During the 1980’s, Massachusetts had a TV advertising campaign to promote tourism to the state that had as its musical refrain “The spirit of Massachusetts is the spirit of America.”  The tune remains in my head today, and I cannot help but evoke its memory in light of what politically just occurred in the Bay State.

Scott Brown won a significant and historic electoral victory, the likes of which were not even imaginable to most just one month ago.  Make no mistake; there is no overstating the magnitude of this on both the political landscape and the president’s agenda.  If the Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia this past November represented voters blowing the whistle on the rapid expansion of government that has occurred in one year of the Obama presidency, then Massachusetts’s voters pulled the emergency break. 

Derailed, is the massively flawed health care legislation that came to represent the arrogant and dysfunctional process of a government commanded and controlled by one party.  The implications go much further, and will overwhelm other items on the president’s legislative wish list, most prominently cap and trade, more stimulus spending and any further extension of the debt ceiling. 

The spirit of Massachusetts in this special election was not about embracing one political party over the other.  It was in its truest form, rejecting the encroachment of an overreaching central authority that went too far in threatening the liberty, freedom and balanced government that we Americans hold dear. 

It was also a signal to the powers in Washington that they are painfully out of touch with the concerns of its citizens.  According to exit polling done by Rasmussen Reports, voters who were most concerned about deficit reduction, taxes and national security overwhelmingly lined up behind Scott Brown.  The only notable groups to support Martha Coakley were those whose primary concern were health care and approved of President Obama’s job performance.  In essence, it was not just the issue of health care on the minds of the voters.  It was the Democrats laser focus on health care reform at the expense of everything else (i.e.: jobs and the economy) that was the source of consternation for voters.  

We have grown accustomed to viewing New England, particularly Massachusetts as a stronghold of liberalism, both politically and socially.  But it’s that exact spirit that makes them so capable of forging revolution against oppressive government.  Liberals, by definition are “not bound by authoritarianism.”  It is no wonder that more than 50% of registered voters in Massachusetts are not enrolled in either of the two major parties.  That means the spirit of Massachusetts is liberal enough to even throw Democrats out of power. 

Will the spirit of Massachusetts be the spirit of America in this midterm election?  Though this will be the topic of endless analysis for the next ten months, Democrats are in undeniable electoral decline.  Furthermore, the White House response to the election in Massachusetts is strikingly lousy, especially compared to the more blunt and contrite comments of senators like Evan Bayh of Indiana, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who viewed the elections results as a wake up call for Democrats to slow down the Obama agenda of bigger government.  However, in the view of President Obama, the same populist anger that elected Scott Brown elected him.  Than why did it abandon the president in just one short year?

If the Obama logic were true, Scott Brown would have been ahead in the polls long before a week prior to the election.  In fact, Martha Coakley’s victory was considered such a far gone conclusion I never heard one political analyst, myself included, mention a Scott Brown victory as a viable option to stopping the health care bill until the race started gaining national attention these past few weeks. 

What the heavily liberal and independent Massachusetts electorate seized was their opportunity to restore checks and balances to our system of government, which was the framers intent.  They capitalized on the moment to influence the national agenda by enforcing the will of the people on its misguided political leaders through the ballot box.   Like in 1775 at the battle of Lexington and Concord, in 2010 the spirit of Massachusetts will be the spirit of America!

Terrorism has a way of refocusing our priorities as a nation and a world, but in the case of President Obama, presents an inconvenient reality.  His administration hoped to downgrade the global war on terror as a “manmade disaster” and classify our exhaustive efforts to combat it as part of an “overseas contingency operation.”  Based on comments by Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napalitano early last year, the dangers presented by Islamic terrorists were on par with the domestic threat that came from right-wing extremists and disgruntled veterans. 

Many would like to characterize the criticism of our homeland security and intelligence communities, as well as President Obama’s leadership on those matters, in light of the recent terror attempt onboard an American airliner about to land at an American airport on the most joyous day of the Christian calendar, as motivated by politics.  I offer a contrarian view that suggests the real variable is fear.  Fear that the President of the United States does not understand what it takes to keep us safe in a global environment in which we battle irrational and fundamental agents of death and destruction, rather than soldiers of a standing army from an enemy nation.  Fear that he places a greater premium on not insulting global intellectual opinion than on protecting our homeland at all costs.  And fears that his actions will contribute to a perception that America lacks the ability and resolve to fight terror, only leading to more of it.  

