Back in the 1990s, as I was nearing retirement from DEA, we had an administrator (head of the agency or director) named Tom Constantine. He was appointed administrator out of the New York State Police. When he left the State Police, they reportedly held a retirement party for him, a party to which he was not invited. As administrator of DEA, Constantine presided over an agency with poor morale. The reason for the poor morale? Constantine. It seems that Constantine brought with him an unfavorable attitude about federal law enforcement agents. Reports said that he often told his underlings at DEA Hqs, "You feds......." (fill in the blank.)
Shortly before I retired, I was having a few drinks with a DEA colleague who had attended a meeting between Constantine and a few ordinary agents who were on TDY in HQs. I asked him what his impression of Constantine was. His answer?
"He doesn't like us."
I think the same can be said at this point about President Obama. He doesn't like us. Not all of us, of course, but a significant part of the population of this country. In truth, we should have figured this out a long time ago.
Was it when we first heard about Reverend Jeremiah Wright, he of "God damn America fame"? Obama spent 20 years sitting in Wright's church, yet claimed never to have heard him condemn this country.
Was it when we learned of his association with William Ayres and Bernadine Dohrn?
Was it when we learned of the influence on Obama of Frank Marshall Davis and Saul Alinsky?
Was it when we read his two autobiographies, written before he even became famous? Should we have seen a red flag when he wrote of identifying more with the black father who abandoned him than the white mother and grandparents who raised him?
Was it when Michelle Obama told a campaign audience that America in the 21st century was a really mean country or when she said that she was proud of her country for the first time in her life-because her husband was running for president?
Was it when we came to know Joe the Plumber, when Obama told him that he wanted to "spread the wealth around"?
Was it when we realized that he had no idea of how to hold his hand over his heart when reciting the Pledge of Alliance or the National Anthem was playing?
Was it when he started apologizing for America during his overseas trips?
Was it when he showed utter contempt for Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu during a White House visit?
Was it when, after becoming President, he accused the Cambridge, Massachusetts police of acting stupidly when they arrested Henry Louis Gates?
Was it when he started appointing radicals like Van Jones to positions in his government?
Was it when he made Eric Holder attorney general or in any of the instances in the succeeding 3 years that Holder made it plain that he was running a race-based, radical Justice Department?
Was it during the last 9-11 ceremony in New York when he and Michelle appeared to be treating the flag-folding ceremony with contempt?
This is man who we had hoped would bring us together-even if we had voted against him. In contrast, he has driven us further apart. He has widened the divide between whites and blacks, conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats. He blames our problems on anyone he can other than himself. He does not understand what drives Americans to love their country and to respect our traditions. He has no great appreciation for the capitalist system, free enterprise, and the inalienable right for people to keep what they earn. That is because he is a socialist-if not an out and out Marxist.
How ironic that in less than one generation after the collapse of the Soviet Union and their satellites in Eastern Europe, we have a president that has more in common with that failed ideology than he does with the system that made America the winner of the Cold War.
President Obama doesn't like us.
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16 comments:
"This is man who we had hoped would bring us together-even if we had voted against him. In contrast, he has driven us further apart. He has widened the divide between whites and blacks, conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats."
I have never experienced more unity between the races than in the last few years.
Have you been living in a cloud all your life?
Showing contempt for Netanyahu (if indeed he did) makes him a better American than any of you who agree with you.
"He has no great appreciation for the capitalist system, free enterprise, and the inalienable right for people to keep what they earn. That is because he is a socialist-if not an out and out Marxist." You mean Obama hates those who wont give him what is left of their money?
The only person or thing Barack Hussein Obama likes is himself.
To Igrid,
Have you been living in another galaxy in the past three years? Certainly not the third planet from the Sun in the Milky Way. I suggest you stop reading the L.A. Times, N. Y. times and the Washington Post. Also, tune out CBS, ABC, NBC and MSNBC. You have to read outside of the Main Stream Media to get to the truth.
This is a failed Adminstration. This morning, Fox news News reported that Eric Holder will be investigated for lying to Congress. Obama will be under scutiny for his Solynra, solar energy meltdown. Somehow, the MSM missed these stories. There is a lot more, but that is up to you to research and uncover.
Squid
Squid,
Ingrid lives in Germany.
Gary,
"Ingrid lives in Germany". Just like I thought, another galaxy.
Squid
Why don't you be completely honest about this Gary: a significant portion of the population of this country doesn't like a significant portion of the population of this country.
But don't worry, I'd still love to meet you for lunch near Wrigley field.
