What Can A Man Of Barack Obama's Experience Accomplish? Part II

What Can A Man of Barack Obama's Experience Accomplish? Part II.

Links To Referenced Stories/Videos In This Article:

(1) For an article about Mr. Obama's only executive experience, go here.

(2) For a video of Jack Cashill explaining why Mr. Obama did not write his first book, go here.

Mr. Obama's only executive experience was his years (1995-1999) as head—appointed by unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers—of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, an organization set up to disburse tens of millions ostensibly to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged Chicago children. Despite blowing through a truly huge sum (more than $100 million in only four years), Mr. Obama accomplished—according to the study of the aftermath by the Annenberg Foundation—absolutely nothing but wasting more than $100 million dollars of other people's money. It is not known if Mr. Obama knew that this was vital training for his future, but he obviously did not want anyone to know about his only executive experience, and despite the fact that the press did know about it during the 2008 campaign, it was not reported. Apparently pants creases and leg tingles override fiscal irresponsibility far more than was previously understood.

Mr. Obama has identified himself as a "constitutional law professor" at the University of Chicago, but he was actually listed as a "senior lecturer" during his brief tenure. The best evidence indidcates that the school was ordered to find Mr. Obama office space and to give him a class to teach. In academia, "professor" is the highest academic rank, normally awarded only to tenured teachers after many years of experience and many successful publications. Mr. Obama has none of these qualifications, and never went through the necessary process of being awarded professor rank.

Despite earning academic credentials in the law, there is no evidence that Mr. Obama worked for any appreciable period of time as a practicing attorney. He may be reasonably called a lawyer by virtue of having a law degree, but he apparently never kept offices, met a payroll, hung out a shingle, or even worked as a regularly salaried attorney for government. Instead, most of his post-Harvard days were occupied with his "work," as a community organizer.

In his own autobiographical writings, Mr. Obama admitted that he could not explain to even his closest friends what a community organizer actually did. The job apparently was self-appointed and had no salary or benefits, yet we know that it consisted, in part, of teaching "leadership training seminars" for ACORN—photographs exist of him doing just that, and ACORN leaders acknowledged it—despite his statements that he did no such thing (normal folks call this "lying"). Like much of the rest of his past, whatever accomplishments Mr. Obama made in organizing communities—whatever that might be--remain ephemeral.

There is considerable evidence, particularly that provided by Jack Cashill, that Mr. Obama did not write his books. In fact, given a substantial advance to write his first book—a remarkable accomplishment for a minor political figure and a first time author with no experience at all--Mr. Obama could produce nothing, yet was allowed to keep the advance. It is also known that he gave all the materials of his unfinished book to Bill Ayers, and lo and behold, the book is very much in the style of Ayers, whose writings—unlike those of Mr. Obama—are available for comparison. Yet we are expected to believe that a man who produced no academic or legal writing, no known writing at all, was capable, suddenly, of producing two hot-selling autobiographies. As a teacher of writing, I can affirm that the chance of such a thing occurring is vanishingly small. Writing, like any other human skill, takes talent and many years of effort and practice, which prior to the publication of his books Mr. Obama apparently never demonstrated. The ability to haltingly read from a teleprompter and the ability to write a book are two very different things.

Mr. Obama's election to the Illinois Senate was made possible when he knocked his mentor and primary opponent off the ballot. In that role he distinguished himself as one of the most liberal members of a very liberal body. His US Senate campaign was a case of déjà vu in that his primary Republican opponent bowed out of the race after sealed court documents relating to his divorce were mysteriously released to the press. Elected to the US Senate by the only state that still refuses to allow its citizens any means of carrying concealed weapons, Mr. Obama spent two years primarily running for president, yet still managed to be ranked as the most leftist member of the US Senate, to the left even of the Senate's only declared Socialist. His record of accomplishment in both bodies—scores of "present" votes aside--is essentially nonexistent.

It was during the 2008 campaign that Americans were introduced to what is arguably the most insupportably inflated ego in American history. All politicians need healthy egos. Mr. Obama makes the worst of them look like models of humility and mental health.

When he won the Democrat nomination, he modestly announced that history would record that event as the moment that the seas began to retreat and the planet began to heal. Most people would not be capable of thinking of themselves in such grandiose terms, and fewer would dare to say such a thing. Clearly, Mr. Obama is not restrained by the ethical concerns of mere men.

For a short time, until wiser heads prevailed, he began to speak behind a pseudo-presidential Great Seal of Obama. His campaign posters adopted the style and tone of Communist-era propaganda, becoming, for Americans unaware of the murderous history of Communism (or perhaps very aware), as iconographic as a Che poster. Upon election, he established the "office" and seal of the President-Elect of the United States, despite the fact that the Constitution, to say nothing of precedent, establishes no such office. His studied rejection of the Constitution revealed by these—and more-- exercises in self-glorification were merely warnings of things to come.

