October 22, 2012
By Witt Meyer
Did you vote for Barack Obama in 2008? A lot of people did – obviously.
What a time it has been. However, now we find, much NEED for improvement, brought on by all that 'Hope and Change'.
Only decades earlier, a black man –
couldn’t even drink from the same water fountain as a white man - let
alone become president of the United States. A hundred years prior to
that, he may well have been counted another man’s property.
On Nov. 4, 2008, however, millions of Americans gathered at the ballot box to prove, once
and for all, we as a nation had healed from our
disgraceful, self-inflicted wounds of racial abuse, bias, and division. That we could elect an African-American to lead the free world we felt indeed was a good thing.
We just happened to elect the wrong African-American.
In life, we sometimes find that the ideas of something far outweigh what they truley ARE. As a boy, I once ordered, a
pair of X-ray glasses that promised to allow me to see the bones beneath
my hand. For a young boy the two weeks it took for
the glasses to arrive seemed like eternity. Once they did arrive, I ripped into the package and put them on,
darting my head to-and-fro. It’s difficult to express my level of
disappointment. As I quickly discovered, the glasses merely formed a
halo effect around objects, creating the illusion of transparency. I
felt embarrassed. I had 'been had'.
Barack Obama’s presidency has been a halo effect. Like I did so many
years ago, in 2008, America fell victim to false advertising. As the
past four years have demonstrated beyond any serious debate, the idea of
President Obama was far better than the reality of President Obama. We
were promised the world. We were promised transparency; but we were sold
an illusion. We got took.
Indeed, during the 2008 campaign, a then-Sen. Barack Obama promised
us that, if elected, we would look back upon the moment he took office
and “tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide
care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment
when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal;
this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and
restored our image as the last, best hope on earth.”
That was the idea of President Obama. That was what many good,
well-meaning people voted for. That was the hope offered and the change
promised.
That is NOT what we got....!
Though it’s certainly not a comprehensive analysis, during the second
presidential debate, Mitt Romney, in response to Mr. Obama’s attempts
to gloss over his mounting leadership failures, summarized a few of the
big ones. While addressing an audience member who, perhaps like you,
voted for Obama in 2008, Romney observed, in part, the following:
“I think you know better. I think you know that these last four years
haven’t been good as the president just described - and that you don’t
feel like you’re confident that the next four years are going to be
much better either. …
“He said that, by now, we’d have unemployment at 5.4 percent. The
difference between where it is and 5.4 percent is 9 million Americans
without work. …
“He said he would have, by now, put forward a plan to reform Medicare
and Social Security because he pointed out they’re on the road to
bankruptcy. He would reform them. He’d get that done. He hasn’t even
made a proposal on either one.
“He said in his first year he’d put out an immigration plan that
would deal with our immigration challenges. Didn’t even file it.
“This is a president who has not been able to do what he said he’d
do. He said that he’d cut the deficit in half: He hasn’t done that
either. In fact, he doubled it.
“He said that by now, middle-income families would have a reduction
in their health insurance premiums by $2,500 a year. It’s gone up by
$2,500 a year. And if Obamacare is … implemented fully, it’ll be another
$2,500. …
“The middle class is getting crushed under the policies of a
president who has not understood what it takes to get the economy
working again. … The number of people who are still looking for work
is still 23 million Americans.
“There are more people in poverty, one out of six people in poverty.
“How about food stamps? When he took office, 32 million people were
on food stamps. Today, 47 million people are on food stamps. How about
the growth of the economy? It’s growing more slowly this year than last
year – and more slowly last year than the year before. …”
The president has tried, but his policies haven’t worked.
Recently, my wife and I attended an outdoor festival in central
Virginia. Although the event was not political, there were people from
both the Obama and Romney camps handing out campaign stickers and other
items. I suspect that if a poll were taken, liberals outnumbered
conservatives by about two-to-one.
That’s why I was so taken aback. Although we saw dozens of people
wearing Romney stickers, we only saw one man wearing an Obama sticker.
We walked up to a fellow with a gray pony tail, John Lennon glasses, and Birkenstocks. He was wearing a Romney sticker.
“Mind if I ask why you’re voting for Mitt Romney?” I asked.
His reply – and these were his words, not mine – was short and to the point: “Because I refuse to be that stupid twice!”
Are you listening America??
Changing one’s mind doesn’t always reveal a tendency toward indecision. Sometimes, changing one’s mind reveals
Sometimes, changing one’s mind reveals a tendency toward WISDOM!
SweetLilTT
United States
