have a President any more. The 2012 election is a race for an open seat.
