No, I'm Not A Fan Of President Obama

One of the dangers of blogging is that if you take too much time thinking about what you want to write, someone else will come up with the same idea. And darn it, someone did.

Yes, I think President Obama is a socialist/statist, but in some areas he's acting like a conservative--or worse, he's doing the exact things he excoriated President Bush for doing. I don't fault him for doing them, or even for the flip-flop, but I do fault him for for either lying (to get elected) or being wrong (meriting his flip-flop) in the first place.

So this post lists some of the flip-flops: military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay inmates, the use of rendition for terror suspects, the imfamous "state secrets" defense when he doesn't want to release information, the infinite detention of suspected terrorists, and closing Guantanamo whilst beefing up Bagram.

The link above did not mention, however, President Obama's wiretapping authority, which will exceed President Bush's!

I think the Carrie Prejean (Miss California USA) situation has been beaten to death recently, but let's just restate it here for the record--she's been blasted for having expressed the exact same view that the President holds. Elton John, too. And Sarah Palin.

The Obama Administration agrees with the Palin Administration about polar bears and global warming, too:

Governor Sarah Palin was pleased to learn that U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has decided not to change the existing Section 4(d) rule regulations concerning the protection of polar bears under the Endangered Species Act (ESA)...

The Department of the Interior also announced the continuation of a policy disallowing a link between climate change and decisions made under the ESA. The governor has argued against such a linkage as an inappropriate use of the act.

And just to be fun, let's throw in the President's utter inability to be articulate unless there's a teleprompter in front of him.

So, what do we get for electing the President? Near as I can tell, we get the UAW running a car company on the taxpayer's dime (I still don't understand how that worked out), we have deficits triple the size of any under the "spend-crazy" President Bush, we have the threat of socialism and all the ills it brings, we have a class warrior, and we have a President for whom power is seemingly all that matters.

What don't we have that we were promised? Besides the flip-flops mentioned above we don't have the rest of the world tossing flowers to us now that Cowboy George is gone. The Europeans love us again, but they're not contributing militarily or financially to world peace any more now than they were a year ago. We've reached out to Venezuela, Iran, and Cuba (clearly some world powerhouses) and gotten that hand publicly swatted away. We get boneheaded moves like the NYC/Air Force One pics and the picture of bowing before the King of Saudi Arabia.

If it's true that we get the government we deserve, we should be on our knees begging God for forgiveness for whatever it was we as a country did to deserve this president.

Update: I've never liked the idea of "say whatever you need to in order to get elected, and then do what you think is best." That makes the candidate what's important, instead of the people. If you have to lie to get elected, you shouldn't be elected. If the people don't want whatever it is you're selling, you shouldn't trick them into buying it.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard Obama supporters say that they didn't believe him when he said something on the campaign trail. "Oh, he didn't mean that, that's just something he had to say." Are you kidding me? They expected him to lie.

I, on the other hand, believed him when he supported socialism. Why would he lie about that? I believed he was speaking as he truly felt when he spoke those few sentences to Joe The Plumber. Why people chose not to believe him, I cannot understand.

A top Obama fundraiser and hedge fund manager said: "I'm appalled at the anti-Wall Street rhetoric. It was OK on the campaign but now it's the real world. I'm surprised that Obama is turning out to be so left-wing. He's a real class warrior."

Well, genius, we're all screwed because you were blind to reality.

Update #2, 5/11/09: Some lefties like to believe that I'm a racist because I'm not a fan of the President. One of the best replies to that tired tale comes from a comment on this post:

"Racist bigot" is progressive code for someone who believes in the Constitution, liberty and the foundational values of this country.

Update #3, 5/12/09: The latest from Instapundit:

HOPE AND CHANGE! Obama administration threatens Britain to keep torture evidence concealed. More from the Pro-Torture Obama Administration. Don’t all you people who told us it was a moral imperative to support Obama over this issue feel kinda silly now? You should. . . .

Salon is not a right-leaning magazine.