Real leaders never have to remind anyone of their rank or position. They know that those who feel compelled to do that are not leaders. For real leaders, it's simply not necessary. For Mr. Obama, it has been constantly necessary. In fact, he not only began his term in office as a non-leader, he and his spokespeople now seem particularly proud of his newly discovered concept of "leading from behind," which is demonstrative of even less leadership than not leading at all. For the real world—as opposed to Obama World—leading from behind is perhaps the most self-contradictory statement known to man. Real leaders would think anyone espousing such utter nonsense a fool.

One several occasions, Mr. Obama told Congressmen and Senators "I won." In a congressional meeting, he told Senator John McCain that the election was over, obviously making that point that since he won, there was no need for discussion; his way was the only way. This man of superior temperament often appear to be ready to blow sky high. He seems to be genuinely stumped and frustrated when others do not immediately accept anything he says as revealed truth and genius.

On notable occasions, he has invited guests to his speeches, such as the Supreme Court and Rep. Paul Ryan, seated them prominently, and then lied about their positions and actions and publically berated them. Such behavior demonstrates an extraordinary smallness of spirit, a lack of common courtesy and manners, and a streak of petty meanness. Embracing all Americans requires sincere respect for them and their views. Mr. Obama shows only contempt for those who do not slavishly praise his every utterance.

Mr. Obama's mistreatment and serial insults of our most staunch allies, such as Britain and Israel, and his betrayal of the Eastern Europeans have become the stuff of legend, as has his appeasement of and weakness toward our most virulent enemies. He even hesitated for a day in authorizing our military to take out Osama Bin Laden, a day turned into two days by adverse weather, time that could have blown the mission. Some presidents grow in office. They learn that their most cherished beliefs must be altered in the face of reality. Not Barack Obama, who seems to believe that reality must bend to accommodate him.

Mr. Obama seems able to respond to crisis only be means of speech making, which means teleprompter reading. Despite being lauded as an incredibly inspiring and gifted speaker he is at best, average. As a teacher of college speech, I would allow him no more than a C. His speeches are full of straw men and false choices. They are consistently characterized by misrepresentations and even blatant lies. His rhythms are halting, determined by his ability to read from the teleprompter screens as his head constantly turns right-left-right-left, causing odd and unnatural pauses in the middle of phrases and clauses. His pitch and volume consistently drop off the tabletop at the ends of sentences, causing the loss of final consonants. Rather than employing logic and compelling argument, he employs insults and ridicule of any who disagree with him. Such serial failings are not characteristic of an exceptional speaker.

Worse still is that his speeches are, as Texans would say: "All hat, no cattle." There are no specifics, no real proposals, nothing that would indicate precisely what he intends to do. There are only broad platitudes, partisan exhortations, appeals to high-sounding aspirations and vague values. Mr. Obama seems to believe that the American people want nothing so much as to hear yet another speech from him. He actually seems to think that when he speaks, reality changes to comport with his desires, or perhaps that reality is his desires. Fortunately, many Americans are beginning to catch on. They realize that if they've heard one Obama speech, they've heard them all, and they're equally uninformed.

And so we arrive at the present, at the debt ceiling negotiations, after Mr. Obama has increased the national debt to 25% of GDP, exceeding the height reached during WWII. The only budget proposal Mr. Obama has submitted had only one feature: boundless spending far into the future. It was so unrealistic, so out of bounds with even the free-spending, unlimited taxation ways of Congressional democrats that not a single one voted to support it; not one. Yet Mr. Obama wants what he wants and expects that he can talk Americans into giving it to him. After all, everyone has always given him whatever he wanted in the past. They have always praised him as being beyond the understanding and abilities of mere mortals. Why should things be different today?

Things are different because, to paraphrase Margaret Thatcher's canny observation on the ultimate problem of Socialism, we have run out of other people's money. Margaret Thatcher, a real leader, understood such things. Mr. Obama, who leads from behind, cannot and will not.

What more should we expect of a man with no apparent past, with no experience holding down a responsible job, only one miserably failed executive experience, no legislative accomplishment, and whose only solution to any crisis is rhetoric? What can we expect of a man whose only firm principles seem to be unremitting class envy and warfare, hatred of America, reflexive appeasement of her enemies and contempt for her allies, disdain for the Constitution, and an unshakable commitment to control the lives of Americans to the maximum extent imaginable, and to raise any and every tax possible while spending more money than exists?

For such a man, there is no compromise large enough, no tax large enough, nor any expenditure large enough. One might almost be tempted to think that when Barack Obama said that he was going to "fundamentally change" America, he really meant that he intended to destroy it. That is likely the only thing a man of his experience is truly capable of doing.