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Before I get into my conclusions on why Jimmy Carter is now off the hook as the worst President I have ever seen, replaced by the failed legacy of President Obama, let me set the stage: - Until the midterm elections in November, 2010 I had never voted for a Republican for national office, President or Congress, in my life. - I have voted for very few Republicans for local, county, and state elections in my life. - Thus, I am not a long term Republican voter or conservative. - The reason I wrote and published my book, “Love my Country, Loathe My Government” was because of the insanity I witnessed during the Republican Bush administration. The waste, stupidity, and corruption of that era was something I found unacceptable in a democracy and wanted to do my part to fix our ailing democracy. It had nothing to do with the Obama administration and its failures. - Thus, I am not out to do a hatchet job on the President, I would do a similar assessment on any other person with the same dismal track record. - I am not saying that John McCain would have been more effective than Obama has been. We will never know, given McCain did not get elected. - I am not enthusiastic about Romney by any stretch of the imagination and I am not saying that Romney would be more effective than Obama has been. - My information sources for my conclusions almost never include Fox News and never conservative/Republican blogs or forums. Most of the time my sources are unbiased or liberal leaning organizations that tend to portray the Obama administration in a more favorable light than it deserves. - I believe that in sports, politics, and life, the old saying that “you are only as good as your record” should be the only guide to reality. Saying you tried hard or claiming the failure was not your fault are easy to do. But results are the only things that count in the final assessment. Excuses are a sign of weakness and immaturity when it comes to leadership in life. However, they are an ongoing trait of this administration. - Some of the points of failure listed below might be viewed as petty and unimportant in the big picture. However, this assessment is meant as a comprehensive view of the Obama Presidency and one person’s view of pettiness and unimportance might be viewed as a failed opportunity at leadership by someone else. That is why everything was included. - Harry Truman once eloquently stated: “The buck stops here.” He realized he was the overall boss so that anything that went wrong on his watch ultimately was his responsibility, a responsibility he was willing to accept. The Obama administration should not be held to any lower standard of excellence. - For the first two years of his Presidency, Obama’s Democratic party held a majority in the House of Representatives and a filibuster proof majority in the Senate. His approval ratings were sky high. He could have done anything he wanted. He wasted that historic opportunity and as a result, he does not now get to blame Bush, the Arab Spring, the Iranians, the Japanese tsunami, ATM machines, Congress, the Republicans, or anything else for his failures. The buck stops at his desk, he accepted the job and both the glory and the blame that goes with it. Okay, let’s get started. I am 59 years old and have always viewed the Carter administration as one of the most inept and ineffective presidencies of all time. With the exception of the Israeli/Egyptian peace accords, I cannot remember anything else positive from those years but I do remember long gas lines, high gas prices, the Iranian hostage crisis and the timid response to it, high unemployment, and sky high inflation and interest rates. Not a legacy of success or hope. But along comes the Obama administration and the following failures across just about every dimension, in no particular order: 1) Failure to implement an economic stimulus program that lived up to its objectives, the President predicting that unless the Federal government spent about $800 billion, the unemployment rate could go as high as 8%. Over $800 billion was spent, and wasted, and the unemployment rate has not been below 8% for a record 42 straight months. 2) Failure to implement to an effective overall economic strategy, instead relying on petty, tactical, short term, and unsuccessful economic programs that accomplished nothing but wasted billions of dollars. The short list of failures includes Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, Cash For Caulkers, HAMP, General Motors bailout (currently billions of taxpayer dollars still unpaid), and a small business tax credit package. 3) Failure to reduce this high unemployment rate, with almost 13 million Americans still unemployed, millions of other Americans who are underemployed or have become to discouraged to look for work, resulting in a total unemployment/underemployment rate of an unacceptable 14.9% in September which translate into about 23 million Americans who are unemployed or under employed. 4) Failure to provide a healthy, growing economic climate, with about half of this year’s college graduates not able to find a position in their preferred field and more than 80% of them moving back in with their parents or relatives since they cannot afford to strike out on their own. 5) Failure to protect the nation’s AAA bond rating, resulting in a major credit rating agency downgrading the credit worthiness of the United States for the first time in our history and other major credit agencies warning that they could follow suit unless the Federal government gets its spending under control. 