Obama's Disappointing First 6 Months

Obama originally ordered Gitmo to be shut down, citing the fact that it was a blemish on America’s foreign policy because of torture. The prisoners would be transported to the states, which isn’t exactly a revolutionary idea considering it’s what we do most of the time for terrorism (Gitmo was used so interrogators could get around judicial law since it isn’t American soil). Now, a slew of uneducated Senators from both sides of the aisle are refusing to let them into the U.S. This view is fucking retarded. Terrorism and treason are two of the highest crimes possible in America. Terrorist suspects would be solitarily confined, so there wouldn’t be any behind bars conspiracies like several Senators would like you to believe. As for escapes, the odds of escaping a Supermax high security prison are astronomical. Nevertheless, it looks like Obama will capitulate and end up moving the Gitmo prisoners to be tortured in Afghanistan in secret CIA black sites. Obama failed with Gitmo.

In 2003, Obama claimed single payer health care was the most ideal reform for the health care dilemma. Now, he appears to have taken single-payer off the table in favor of a highly watered down government plan that will compete with employee-based health insurance. Obama has conference with health insurance companies, and a board of doctors that make millions a year. He has forgotten to consult those who are the victims of the health insurance industry, and overwhelmingly prefer a single-payer system. Obama is failing with Health Care.

When we declared war with Afghanistan in 2001, the country was in a nationalistic fervor. Over 75% of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but we never considered action there because they are a trading partner. Secondly, the terrorists behind 9/11 were not state sanctioned-it was from a private group-Al Qaeda, so it’s not applicable to attack a state for an act it didn’t commit. Lastly, we wanted to catch Bin Laden. If we wanted to catch him, war would be the last thing to do. Armies are slow and have bases. We made it 10 times easier for Bin Laden to know where we are. Despite the fact that Afghanistan is an obviously illegitimate war, Obama has decided to ramp up the war effort there. Obama failed with Afghanistan.

George Bush was known as our “born again President”. Barack Obama has invoked Jesus more times in 5 months than George Bush did in 8 years. That’s fine, but Obama has infused his religion into our government. He has vastly expanded George Bush’s faith based initiative. The faith based initiative offers incentives for religions-particularly for Christianity. This is a clear violation of Separation of Church and state and unconstitutional, not to mention the fact that it awards people motivated to do works through religious means rather than the goodness of their own hearts. It puts blind faith and ignorance on a pedestal. Obama failed with the Faith Based Initiative.

Obama is also continuing America’s arrogant foreign policy. Obama continues an unflinching support for Israel-a terrorist state. He also continues to pursue a hypocritical and unrealistic foreign policy in regards to Iran and North Korea. Obama’s foreign policy blunders are so vast they get their own chapter: see “American Arrogance”. Obama is pursuing a failing foreign policy.

Obama has let down the LBGT community, by capitulating to religious blowhards and bigots. Obama has failed to do anything about “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, a policy in the military that is blatantly homophobic which doesn’t allow gays to serve openly in the military. Obama continues to be opposed to same sex marriage, and recently reaffirmed his support for the Defense of Marriage Act. The Defense of marriage acts basically makes it so states don’t have to accept the gay marriage certificates of other states. This is unconstitutional since it goes against the full faith and credit clause of the constitution. States have to honor laws from other states if there is no contradictory law on the books. In the same press release, Obama expressed that he wanted to “preserve the sacred institution of marriage”. Oh great, another dipshit religious President. Obama is failing the LBGT community.

Obama still remains immensely popular. That’s probably because he’s BFF’s with the media. Interviews with Jay Leno, ESPN, Extra, NBC, NPR, Newsweek, Associated Press, Time, and 3 Prime Time Press Conferences have all been conducted in the first 5 months. The media reports on everything he does-as long as it’s not important. Obama swats a fly, Obama and Biden go eat cheeseburgers, Obama takes Michelle to Broadway, Obama writes a school excuse, Obama gets a new puppy for his daughters, Obama gives away DVDS/iPod—these are all actual headlines. Obama is an overexposed media whore.

Obama pledged to get us out of Iraq. Now he has a plan. His plan is hardly a withdrawal however. It leaves 50,000 “residual forces” in Iraq-that’s nearly 25% of the current levels. Pre-surge it would amount to a little over 1/3. Obama fails with Iraq.