Obama likes one more person than Findalis does.
Right. The right doesn't like the left and the left doesn't like the right.
But we all love the Cubs.
Squid, do you really think that living in Germany keeps me from knowing what is going on in the US? I've lived there for 33 years. I have three adult children living there and I am in daily contact with people there, I also read American newspapers and watch American broadcasts. German newspapers and magazines are well informed and probably not as biased as some American publications.
Gary spent three years in Germany in the military and considers himself an expert on things German.
You are the one who lives in a bubble. By calling Germany another galaxy your ignorance is showing.
Isn't national unity wonderful?
I don't know if President Obama likes us very much but I do know that most of us don't like him a whole lot. I think that this will be proven in about a year. I could be wrong. Never underestimate the power of the GOP to screw something up a sure win.
President Obama likes me very well. I keep getting letters with his signature on them, explaining what he is trying to do and asking me to send money to the Democratic National Committee. I draw a line here. He definitely gets my vote. He probably will get some of my time volunteering on the campaign. But the DNC will not get my money.
Why not? If they were doing their job, they would be presenting the president in a manner that Bartender Cabbie would like him. I believe I could sit down with Cabbie for one or two lunches a week, and in three months Cabbie would be ready to vote for him -- that is, if the DNC didn't come out with another blast about building a firewall to stop right-wing extremists from taking over the country.
Cabbie is right about one thing though: the Republicans are doing a great job shooting themselves in both feet. Just like Sal Russo's hijacked "Tea Party Express" saved Harry Reid and prevented a Republican takeover of the senate by offering Sharon Angle, Christine O'Donnell, that less memorable idiot in Colorado...
It is rather more likely that I would become a follower of the Prophet before I would vote for President Obama for a second term. I'll give you this though; I don't see anyone in the GOP that will be good for the country either. Methinks we are screwed.
If you weren't so far away Cabbie, I'd offer to start the lunch meetings. It is entirely possible that I am advocating for Obama as I wish he was, rather than Obama as he is. Most people do that to some extent when they commit to a candidate for office. They always disappoint us, because they are never all we wanted them to be.
Putting Geithner and Summers in charge of economic policy was definitely a mistake, and so was taking on Biden as vice-president. Obama was under pressure to show how moderate and non-socialist he was and add some maturity to the ticket. None of that was what we voted for.
In 1972, while the MSM was full of "McGovern is too liberal" and McGovern was trying to show how moderate he was, I was knocking on doors in such well known centers of liberal intellectual ennui as Xenia and Springfield, Ohio. I didn't hear anyone say "He's too liberal." I heard a lot of "He turned out to be another politician like all the rest." Obama made the same mistake, only after winning the election.
I think that Obama is an old school socialist. Perhaps not Eugene Debs but certainly on the track. Some of the things that the President has done that have irritated his base were likely done for political reasons or just perhaps because he learned a bit about the reality of the world. I am speaking of the continued killing of dangerous Muslim extremists and keeping the detention/interrogation center at the naval base in Cuba open.
That being said, his support of this "Arab Spring" is a strategic disater that will come back to haunt the West.
I actually applaud that and realize that it has cost him politically. Other than that I see him as a frustrated neo Marxist who is annoyed because most Americans can't get on board with his agenda. We don't want a "fundamental change." At least not the kind envisioned by the majority of his followers.
What it boils down to is that President Obama is a bit naive and childlike. He will be a one term president most likely.
What comes next though? That is almost as scary.
I wish he was Eugene Debs. I would vote for Eugene Debs with the greatest enthusiasm. Also, if he were Eugene Debs, he would be a lot more popular than he is now. Unfortunately, he's a party-line Democrat with some good insights into what makes voters tick.
Like Clinton, he came into office with the disgruntled Republican leadership grousing that he had interrupted their thousand year reich, or at least, their American right-wing century. Sad fact is, voters are fickle, and don't subscribe wholeheartedly to ANY ideological agenda.
Obama had some capacity to reach OVER THE HEADS of the faux-conservative cliques to many of the voters those cliques patted themselves on the back for winning over. Unfortunately, he thought his calling was to bring together the congressional and party leaderships.
The Republican leadership had NO incentive to cooperate with him in any way. If he governed effectively, even sharing the credit, he would continue to draw THEIR constituencies away. So there game plan was always "Screw America, give Obama his Waterloo."
The results have been predictably muddled, and it is almost impossible to come out of such a donnybrook smelling like a rose. Nobody wants to hear about "Who started it." But I expect he will stumble across the finish line first, and have a reasonably productive second term.
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