Policy disagreements, not partisanship, are behind this fear.  It is not based on his remarks and rhetoric for which he is universally considered to be masterful.  It is rooted in a series of actions, policies and gestures taken in this past year that show a systematic relegation of global terror as secondary to issues that are geared more to the president’s strengths and interests (i.e., health care, climate change and international prestige).          

I offer 10 examples that illustrate a serious lack of judgment on the part of President Obama and his administration that has led many of us to hold little regard and minimal confidence in his ability to handle the global terrorism issues we face: 

10.  Reclassifying the Global War on Terror—based on an official governmental memorandum early in the Obama presidency, the nomenclature for what was known as the “Global War on Terror” was changed.  It would officially become known as an “Overseas Contingency Operation” and terror was considered a manmade disaster.   This is important because it showed a shift in American policy away from viewing the fighting of terror from a war footing.  It would be a precursor to the administration viewing Islamic terror through a pre 9/11 prisms.   

9. Closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay—this is perhaps the first big policy blunder of the new Obama White House.  Immediately upon taking office, President Obama signed an executive order to close Guantanamo Bay within his first year.  This deadline has passed, though there is a plan to move the prisoners held there to an American federal prison located 100 miles from Chicago, Ill.  Though this effort won him acclaim overseas, it is still met with hostile resistance at home.  In fact, it has just been discovered that prior to this most recent terrorist attack, the president had agreed to free several prisoners and return them for rehabilitation in Yemen.  Now that Yemen has been exposed as a hotbed of al-Qaeda activity, the administration has quietly and abruptly reversed that policy.  Nonetheless, their goal is to still close the prison and dump the hundreds of enemy combatants into the American justice system, furnished them with all of the rights and accommodations afforded our domestic prisoners.   

8. Prosecuting the members of our intelligence community who kept us safe for eight years—this is the ultimate political payback to allies in the far left and the American Civil Liberties Union that may have feared that President Obama would get “Stockholm Syndrome” once he actually became commander-in-chief.  This decision by the Attorney General will forever change the way our intelligence and military community obtains critical information from enemy combatants, and again places greater value on the rights of those that seek to destroy us over those who have sacrificed to protect us.  

7. President Obama’s Cairo speech— during one of his first major international trips, President Obama embarked on a campaign to convince Europe and the Arab world that he had a completely different worldview than his predecessor.  That was fair enough, except he chose to undermine “American Exceptionalism” in the process.  Instead of portraying strength, he exposed vulnerabilities in our nation’s tolerance and resolve, giving encouragement to those who seek to use our own politics and policies against us.   

6. Air Force One photo-op over downtown New York City— though totally symbolic in nature, this bureaucratic snafu left many in lower Manhattan, including the New York City mayor’s office and police department who had no prior notification, in complete panic mode.  The lack of sensitivity toward the city that bore the brunt of the 9-11 attacks, demonstrates a fundamental amnesia of those events that seems to have afflicted many in the Obama administration. 

5. Moving the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammad to New York City— in keeping with the theme of victimizing the city most affected by the attacks of September 11^th, the decision to have the trial of KSM moved from a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay to a U.S. Federal Courthouse blocks away from the World Trade Center site is among the most egregiously incompetent decisions of the Obama Justice Department.  The mastermind of the 9-11 attacks had already confessed to the attacks and was headed toward a swift and deserved justice in a military court.  Instead, he will have every opportunity to use our own justice system and its full offerings of civil liberties, all at American taxpayers expense.    

4. Failure to classify the Fort Hood murderer as a terrorist— it seems our uber-rational and collected president did not see fit to consider a self-described jihadist, who happened to be a member of the American military, as a terrorist after his violent rampage left dozens of soldiers dead or injured.  Again, what’s in a name?  A lot! There is a major difference between a deranged soldier who had suffered from sort of service related trauma and a radicalized Islamist who used his position as a military doctor to campaign against the efforts of his own country and ultimately kill fellow soldiers in the name Islam.   

