After one year of Obama, there's little to celebrate

Never in American politics has someone come to power on such a bubble of expectation; never, inevitably, has the pricking of that bubble caused such shock. -- The London Telegraph, 11/3/09

Some may say there is nothing to celebrate after one year of Barack Obama's presidency as the country reels from a staggering debt, Democrats in Washington with a deaf ear toward citizens, and unemployment that has steadily risen to over 10% even though Obama promised more jobs if the stimulus bill was passed -- instead, there are less jobs.

The American mainstream media, ever walking lockstep with this president that they love, will not write about his shortfalls. But the European press will ... and has. Take a look at Britain's Telegraph as it looks back at Obama's first year as president.

On the health care bill:

The rhetoric that bore Mr Obama to office proved equal to electoral success, but not to economic management. Moreover, Mr Obama's most coveted legislative aim, the creation of a sort of national health service, remains elusive. The Wall Street Journal, the newspaper here of serious money, has just savaged the Bill as perhaps the worst inflicted on the American people since the era of Roosevelt. Its projected cost – $1.055 trillion over 10 years – is regarded as madness when America has a level of debt so astronomical that it (just) exceeds, per capita, that of Britain; and few outside a hard core of Obama devotees see it delivering what is needed, where it is needed.

On the Nobel Peace Prize:

Internationally, the lustre has worn off, too. Mr Obama might have won the Nobel Peace Prize, but the less said about that the better. The award was apparently decided in February, days after he entered the Oval Office.

On the European missile defense America had in place to protect our allies:

He gave up his missile defence system in eastern Europe: we all imagined the Russians would give something in return, but we are still waiting.

On trying to obtain the Olympics for Chicago:

More recently, he went to Copenhagen to try to secure the 2016 Olympics for Chicago, and failed.

On Afghanistan:

Now he is immersed in a deliberative exercise about whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. ... What the dilemma illustrates is that governing is not so easy as it might once have seemed; ... the expertise of the Obama campaign in managing image is useless when managing a country.

On America's staggering debt:

For all the difficulties of America's imperial burden, it is the domestic, and particularly the economic, front that Mr Obama and his colleagues are finding hardest to defend. America rejoiced when unemployment dropped in July, but the dawn was false. In the next two months it rose again by nearly 700,000. The projected cumulative deficit for the next 10 years is now $9 trillion, having just been revised upwards by $2 trillion. Perhaps it is because these sums are incomprehensible that Americans are no longer shocked by them: but someone will have to pay. There is no sign of the budget going into the black in any of the next 10 years....

On his attack of Fox News Channel:

Mr. Obama seems also to have made another bad mistake. Apparently shocked by the virulence of Fox News Channel's attacks on him, he has declared war on the network. ... Many voters feel the President has diminished himself by admitting to being so bothered by Fox, which for its part has turned up the abuse.

On his attack of conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh:

... Rush Limbaugh, the talk radio presenter, whom Mr. Obama and his friends have made the mistake of branding the leader of the Republican Party. That was meant to be an insult to the Republicans: it has transmuted into a further proof of the administration's weakness, and has elevated Mr. Limbaugh to an even higher position of influence. The President appears thin-skinned, immature and inexperienced. Mr. Limbaugh now taunts him outrageously to see what reaction he can provoke, such as by saying last weekend (on Fox, of course) that the President's attendance at the repatriation of dead American servicemen was a "photo opportunity" contrived because his popularity was slumping. The gloves are not just off; the knuckledusters are on.

The article goes on to say that Mr. Obama had better grow up fast because the 2010 Congressional elections may cause a shockwave through the Democrat Party. Sadly, America has been damaged and no amount of growing up is going to make it better.