Don's Tuesday Column

             THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   1/05/2016

          America’s mood in the New Year

It is a New Year that lacks somewhat for good cheer and traditional happiness in much of the electorate. The portion of Americans expressing pessimism over our country’s current state is about as high as it has ever been. Large majorities tell pollsters they don’t think current and future generations will see “America’s best days” and will not experience better times than their parents. I’m neither predicting nor wishing; I’m just reading the polls.

The following are relevant and provide some insight into the current mood:

Jim Geraghty reprinted a March, 2010, column, “The Complete list of Obama Statement Expiration Dates,” which contained statements by Barack Obama on 2 dozen different issues that were all reversed by his own mouth, or policies he implemented. He said, for instance, in 2008, that he differed with Hillary Clinton on health care mandates because she would “force everybody to purchase it,” 2 years before signing that exact individual mandate into law. From promising health care negotiations on C-SPAN, to not raising taxes on “households making less than $250,000,” to condemning recess appointments, to promising “tougher border security…securing our border,” to statements on Iraq, Iran, FISA, nuclear power, NAFTA, welfare reform, gay marriage, partial birth abortion and so on—Obama reneged on them all.

Aside from Obama sycophants who shrug “oh well” or, more atrociously, attack anyone pointing out the obvious, even moderate Democrats must be disappointed over their presidential standard bearer. The rest of America can’t help but see past the lies and corruption of an imperialistic nincompoop like Obama.

Charles C. W. Cooke may have similarly hit upon a demoralizing aspect of O’s reign in “Our Presidents Are Beginning to Act Like Kings,” in which he looks at both parties’ leaders with an in depth examination of what many rightfully refer to as Emperor Obama’s overreach. Many cannot help reacting with disbelief over those on the left that ranted and raved over “unitary executive” Bush, but dismiss and explain away genuine authoritarian abuses by Obama. While the rot spreads from the head, the electorate becomes cynically numb and loses hope.

How despicable is it for Obama, “Celebrating a Deserter in the Rose Garden” (Mark Steyn, December 15), to have released 5 hard-core terrorists in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl? It was obvious to all but the partisan left, including media stenographers, that standards were abandoned—both to pursue the release of court-martial-and-brig-bound Army deserter Bergdahl, as well as fast-tracking terrorists with blood-soaked hands back eventually to their Islamic comrades. Steyn calls the impending court martial a “heartening surprise” given that “cynicism about the politicization and corruption of all federal institutions is so widespread.”

Coincidentally, in “Why is Obama obsessed with springing terrorists from Gitmo?” the New York Post editorial board called out Obama for his headlong pursuit of releasing al Qaeda, Taliban and ISIS terrorists from detention. “Meanwhile, a terrorist the president sprang from Gitmo in 2012, Ibrahim al-Qosi, has surfaced as a top leader of Al Qaeda” in recruiting videos.

Those videos haven’t mentioned Gitmo; not Donald Trump, either, until Hillary Clinton mentioned it. Is she offering advice to ISIS video makers? One widely viewed did, however, show Obama, Biden, Kerry, Bush, Rumsfeld, Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Paul Wolfowitz and John McCain. Infidels all. It’s about Obama, Gitmo and the safety of the American people.

America’s mood may be impacted by terrorism in several ways, tied to Obama’s policies and decisions. Look up “A DHS Whistleblower’s Shocking Letter to Congress,” by Paul Mirengoff at Powerlineblog.com. “In an open letter to members of Congress, retired DHS employee Philip Haney says that, under pressure from the Department of State (Civil Rights Division), his superiors closed down work on terrorist outfits with which the San Bernardino murderers—Sayed Farook and Tashfeen Malif—were affiliated. Haney said if this work had not been shut down, the San Bernardino killings might have been prevented.” They wanted no scrutiny of Muslims.

“Inside Obama’s secret pity party,” by Michael Goodwin, described a private meeting with friendly reporters, “where the president gave his water-carriers talking points so he could jet off to Hawaii and still look as if he’s engaged in national security…He blamed cable TV for whipping up fears over the Islamic State, and said, weirdly, that he missed the public mood swing because he doesn’t watch much cable news.”

David Ignatius, of the Washington Post, said, “Obama doesn’t think this is an existential battle that’s worth the cost to the United States of an all-out war.” A New York Times article similarly concluded that “Obama will not change course even if America suffers what he regards as minor terror attacks…like the one in San Bernardino that killed 14 people and wounded 22. Ignatius described this as Obama’s ‘cost-benefit analysis’ and that only ‘a big, orchestrated terrorist incident that so frightened the public that it began to prevent the normal functioning of America’ would alter his strategy” (Goodwin).

“First, it is an absolute dereliction of duty for a president to make a ‘cost-benefit analysis’ that regards any attacks on Americans by foreign enemies as minor. Successful attacks terrorize people well beyond the specific location. Second, given his record, Obama’s assurances that there are no credible threats now are not comforting—nobody saw Paris and San Bernardino coming.”

Americans are understandably less-than-cheery as this New Year begins.