3. Obama administration cuts terror funding for New York City— I’m not trying to be an overly partisan New Yorker on this one, but even Senator Chuck Schumer shares our outrage at this.  Under President Obama, the Department of Homeland Security has cut tens of millions to the city that remains the country’s and the world’s top terror target.  These grants mainly covered ports and transportation security.  There was plenty of money to rapidly expand government in virtually every other sector however.   

2. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano—now that her infamous remarks in response to the Christmas Day terror attack that “the system worked” have gone completely viral, we are beginning to see the lack of competence exposed among the people President Obama put in charge of our safety.  While the systematic intelligence failures that even the president conceded had contributed to this attack can not be blamed on her, there is little doubt that Secretary Napolitano is not the type of dynamic leader that can proactively lead a department that needs to operate at the top its game as much now as in the immediate years after the 9/11 attacks.   

1. Attorney General Eric Holder—if FEMA were to put yellow tape around only one Obama administration official, it would be Eric Holder.  The feckless and dangerously liberal attorney general is as close to a federal disaster as this country has experienced during this past year.  From launching the investigation and eventual prosecution of members of an already demoralized intelligence community, to offering the trappings of the fairest justice system in the world to enemy combatants who have a completely legal military tribunal system available for their prosecution, this attorney general has demonstrated that he is better suited to be a pro bono attorney for the ACLU than the steward of the greatest justice system in the world.

As if the American people needed another illustration of the dysfunction in Washington, the Senate Democrats forced forward health care legislation, insisting that a bad bill was better than no bill.  After all, this was the advice given by former President Bill Clinton, a veteran of health reform battles past, who warned that failure to pass anything could lead to devastating political losses in the midterm election.  Unfortunately for the Democrats, it might be too late for that. 

Though it is still possible that the health care legislation the Senate began voting on in the dark of night and passed against the hard deadline of the Christmas recess may stall in conference with the house; conventional wisdom is that the deal is done, possibly presenting the president with the ultimate “feather in his cap” by the State of the Union.  But the collateral damage this process has brought to our health care system, governmental institutions and public trust has only just begun.

 The magnitude of this legislation cannot be underestimated.  It has the potential to negatively affect medical care in terms of access, quality and costs in ways that no congressional report can quantify.   Higher taxes are not only inevitable, but the sole “fail-safe” in the event that the CBO scoring of this bill and its impact on the deficit is wrong.  Even in a best-case scenario, taxes on most Americans will go up and almost a half-trillion dollars will be cut from Medicare as a result of this legislation.  There will be long-term implications and unintended consequences that have the potential to destroy both our economy and health care system. 

 The Senate, often considered the vestige of thoughtful deliberation in our governmental system, where the seasoned maturity of the upper house would temper the reactionary impulses of the lower house, delivered the fatal blow to the hopes that this process could have been done in a bipartisan and transparent manner.  This lack of cooperation on such a significant piece of legislation is among the most unprecedented things we have seen from an administration that seems to think everything they do is unprecedented.   Let’s take 1965 as a point of reference.  President Johnson, who was elected by a larger electoral margin than President Obama—whose party controlled 68 seats in the Senate and two-thirds of the House, greater majorities than exist today—managed to pass his sweeping domestic agenda that included both Medicare and Medicaid with one-third of Republican Senators and half of the Republicans in the House supporting it.  Is it possible that a bill can be called bi-partisan when only one Republican in both chambers saw fit to support it?  Can a process be called transparent when the only people at the decision making table are members of one party? After more than 230 years as the greatest democracy in the world, we deserve a better legislative process than what we just witnessed.   

 There has been exhaustive commentary and analysis about the health care debate, both on political points and merits of the policy.  The ever-changing nature of the legislation in both the House and the Senate had made it difficult to follow “the bill” with much accuracy.  Ultimately, however, in poll after poll, the American people do not like the Democrats’ prescription.  In fairness, this likely includes progressives who expected there to be a public option, since that is what they were lead to believe was the point of reforming health care in the first place. 