6) Failure to reduce the Federal government’s annual spending deficit by 50% as promised in his 2008 Presidential campaign. 7) Failure to get Federal government spending under control, creating record annual TRILLION dollar deficits for the entire time of his Presidency, adding about $5 TRILLION to our national debt to bring it to over $16 TRILLION. 8) Failure to even consider or force Congress to consider implementing the fine work of his deficit reduction a commission, a commission he himself put together but ended up completely ignoring. 9) Failure to pressure a fellow Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, to do the Majority Leader’s job and produce an annual detailed Federal budget plan, a failure that has resulting in the Senate not producing a formal budget in over 1,200 days, a performance by Reid that has to be un-Constitutional and impeachable on some level. 10) Failure to rein in waste, corruption, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, all of which cost the American taxpayer anywhere from $110 to $150 billion a year. 11) Failure to rein in waste, corruption, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the Social Security program, which costs the American taxpayer at least $100 billion a year. 12) Failure to rein in waste, corruption, inefficiency, and criminal fraud in the food stamp and unemployment benefit programs, which cost the American taxpayer about $25 billion a year. 13) Failure to streamline government functions and operations, which would save tax payers tens of billions of dollars a year, as witnessed by the fact that after three and a half years of this Presidency we are still burdened with15 different agencies overseeing food safety laws, more than 20 independent programs helping the homeless, 80 different programs to help economic development, 82 different government agencies working on improving teacher quality, 47 different government agencies working on job training, and 18 different programs working on food and nutrition assistance. 14) Failure to improve tax collection at the Internal Revenue service which estimates that it fails to collect about $380 billion a year from tax evaders, putting additional tax burdens on honest taxpayers who actually pay their taxes. 15) Failure to live up to his campaign promise to close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, a facility that annually costs the American taxpayer about $160 million to operate. 16) Failure to live up to his campaign promise to not allow lobbyists to serve in high ranking positions in his administration, an administration that currently has several dozen ex-lobbyists high up in the administration. 17) Failure to live up to his campaign promise of significantly reducing budget earmarks which are only thinly disguised schemes for incumbent politicians to finance their reelection campaigns. 18) Failure to live up to his campaign promise of not using executive privilege when he invoked executive privilege to hamper and cover up a legitimate Congressional investigation into misconduct and illegal activity relative to the fatal Fast and Furious gun walking operation. 19) Failure to live up to his statement several years ago when as Senator he boldly asserted that raising the nation’s debt limit was a Presidential failure of leadership, a statement he contradicted the first time he was confronted with out of control spending bumping up against the nation’s debt limit level. 20) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective strategy for educating our kids, who currently rank behind dozens of other countries around the world in the quality of their education despite the U.S. spending more than every other country in the world. At the Federal level, the continuing failure of the Department of Education has cost us over $200 billion since the Obama inauguration. 21) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective strategy for cost effective energy independence, with no strategy in place to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources and our carbon footprint. At the Federal level, the continuing failure of the Department of Energy has cost us over $100 billion since Obama’s inauguration. 22) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective health care reform strategy to rein our escalating health care costs, with Obama Care: - Likely to cost well over $2 TRILLION to execute. - Likely to drain wealth out of the economy with dozens of new taxes. - Likely curtail economic growth, likely result in tens of millions of Americans losing their current health care insurance protection. - Likely to have millions of Americans have their working hours reduced - Likely will leave at least twenty million Americans without health care insurance tens years after the legislation was passed. - Likely will reduce the already strained Medicare budget by over $700 billion over the next ten years, endangering the health of the nation’s seniors. -Likely have no chance to succeed since the legislation never addressed the root causes of our higher and higher health care costs. 23) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective restart of our strategy relative to our illegal drug usage problems, resulting in the enrichment of violent Mexican drug cartels, the continuing imprisonment of non-violent drug users, the continuing emphasis on law enforcement vs. drug treatment, and the continuing lost “war on drugs.” 24) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive and effective restructuring of our Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs, all of which are hurdling towards fiscal insolvency. 25) Failure to lead the country to a comprehensive overhaul of our 70,000 page, cumbersome, inefficient, and economy inhibiting Federal tax code, a tax code that results in hundreds of billions of dollars every year not being collected and a tax code that results in American companies keeping over a TRILLION dollars in profits overseas, sitting idly, not helping the U.S. economy to grow. 26) Failure to lead the country to an overhaul or termination of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two main culprits in the creation and collapse of the housing bubble, leading directly to the Great Recession and a taxpayer bailout of the two government housing entities that has already cost the American taxpayer over $180 billion (and growing). 27) Failure to lead the country to an overhaul over the country’s financial regulation processes, claiming responsibility for the Dodd-Frank legislation that has already missed three major financial industry disasters, the collapse of MF Global, the dangerous investing and reckless style of JP Morgan, and the collapse of Peregrine Financial Group, three situations that were supposed to be impossible with the new regulations. 28) Failure to eliminate the “too big to fail” syndrome of America’s largest banks, with the five largest banks now larger on every banking measure than they were prior to the Great Recession. 29) Failure to terminate the ill-fated Fast and Furious gun walking campaign, a campaign that broke numerous laws and at least one international treaty while resulting in the unnecessary death of a U.S. agent and dozens of innocent Mexican civilians. 30) Failure to have his administration prepared and act promptly when the Gulf oil spill occurred, with himself taking several vacations, playing numerous rounds of golf, and making several long campaign fund raising trips while the Gulf environment and economy suffered the ravages of the multi-month oil spill. 31) Failure to provide a national energy strategy, a void that has seen the price for a gallon of gas rise about 100% since his inauguration. 32) Failure to run a tight operation when it comes to national security leaks from the highest levels of his administration, leaks that appeared in the New York Times and elsewhere that have endangered our national security and the lives of our fighting forces around the world. 33) Failure to represent the rights, integrity, and humanity of about half the women in this country when he remained silent in the face of demeaning, sexist, and disgusting comments about Republican women: - When the campaign manager of Democrat’s Gerry Brown’s gubernatorial campaign called his female Republican opponent a whore, Obama was silent. - When TV host Montel Williams had publicly hoped that Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachman would commit suicide by decapitating herself, Obama was silent. - When Ed Schultz, an on air commentator for the Democratic leaning MSNBC news channel, called Laura Ingraham of Fox News a slut, Obama was silent. - When HBO TV host Bill Maher, a major donor to Obama’s 2012 Presidential Super PAC ( a $1 million donor), said on air that Republican Sarah Palin “would f*** Rick Perry if he was black,” Obama was silent. - When Bill Maher called Republican Sarah Palin a disgusting and derogatory name that I will not repeat here, Obama was silent. - When Playboy magazine’s online website offered a detailed analysis on why and how each of ten Republican women in politics should be hate raped, Obama was silent. - When a rap artist gave a Minnesota concert that was billed as the “F*** Michelle Bachman” concert (spelling out the entire f word), a Republican Congresswoman from Minnesota, Obama was silent. - When a Democratic operative insulted Ann Romney, and millions of other American women, by slandering and demeaning her as a stay at home mother, Obama was silent. I am not saying that Obama should have responded to all of these degradations of Republican women. However, he cannot claim he is working hard for all of the women in the country when he allows half of them, those with a differing political view, to be called sluts, whores, worthy of hate rapes, and other terms to graphic too repeat here. He should be a leader, he should be setting the tone of civil political dialog, not remaining silent. 