Don't Blame Him -- He's Only the President

Conservatives have been unfair to Barack Obama.  They blame him for all sorts of things.  But it’s never his fault.  Just ask him.

The economy?  We all know that was Bush’s fault.

The fact that millions of Americans are still out of work, the lucky ones settling for part-time jobs?  Hey, he’s president not a magician!

Who was responsible when the nation’s credit rating was downgraded?  Obstinate Republicans, who else?

Who should take the rap for Solyndra, the solar company that President Obama helped finance with $535 million of our tax dollars before it went bankrupt?  Blame that one on the Chinese, who the president says “flooded the market” with subsidized solar panels, which made it impossible for Solyndra to compete.

And now we have the latest example of how nothing is Barack Obama’s fault – even if it happens right under his nose: the White House tour fiasco.  Just the other day, the president told ABC News, it’s not his fault that the tours got cancelled. The Secret Service made him do it.

“You know, I have to say this was not a decision that went up to the White House,” he told George Stephanopoulos.  “But what the Secret Service explained to us was that they’re going to have to furlough some folks. What furloughs mean is that people lose a day of work and a day of pay.”

That makes sense, right? The leader of the free world, the most powerful man on the planet, simply could not tell the Secret Service to cut something else and keep the tours going?  Sure!

When I heard him say that to Stephanopoulos I thought, this isn’t something a man would say.  It’s how little kids talk when something goes wrong.  It’s never their fault.  Somebody else is always to blame, somebody else always made them do it.

In addition to having only a distant relationship with the truth, Mr. Obama has that rare ability to be breathtakingly hypocritical and not so much as give us a wink while he’s being two-faced.

Remember in 2008, when he was running for president, when he slammed then-president Bush for adding $4 trillion to the national debt?  He said it was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.”

“The problem,” candidate Obama said, “is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, driving up our national debt from $5 trillion dollars for the first 42 presidents -- number 43 added $4 trillion dollars by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion dollars of debt that we are going to have to pay back -- $30,000 for every man, woman and child.”

Candidate Obama said that on July 3, 2008, at a campaign event in Fargo, North Dakota.  But now that he’s president and has managed to make George W. Bush look like a cheapskate, the debt crisis suddenly is no big deal.

In that interview on ABC, the president said, ““We don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt. In fact, for the next 10 years, it’s going to be in a sustainable place.”

So let’s see if we have this right:  President Bush was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic” for racking up $4 trillion-plus in debt … for taking the total to about $10 trillion … for putting “every man, woman and child” in hock for $30,000.

But now President Obama says we have no debt crisis even though he will wind up adding -- not $4  or $5 trillion to our national debt -- but about $10 trillion before he leaves office and finally gets some free time to play golf.  And while every single American was in hock for $30,000 because of Bush’s “irresponsible” accumulation of debt, today every man, woman and child is in hock for over $53,000 – and counting.

If George W. Bush was “unpatriotic” this ought to make Barack Obama an out and out traitor, which is why I marvel at how he can blame everybody but himself for our problems, how he can speak out of both sides of his mouth -- and get away with it.

Yes, it’s true that his approval numbers are dropping.  Real Clear Politics puts his average at 48.5%.  A couple of reputable polls have him at 45%.  Maybe the American people are finally catching on.  I hope so.  But somehow I doubt it.

Stay tuned.