Though the top-line numbers on the president’s job approval and health care are weak, his real problems lay in the crosstabs to these polls, creating a fine mess for Democrats, less than one year from the midterm elections.  He is bleeding support among independents, seniors and Hispanics in significant numbers.  The intensity of voters who disapprove of his handling on healthcare is far greater than those who are in support.  Even in the areas of trust and likeability, which continue to be among his strengths, he has seen double-digit drops since the health care debate began last June.   

Sensing the American people’s appetite for socialism and government expansion just exceeded its limit, Senate Democrats are now asking the president to pull the controversial “cap and trade” proposal from the table, fearing that the combination of their votes on that and healthcare would be the one-two punch knockout they are hoping to avoid.  That may be too little, too late.  According to a recent WSJ/NBC poll, 34 percent of respondents called this Congress’s performance one of the worst ever.  In October 2006, just before the Democrats took over the Congress, 25 percent of respondents felt that way, and in 1994, during the October prior to the Republican takeover of Congress, just 16 percent answered the same way.  It may be safe to say that in 2010, the Congressional Democrats are off to a bad start, and they have the public’s overdose on health care politics to thank.

One of the few explicit powers given to the President of the United States in our Constitution is the role of commander in chief.  In this fashion, most presidents, even the mediocre ones, have risen to the occasion in times of war or military conflict, with the public often willing to give them the most latitude when our soldiers are in harm’s way. 

In the case of the current administration, there is an obvious lack of engagement in the conflict that even President Obama has called a war of necessity: Afghanistan.  His lack of communication with his own handpicked general, Stanley McChrystal, has been well documented and he recently dismissed all options presented to him on the war effort, further delaying a troop increase that is universally considered critical to the mission.   

It’s the president’s deficit of resolve and vigilance in fighting the war on terror, however, that has recently been exposed in the Fort Hood massacre that resulted in the largest number of American casualties at the hands of a terrorist on our soil since 9/11.  More than political correctness, it is this previous point that should be the source of the most outrage. 

Former President George W. Bush was often ridiculed and mocked for the vernacular he employed in getting the public to understand the massive threat to our country posed by the vast and well-organized global network of Islamic extremists.  He vowed to find the “evil-doers” and “smoke them out of their holes.”  I would even periodically wince at some of his remarks, fearing that they played into the notion among elites both here and abroad that he was an American cowboy without the diplomatic bandwidth to build a successful coalition to fight global terror.  But I always felt he was right.  

What Bush did have was a clear understanding that our enemy had patience and determination, and he never once wavered from his resolve or strategy to keep America safe.  Subsequently, we had more than seven years without a domestic attack after 9/11, with numerous plots foiled and thousands of terrorists captured or killed.  Bush would often warn us that we would have to be right 100 percent of the time and the enemy only had to be right once to wage a successful terror attack.   

Unfortunately, that rang true on November 5, 2009, when a deranged American soldier—who described himself as a Muslim first, subscribed to the notion of “jihad” and had made several attempts to communicate with al-Qaeda—exacted his own act of terror at a military installation deep in America’s heartland.

In the aftermath of this travesty, both the left and the right have misidentified the more problematic enabler of such an act.  Liberals, particularly those in the media, see this as an opportunity to engage in a national therapy session and discuss the psychological strain of war on the troops.  While this is a legitimate issue that warrants sensitivity, it had nothing to do with the attack at Fort Hood.  On the right, we are focused on political correctness as among the culprits in leading up to this evil.  There is no doubt that if the attack was committed by a “McVeigh” protégé, the media would be focused on right-wing extremists.  However, I believe political correctness has more to do with the subtext than the cause.  Consequently, we are letting the more serious failure get blurred.  The fact is that the war on terror has been actively undermined by the Obama administration in both attitude and policy.  In his first year as president, he has seemed far more interested in healthcare reform and climate change than national and homeland security. 

Whatever your personal feelings were about former President Bush, his administration treated the threat of terrorism as a 24-hour a day, 365 day-a year operation.  The net result was a safer country, where the errors made were on the side of defending the homeland.  His policies reflected a stronger desire to protect our freedom as Americans than the civil liberties of enemy combatants whose mission it was to exploit such freedoms and cause harm to our country. 

By closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, having the Justice Department investigate our intelligence personnel for interrogation practices and calling terrorist attacks  “man-made disasters,” and changing the term formerly known as the “global war on terror” to “Overseas Contingency Operation,” the Obama administration has been systematically dismantling the very infrastructure built to protect our homeland.  These policy changes are dangerous for so many reasons, but when set against the backdrop of President Obama’s aggressive domestic ambitions and lopsided distribution of his energies on fighting to expand the size of government, they are unconscionable.   

The president’s failure to recognize that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s actions constitute a terrorist attack are a indication that he doesn’t grasp the gravity and complexity of the threats against us which can not be handled properly through a conventional law enforcement response; or worse, believes that fighting terrorism is not worth the trade-off of redirecting his focus away from his domestic agenda.

The elections that took place on Tuesday were a big deal. Contrary to the spin from pundits on both sides, the victors were not just the candidates or the political party they represented. The real winners were the voters who—without representation by a special interest group—only get to be heard on Election Day. To use a popular cliché, they spoke loud and clear.

Overly interpreting mandates is generally a fool’s errand, but in the case of New Jersey and Virginia, it is safe to say there was a universal consensus that people wanted a change of direction. Against the backdrop of a rapidly expanding federal government during this past year, voters saw the virtue in slowing things down. Credit deserves to be shared among the message, the messengers and the voters for standing up for themselves against the electoral odds. After all, New Jersey and Virginia were two states that voted to elect Barack Obama by healthy margins just a year ago. This year, populism came roaring back, but unlike 2008, the Republican candidates were the beneficiaries.

The most under-reported stories of the 2009 election were the races for county executive in two suburban New York counties. In my home county of Westchester, where the Democrats hold a 2-1 enrollment advantage, a mainstream conservative Republican ousted a 12-year incumbent by a double-digit margin. In heavily Democratic Nassau County, another incumbent Democrat fell and the Republicans regained control of the county legislature. The campaign messages were simple: end the tax madness and restore ethics in county governments that forgot what it was like to operate under a system of checks and balances.

By sticking to a message of limited and responsible government that is responsive to the concerns of the people, Governor-elect Christie in New Jersey, Governor-elect McDonnell in Virginia, County Executive-elect Astorino in Westchester and County Executive-elect Magnano in Nassau demonstrated what many of us on the happy right have long argued: the Republican Party is strongest and our message is most appealing when stick to the principles that unite us, not divide us.

Perhaps the greatest paradigm shift in American politics in this past year has been the juxtaposition between political parties. The Democrats now firmly represent the interests of the elites and the Republican Party has heavily shifted toward the populists. With both our national and economic security threatened, Republicans are smart to focus on addressing those issues while Democrats continue their hyperactivity on fulfilling their more ideological liberal agenda.

Many have drawn parallels between the elections of 1993 and 2009 as preludes to the larger and more significant mid-term elections that follow them the next year. However, a point I have not heard made often, if at all, is that Bill Clinton came to office in 1992 elected on a mere plurality, not the overwhelming majority that President Obama garnered in 2008. Clinton had much less goodwill for his presidency, which lacked the historic significance and intrigue of President Obama’s election. Furthermore, while both men had majorities in both houses of Congress, President Obama’s congressional advantage is far more significant, with a filibuster proof Senate in his arsenal (well, at least mathematically).

Therefore, for the president’s party to suffer such major defeats so soon after his own electoral success should be cause for concern at the White House and Democratic National Committee. I will contend, however, that this election night’s biggest winner remains the people who took control over their states’ and counties’ destiny at the ballot box.

The Republican Party must recognize that its success was the product of a genuine populist movement away from big and unresponsive government—a movement comprised of voters who have profound concerns about their economic future, and that demand action and respect from their elected officials. If the GOP fails to recognize the demands of this movement, we will relegate our success this past Tuesday as a footnote in President Obama’s memoirs at the conclusion of his second term.

Senator Olympia Snowe’s vote in support of the “Baucus Plan” presents a troubling trend on multiple fronts.