34) Failure to represent the rights, integrity, and freedoms of millions of citizens when he remained silent when his Democratic Party allies demeaned, slandered and slammed Americans for simply expressing their freedom of speech and having a difference of opinion: - When Democrat Speaker Of The House Nancy Pelosi called opponents to Obama Care unpatriotic for simply having a difference of opinion with many politicians in Washington, Obama was silent. - When Democrat Charles Rangel slandered millions of Americans who opposed Obama Care by calling them racists for simply having an honest difference of opinion with many politicians in Washington, Obama was silent. - When Democrat Shelia Jordan Lee slandered of Americans who opposed Obama Care by associating them with the Ku Klux Klan, Obama was silent. When White House czar Van Jones called all Republicans a**h****s, Obama was silent. - When Democrat Alan Grayson called all Republicans knuckle dragging Neanderthals, Obama was silent. - When union boss and Democratic supporter Jimmy Hoffa, Jr. stated that his union was at war with the Republicans and Tea Party and that those people "need to be taken out," Obama was silent. - When Democratic Congressmen Mike Doyle and Henry Waxman and Vice President Joe Biden slandered Americans opposed to unfettered and destructive government spending and debt by calling them terrorists (those people that bomb and kill and innocent civilians), Obama was silent. - When ordinary Americans objected to the building of a Islamic mosque near the World Trade Center property because of the memories of 9-11 and Democrat Nancy Pelosi said they should be investigated for simply having an opinion on the mosque, Obama was silent. - When Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen likened Republican critics of Obamacare to the Nazis and their propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, Obama was silent. - When Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Walters said all Tea Party American citizens can go to hell simply for having a difference of opinion with her, Obama was silent. You cannot say you are the leader of the entire country when political allies attack citizens for simply having an opinion or political opponents are called terrorists, a**h****s, racists, Nazis, or Neanderthals and you remain silent. That does not celebrate our freedom and celebrate diversity. 35) Failure to respect the tenets of religious freedom in this country by forcing certain organizations to conform to government mandates that are at odds with these organizations’ religious tenets, not realizing that in many parts of the world when government dictates religious terms and conditions it is called the Taliban. 36) Failure to respect the Constitution and rule of law on many occasions including, but not limited to: - Violating the Constitution and War Powers Act by unilaterally involving U.S. armed forces in the Libyan conflict in order to protect the flow of oil to Europe. - Violating the rule of law by ignoring a judge’s explicit order to lift the moratorium on Gulf oil drilling. - Violating the rule of law by unilaterally refusing to enforce DOMA requirements (a law that needs to be repealed in the name of freedom but cannot be ignored by a President until that Constitutional process is completed). - Violating the rule of law by making high ranking government appointments while Congress was still in session, bypassing the checks and balances inherent in the Constitution. - Violating the rule of law by allowing the heads of his Cabinet departments to actively campaign for his reelection, a gross and unlawful violation of the Hatch Act. - Violating the rule of law by unilaterally trying to change welfare requirements as established the welfare reform legislation signed by the Clinton administration. - Violating the rule of law by selectively deciding to enforce or not enforce parts of current Federal immigration law relative to his dissatisfaction with the state of Arizona. - Violating the rule of law by allowing thousands of guns to illegally walk across the border into the hands of violent Mexican drug cartels under the Fast and Furious program. - Violating the rule of law by selectively deciding to enforce or not enforce parts of the current Federal welfare law. - Establishing a shadow government of czars, bypassing Constitutionally mandated reviews, vetting, and debate of all high ranking government officials. - Bypassing Constitutional checks and balances by implementing a long string of executive orders, the latest of which, Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions, gives the executive branch control over all forms of communications whenever it desires for whatever reason it wants, hardly a behavior conducive to liberty. 37) Failure to reduce the repugnant practice of cronyism in Washington by continuing to hand out taxpayer wealth to political cronies and campaign donors with little regard for what value the American taxpayer may get in return, with the most egregious examples including the alternative energy companies (e.g. Solyndra) and alternative auto companies (e.g. Fisker, Tesla, GM), wasting billions and billions of dollars in the process. 38) Failure to respect the right of American citizens to have a fair trial by their peers by authorizing the first official assassination of an American citizen in the history of our country and establishing a formal process to determine what other American citizens deserve to be assassinated by the Federal government in the future. 39) Failure to adopt more stringent safeguards to freedom when he automatically renewed the Patriot Act as is along with failing to appoint members to a panel, as prescribed by the Patriot Act, which is supposed to ensure that freedom and liberty are not destroyed by Patriot Act usage and abuses. 