Originally posted at BIG Government
Barack Obama, a man who listens to no one, is about to commence with his listen-to-me-or-else listening tour. Although the president totes a Teleprompter with him everywhere he goes, like every seasoned thespian Obama knows that a dry run is necessary to ensure that when the show officially takes to the road the script flows naturally, which must be what the Holland, Michigan Johnson Controls rehearsal was all about.
Fresh off approving hidden camera photos of himself saluting dead American war heroes against the wishes of the surviving families and hosting an Iftar “there’s no them and us — it’s just us” Muslim-praising dinner at the White House, Barack felt it was imperative that he head to Michigan to lay the foundational tone of the tour.
What better place to prepare for the three-day trip than at a “global diversified company in the building and automotive industries” that manufactures “complete lithium-ion battery cells and systems for hybrid and electric cars.” In other words, an automotive plant that makes batteries for electric cars that aren’t selling as briskly as overly optimistic analysts had originally predicted.
Not coincidentally, Johnson Controls is the recipient of $300 million of Obama’s stimulus money as part of the administration’s focus on so-called “green” technology and jobs. Nowhere on the President’s Teleprompter was the part about the resulting “green” jobs costing about $2 million each.
Concerned about green technology, fuel economy standards, and liberal environmental regulatory restrictions, the President used the platform to vent his frustration with a Congress sent to Washington DC, “by the people and for the people,” because they simply refuse to submit to his liberal agenda.
So, after sharing “country of unmatched freedom” platitudes and pleasantries about touring the automotive plant with “Elizabeth,” like an impudent child Obama segued directly into whining about how all would be right in Utopia if it wasn’t for the approximately 6,955,107,899 people on the planet other than himself.
Setting the theme for the bus tour, the President began by offering sympathy for hardship. He then made sure to blame GW Bush for the “we didn’t get into this mess overnight” recession, lamented the economy “not growing fast enough,” and suggested the fiscal landscape improved in 2009, 2010 and the beginning of 2011.
Then Obama had the gall to tell the crowd of dignitaries and factory employees that the burgeoning economy suffered only after being clobbered by an oily Arab spring, European economic turmoil, and acts of God like unexpected Japanese tsunamis.
The President stopped just short of blaming the economic downturn on Ben and Jerry®, makers of Obama’s favorite “Yes Pecan,” for discontinuing the ice cream flavor “Economic Crunch.”
Far from the days when Obama implied that his presidency would provide the power to slow the oceans’ rise and heal the planet, the President admitted that “earthquakes [and] revolutions –are things we can’t control.” However, he did express the opinion that “the worst kind of partisanship, the worst kind of gridlock, has impeded … efforts to take the steps” needed to cure America’s tsunami-battered economy.
According to Barack Obama, if things in America are “worse instead of better,” it’s not because of poor presidential leadership, lack of economic direction, out-of-control spending, class warfare, expanding entitlement programs, or regulations gone awry. Without mentioning them by name, Obama intimated that the situation in Washington DC is the result of rabid Republicans driven by a rowdy band of Tea Party activists who refuse to tax and spend the country into oblivion.
Instead of coming up with a valid plan to address the nation’s ills, the President assumes the role of the injured party and accepts none of the guilt. The embodiment of partisan politics, Barack Obama, told his audience “There is nothing wrong with our country. There is something wrong with our politics. There’s something wrong with our politics that we need to fix.”
President Obama blamed “partisan brinkmanship” for getting in the way of an economic recovery, implying that for some – but certainly not the guy gassing up the reelection bus on company time – the “next election is more important than fulfilling [a] responsibility to…our country.”
“Frustrated” with his inability to get his own way, the President, who seems loath to confront opposing viewpoints, apparently holds Congress responsible for the Standard & Poor’s downgrade based on Republicans’ unwillingness to “compromise,” by which he means letting him have exactly what he wanted, a move that would have caused the economy to be downgraded anyway.
The President extolled the benefits of “living within [one’s] means” and “living up to [one’s] responsibilities,” both of which the direction of his economic philosophy fails to do. Then Obama challenged anyone who doesn’t agree with him to exhibit “decency…honor [and] discipline” by – you guessed it – agreeing with him.
Assuming the role of a veteran Teleprompter reader, a theatrical Obama exhorted his audience to chide the right wing of the unsubmissive Congress: “You’ve got to tell them you’ve had enough of the theatrics. You’ve had enough of the politics… You’ve got to send that message to Congress…And if they’re listening hard enough, maybe they’ll come back to Washington ready to compromise and ready to create jobs and ready to reduce our deficit — ready to do what you sent them there to do.”
Earth to Obama – America already sent a message to Congress; we sent them there to do what they’re doing, attempting to stop you. You’re the one not getting the message.
While out “listening” in his diesel-powered political dog and pony show, instead of instructing everyone else, maybe Obama could take his own advice and “spend more time out [there] listening” to Americans. If he did, it’s likely he’d be shocked to “hear how fed up” the nation is with his overbearing “ultimatums” and continual “drawing lines in the sand.”
Either way, in a typical attempt to further portray political opposition as the sole obstacle to economic success, President Barack Obama, ever deficient in personal self-awareness, once again projected his own intentions onto the other side: “There are some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win.”
The truth is, despite his cross-country bus tours, immature finger-pointing, and repetitive partisan rhetoric, Barack Obama’s objectives and ambitions are clearly antithetical to the nation’s well being, and when he loses the next election, that will be when the American people win.