 First, it is a mockery to the governmental process to call legislation of this magnitude bipartisan, based on one member of the minority party supporting it. Even George W. Bush was able to get a dozen Democratic Senators to vote for the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, better known as the Bush tax cuts. Have we lowered the bar that much? Second,it sets in motion an acceptability of the complete disregard for transparency and accuracy in crafting legislation. Democrats refused to publish the bill the finance committee voted on within 72 hours of the vote. That was a reasonable request, since the implications of the vote are on almost 1/5 of our national economy. Furthermore, we are being misled as to the solvency of the measure since the CBO scoring is preliminary at best.  Most Americans are not fooled and still recognize the inevitably of higher taxes to pay for such a plan in order to meet the president’s goal of it being “deficit neutral.”   Lastly, Senator Snowe’s actions reflect a complete disregard for the principles of the party that she has used to get elected to state and national office since 1974. 

I believe strongly that the GOP should maintain a “big tent” approach to building our Party. But their are certain common denominators that we must expect those who carry our banner, especially in elected office, to maintain. We are the Party of smaller government plain and simple. We believe in the empowerment of the individual as endowed by our creator and limits on government as mandated by our Constitution. The hyperactivity of the federal government as evidenced by the current efforts to overhaul our health care system can only lead to more, not less government control of our economy and livelihood.

Senator Snowe is clearly within her rights to vote in the manner that she sees fit, but it is equally as clear that she no longer believes in President Ronald Reagan’s words during his first inaugural address that I am sure she once applauded; “government is not the solution to our problems.  Government is the problem.” This should also be followed by another Reagan sentiment, “Government has a tendency not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.”

Isn’t it ironic that the Obama administration and congressional Democrats seek to pay for their healthcare reform bill with nearly $500 billion in wasteful Medicare spending.  Shouldn’t it be a source of concern that Medicare has such rampant waste, fraud and abuse?  As the benefit that covers all senior citizens and provides one of the few examples of public run health insurance in our country, it fair to evaluate the federal government’s handling of such a program considering that they are attempting to take on a much larger role today. From Medicare, to Medicaid to Social Security, government has proven its lack of ability to manage these entitlements in an efficient and effective manner. All these programs are on the express track toward insolvency, with little guarantee that they will provide the same safety net to future generations of Americans.

Might we find ourselves one day, all being part of the same public run single-payer healthcare system, that overwhelms the federal budget and is then paid for by disproportionately raising taxes on the hardest working Americans? President Obama hopes so, but I don’t.

While the president has ended the missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, Democrats have activated their own self-protective program designed to shelter President Obama at all costs here at home.  Their weapon of choice: the charge of racism.  They depict criticisms of the president as motivated by the color of his skin and not the content of his policies.  Old news?  Well sort of, except many in the self-described mainstream are still lamenting at the hostility that seems to have dominated the political landscape of late.    

Thomas Friedman, who I happen to usually enjoy reading, wrote a disturbing piece in the New York Times that drew on parallels between the mood in Israel prior to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and America today.  The assassination of any American politician would be tragic and anethetical to the values this nation was founded.  But are we to believe that vitriolic opposition is exclusive to the Obama presidency?     

Has the left-wing hatred that dogged President George W. Bush, and in many cases continues to do so, been selectively omitted from our memory?  Since this topic has been debated exhaustively in both the blogosphere and national media, I will limit my comment to just simply suggest people Google the following term:  I hate George W. Bush.

So unfortunately the world of politics has emerged again as an uncivil battlefield.  However it is not this lack of civility that has derailed the President’s agenda. 

Answer this question as honestly as you can.  If you were the President of the United States today, where would you dedicate most of your attention and resources?  (1) Healthcare Reform (2) Afghanistan (3) Iran (4) The Economy (5) U.S. Olympic Bid

This is of course a purely rhetorical question, for which a reasonable case can be made for most of the options listed (guess the one throw away).  Additionally, I will presume no one reading this has been or currently is The President of the United States, so therefore my supposition is completely based on the hypothetical that we would actually know what it’s like being the leader of the free world. 