40) Failure to veto the NDAA legislation which could lead government officials to legally hold American citizens in custody without trial and without cause for as long as desired by the same government officials as long as those officials claim it is in the name of national security. 41) Failure to respect freedom of the press, trying many times to directly or indirectly shut down news outlets that hold and broadcast a contrary view of reality to their users and viewers. 42) Failure to approve the construction of the Keystone pipeline solely for political reasons, ignoring the fact that thousands of jobs would be created, without taxpayer support, and that the “dirty” crude oil from Canada will be burned somewhere in the world. If not in North America than likely in China so that environmental impacts will not be affected with or without the Keystone pipeline. 43) Failure to understand basic business mentality in that uncertainty is the greatest inhibitor to business, employment, and economic expansion and his approach to the economy has created tremendous uncertainty due to the following: - His insistence that tax policy be changed on a short term, ad hoc basis has added uncertainty to the marketplace and the economy. - His 2,500 page health care reform legislation and its dozens of new taxes and thousands of new rules and regulations has added uncertainty to the marketplace and the economy. - His 2,000 page financial industry reform legislation and its hundreds of new rules and regulations has added uncertainty to the marketplace and the economy. - Thousands of other regulations from all Federal departments during his administration have added uncertainty to the marketplace and the economy. His continued class warfare rhetoric has added uncertainty to the marketplace and the economy. No wonder we have suffered through the worst post recession period in a very long time, the uncertainty this administration has introduced into our lives has led businesses and entrepreneurs to be cautious and conservative and the resultant economic growth to be anemic. 44) Failure to recognize that small business owners are hardworking, risk taking heroes when he unbelievably asserted at a campaign stop in Roanoke, Virginia that business owners are not responsible for the success of their businesses, slamming the very people who provide benefits to society and jobs and benefits to fellow citizens. 45) Failure to understand that great leaders (FDR, Churchill, Lincoln, Washington) unite their people during times of stress and challenges with this President constantly trying to divide, and conquer Americans with his class warfare rhetoric that pits rich against poor, liberal against conservative, pro life against pro choice, unemployed against employed, etc. 46) Failure to speak out when Daniel Adkins, Elizabeth Hutchenson, and Ladarious Phillips were killed, electing to speak out only in the Trayvon Martin killing because it was politically advantageous for him to do so for the Martin case but not the other cases. 47) Failure to give individual Americans recognition and White House photo opportunities for great teaching, heroic police and fire fighting acts, outstanding job creation, compassionate acts of charity, etc., instead, saving photo opportunities for untold numbers of college and professional athletic teams. 48) Failure to stop Iran from being three and a half years closer to having nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them. 49) Failure to stop North Korea from being three and a half years closer to having nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them. 50) Failure to establish a peaceful process to resolve the long standing Palestinian/Israeli problem. 51) Failure to foresee the Arab spring, resulting in an unpreparedness that has considerably weakened the American influence in the entire Middle East region. 52) Failure to establish the necessary civilian and military platforms in Afghanistan, wasting American lives and wealth in the process, a failure that will lead to the reestablishment of a Taliban and terrorist state once NATO combat troops leave in two years. 53) Failure to understand what just about every other country in world understands: that airport security should be trusted to trained private sector companies, with appropriate government oversight, rather than another gigantic, ineffective, bumbling, and groping set of government employees in a bumbling, crime infested bureaucracy. 54) Failure to understand that a Presidential political “enemies list” is a bad, anti-freedom idea when Nixon put the first one together and the concept has not gotten any better with this President’s issuing of his own enemies list and the ensuing harassment of innocent Americans. 55) Failure to lead on these previous topics relates to his inability to build consensus, to seek diversity of opinions, to consider other approaches, to be inclusive. When he does not get what he wants in the way he wants it, he gives up and blames the Republicans or someone else, That is not leadership, that is ego. Great leaders are inclusive and unifying, non-leaders are selfish, divisive, and inwardly focused. 56) Failure to understand that “Great leaders give the credit and take the blame.” This President gets it backward, taking credit when things go right, always inserting himself and his ego into the center of positive attention while backing away from the spotlight when things go wrong. 