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12.31.2009 0

Editorial: Barack Obama and the Salmon Syndrome

  • On: 01/26/2010 09:32:17
  • In: Barack Obama
  • Let’s call it the “Salmon Syndrome.” Alaskan Salmon, we are told, swim thousands of miles upstream in pursuit of their own gratification. After last week, Barack Obama and his fellow Big Government Democrats must know the feeling.

    Within the course of a single week:

    • Errol Southers, Obama’s choice to head up the TSA was forced to withdraw his nomination after it was discovered he had lied to Congress, identified pro-lifers as domestic terrorists, and, oh, by the way, didn’t think we could win the war on terrorism anyway.
    • Scott Brown trounced Obama favorite Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts special election for “the Kennedy seat” after making Obama’s government health care takeover the key issue of the campaign – thereby stopping ObamaCare dead in its tracks.
    • Reversing 63 years of restrictions on free speech, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations could, indeed, directly campaign for the candidates of their choice, causing Obama – clearly not one of the candidates of most of their choices – to term the ruling “devastating.”
    • The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that union membership in the U.S. had plummeted a staggering 10 percent in 2009, bringing it to an all-time low of just 7.2 percent of all private sector workers – and further debasing the value of Obama’s cozy relationship with union bosses.
    • The world in general stiffly denounced Obama’s White House-ballyhooed efforts to provide U.S. government relief to the suffering millions in earthquake-ravished Haiti, specifically citing the “bottleneck” created by Obama’s takeover of the Port-Au-Prince airport as having prevented the delivery of food, water, and medical assistance.

    Sometimes, it just seems like everything goes wrong. And that’s particularly the case when one does so little right.

    For Obama’s part, he clearly should never have nominated a certifiable radical to head up a pivotal government bureau. He should never have scurried up to Massachusetts to make heath care the decisive issue. He should never have revealed his utter disdain for both the First Amendment and the Supreme Court by vowing to “overturn” the free speech decision. He should never have put all of his eggs in the union bosses’ increasingly barren baskets. And he should never, ever have allowed his spokespersons to invite the public to compare his “rescue” of Haiti with Bush’s “failure” in New Orleans.

    Now, with the mid-term elections only eleven months away – and especially after Barack Obama’s week from hell – most would probably think that the president whose narcissistic inclinations is increasingly raising observers’ eyebrows would take a step back and re-evaluate his own persuasive powers. Not to mention his highly unpopular leftwing agenda.

    Not so, according to a report this week from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. When queried by Arkansas Congressman Marion Berry as to why the 2010 midterm elections would not be a repeat of the disastrous 1994 midterm elections, Obama responded, “Well the big difference here and in ’94 was that you’ve got me.”

    Just to make sure that all and sundry get the message that he is right and everyone else is wrong, Obama, according to the New York Times “is reconstituting the team that helped him win the White House to counter Republican challenges in the midterm elections and recalibrate after political setbacks that have narrowed his legislative ambitions.”

    And as the chill waters rush rapidly by, the flopping, floundering, battered and bruised Barack Obama – blithely oblivious to anything other than the headlong pursuit of his own gratification — continues to swim upstream. Call it the Salmon Syndrome.


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