Among the difficult challenges that faces any president is clearly defining an agenda through which political and public policy priorities are well balanced.  I am not suggesting that a president shouldn’t be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, but there are certain circumstances that call for clarity of purpose and when less pressing agenda items should be pushed aside.  I believe now is such a time. 

For the first half of President Obama’s first year in office, enormous flexibility was afforded the president, as he dealt with the global economic collapse and the wide-spread ramifications of such a calamity; e.g. failures in the banking, insurance and automotive sectors.  Many who believe in free market capitalism suggest the president went too far with some of his policies, but agree that some sort of government attention was imperative. 

However, the president misdirected his electoral mandate and began setting artificial deadlines to speed through domestic initiatives that narrowly serve the interests of his left-wing political ideology and not the needs of the country at large.  The stimulus package, Healthcare Reform and Cap and Trade are prime examples.   He also failed to seize on his stature internationally to stake a position of strength for America.  From Cairo, to Strasbourg to the United Nations, he focused more on our weakness and less on our greatness as a nation.  Though this may have lead to his personal triumph of winning the Nobel Peace Prize, it has been at the expense of clear American resolve to combat the global threats to our country.  

His top legislative priority of nationalizing roughly 1/5 of our economy by aggressively pursuing Healthcare reform has dominated national attention and governmental resources away from more critical matters.  As our lawmakers are embroiled in this legitimate proxy battle for the role of government, the world still turns, with us finding that a nuclear Iran and defeat in Afghanistan are all but certain without quick and decisive leadership from the White House. 

Suddenly, we began to learn that the president has neglected these theatres for most of the year.  Instead, he chooses to focus his energy on promoting his political agenda through expanding the size and influence of the federal government.  He has met with the general in charge of the Afghanistan war effort once, and seems to have no real strategy in mind for the conflict that he even had called a “war of necessity.”

When the American military is fighting a war, their commander-in-chief must be fully engaged and prepared to make the success of their mission his top priority.  We have heard disproportionately more from the president on healthcare, than Afghanistan.  What kind of message does that send to our troops and the world about our resolve?  Clearly Al Qaeda, the Taliban and Iran are watching and regretfully laughing at us. 

If President Obama does not get our national priorities straight, and focus clearly on the pressing challenges on the subcontinent that face our nation and world, he will be putting more than just his approval ratings in jeopardy.

This morning’s announcement that 12 days as president has warranted Barack Obama the Nobel Peace Prize can be viewed as little more than an award for not being George W. Bush. This calls into serious question the credibility of the Nobel organization itself. I am not sure if anyone, including President Obama, will be well served by this designation. I was not aware that the Nobel Peace Prize can be used as a “carrot on the stick” to encourage the world’s greatest nation and sole superpower into a direction of global mediocrity on issues that go to the heart of our own national security and war efforts on two fronts. The president’s obsession with his own international image may ultimately serve to undermine the very policies hey may need to pursue to keep America and our allies safe.

When Barack Obama took the oath of office in January, his popularity and political capital appeared to be in abundant supply.  The historic value of his election and the complexity of the challenges he assumed gave him an advantage in maneuvering much of his ambitious agenda quickly and with public support in his favor.   Mr. Obama is certainly not the first president to capitalize on moments of good will among the electorate, though he may have exhausted it in record time.

It seems to be a popular refrain for the president: listing a succession of legislative measures he pushed through in his first few months in office that both significantly expanded the role of government and led to an unprecedented increase of the deficit, all in the name of preventing economic Armageddon.  Conservative critics point to the same litany of legislative efforts as evidence of Mr. Obama’s inclination toward socialist solutions, attacking the free market ideals on which this country has developed into the most industrious and productive economy in the world.   

Regardless of how one feels about the government bailout of the banking, insurance and automotive industry, and passage—albeit narrowly—of the cap and trade legislation in the House and his two stimulus packages, it is safe to credit Mr. Obama with an impressive string of legislative wins.  The Democrat super majorities in both houses of Congress of course made this easier.           

Now, as the president is frantically campaigning to pass healthcare reform—his top domestic priority—it seems that the well of support among the public and congressional Democrats has run dry.  In fact, Mr. Obama cannot seem to influence public opinion in his favor at all, disarming what was once considered the Democrat’s most effective weapon: himself.  Perhaps, much like his economic policies, his political strategy may be running a deficit in the capital category. 