57) Failure to protect our embassies and sovereign soil in other countries when our embassies were attacked and their security sometimes breached. 58) Failure to protect our consulate in Libya despite warnings from Libyan and American security experts that a terrorist attack was highly likely, resulting in the needless deaths of our Libyan ambassador and three other Americans, a security failing so atrocious that it was native Libyan citizens that took the dying ambassador to the hospital, not U.S. security personnel. 59) Failure to be truthful with America immediately after the terrorist attack in Libya, claiming that a poor quality anti-Islam YouTube video caused an ad hoc attack when the administration knew it was a coordinated terror organization siege. 60) Failure to attend more than half of his daily security briefings, including the security briefing the day after the fatal attack on the our consulate in Libya even though he had enough time to fly to Las Vegas for a campaign fund raising event. 61) Failure to clear his calendar to honor a meeting requested from Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu to discuss the rising nuclear weapon crisis with Iran but who had enough time to hold dozens of fund raisers over the past few months. 62) With record setting welfare payments and record numbers of Americans receiving food stamp aid, the Obama administration has weakened the American heritage of independence and hard work, replacing it with a dependence on central government favors. I may be wrong but I do not remember Carter coming anywhere close to this number of failures during his entire four years as President. I do not think he set anywhere near the number of records that the Obama administration has set as far as the weakest economic recovery ever, the most failed economic programs, the most consecutive months of unemployment above 8%, the most Americans ever on food stamps, etc. I do not remember Carter having nearly as many negative firsts as Obama such as the first government sanctioned American citizen assassination, the first ever U.S. credit downgrade, the first ever TRILLION dollar annual government deficit, etc. I do not remember Carter having nearly as much disdain for individual Constitutional rights, Constitutional tenets, or the rule of law. I do not remember Carter having so many excuses for the dire economic conditions that his administration put the country through, unlike the Obama administration which has an excuse for everything. I do not remember Carter having so much disdain for freedom of the press, political opponents, American women, individual freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and small businesses. So, in summary, why does this President deserve a second term, based on the list of failures from above: - His understanding of micro economics, how businesses think, work, and succeed, is non-existent, resulting in a high degree of business uncertainty and anemic economic growth. - His understanding for macro economics, how the overall economy works, has been abysmal, resulting in failed, short-sighted economic programs. - His lack of respect for the Constitution and the rule of law has been disgraceful, endangering personal freedom and liberty. - His inability to lead has been disappointing. - His foreign policy successes are minimal. - His ability to divide the country with class warfare actions and rhetoric has been surprising, based on the promise of his 2008 campaign: “The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party.” I truly believe that the President does not “get” America: - He does not get that American families are losing their homes at record rates to foreclosure. - Even though the unemployment rate is still around a morale crushing 8%, he does not get it and is so out of touch with America he thinks that the private sector is “doing fine.” - He does not get it or understand of how American small businesses owners struggle, scrimp and save, make sacrifices of time, energy, and family but in his mind do not deserve the credit for building successful businesses, creating value for society, expand the economy, and provide jobs for others. - He does not get how understand Americans who live outside of major cities, considering them “bitter” as they “cling to their religion and guns.” But most of all, Obama’s inability to take personal responsibility for his actions and the ineptness of his administration is most distressing. When a so-called leader keeps looking backward and blaming Bush, ATM machines, the Euro crisis, the Arab spring, the Japanese tsunami, the Republicans in the House, wealthy Americans who do not pay enough in taxes, and other aspects of life, he ceases to be a leader and becomes a dead weight on the future. Leaders look forward, leaders care about more than their self image, leaders unite, leaders give credit and take the blame, leaders understand and obey the rule of law agreed to by all within the democracy. This President and this administration have none of these leadership traits. And that is why Carter, in my opinion, is now off the hook for the most inept, ineffective, and destructive Presidency of my lifetime, being replaced by the Obama administration.
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