As has been mentioned in past postings, it is important to remember that not one Republican vote is needed to pass anything in Congress, much less healthcare reform.  Therefore, the president’s current predicament is very much symptomatic of a civil war among members of his own Democratic caucus.  This is where his “capital” problem comes into play. 

When the president’s popularity was at its peak, he was able to provide political cover for moderate Democrats who voted for his costly stimulus and bailout proposals.  With the legislation being passed at a fast and furious pace by congressional Democrats, and the president himself enjoying the confidence and cooperation of the American people, the long-term implications of what was being done went unnoticed.  We started to observe a deterioration of that with the cap and trade vote in the House, which basically amounted to a tax increase on energy consumption that would disproportionately affect the middle class. 

Then came healthcare.  With the prospect of nationalizing one-sixth of the economy and fundamentally reinventing a healthcare system that the vast majority of Americans are covered under and approve of, the people revolted.  Blue Dog Democrats from Red states and districts took notice, and now healthcare reform legislation, which the president once proclaimed would pass by July, is in an indefinite state of uncertainty. 

Please do not mistake this analysis as a sign of glee from another conservative who wants to see the president fail.  Quite the contrary, I am disappointed that the president squandered his opportunity to be a truly transcendent leader for a return to his ideological and radical roots from his days as a community organizer in Chicago, and in the US Senate for that matter.  He came into office with an unprecedented and substantial amount of political capital, and now it’s been mostly depleted.  This is a shame, since our healthcare system does need reform. Hopefully more sensible proposals to cut the costs of premiums and make healthcare more affordable will prevail soon.

As the chattering class scores President Obama’s speech last night, the real winner was the American people.  Though we must discuss ways to move forward on reform from here, it is worth reflecting upon the events that led to this special presidential address.  Up until this point, the president had employed a Rose Garden strategy on healthcare reform, speaking in generalities from the bully pulpit, but leaving the manual labor to the congressional Democrats.  The people have spoken and now the president was compelled to explain what he really meant before he outsourced the fate of reform to Congress earlier this summer.  

Though he suggested an inclination toward more moderate policies in the speech last night, his genuine interest in passing a measure that would attract independents and centrist Republicans is suspect.  By abdicating responsibility to Congress, the committee chairs that would get the first shot at a plan (Reps. Waxman, Rangle and Miller) represented the extreme left wing of the House Democratic Caucus and certainly of the country.     

The net result was legislation in excess of 1,000 pages that would accomplish none of the president’s stated goals on affordability, cost cutting and remaining deficit neutral; with a government run insurance company (aka, the public option) as its centerpiece.  Mathematically, the Democrats had the votes to pass such a measure in both chambers.  In fact, not one Republican vote was necessary for the president and the liberal leadership in the Congress to get their ideal legislation to become law.   

That was until the American people started to focus on the issue, read the legislation, asked the right questions and realized that the rhetoric being offered did not correspond with the language in the bills being considered.  Moderate Democrats, whether out of legitimate policy differences or political expediency, soon banded together and began to reflect the public’s opposition to a government run healthcare system.  After a summer’s worth of healthcare-related town hall meetings, forums and media availabilities, the president finds what was to be the crown jewel of his legislative agenda during his first year in office has become a dreaded albatross dragging down his popularity as well as that of his fellow Democrats.            

President Obama offered his sixth primetime speech and second address to Congress in less than a year not because he wanted to, but because he had to.  This is a clear concession, albeit a symbolic one, that the “great one” has clearly not been a “great communicator” when it has come to healthcare reform, though he delivered a good speech last night.  But this appearance is not the result of an effective Republican offensive from inside the Beltway, but rather the wide, deep and sincere resistance from ordinary citizens outside of Washington’s corridors of power. 

In Great Britain, whose disastrous health care system liberals would have us replicate, they call the lower chamber of Parliament the House of Commons.  In fact, the prime minister is a member of that chamber and reports his activities and takes questions regularly during parliamentary sessions.  The idea is that MP’s, as they are referred to, represent the popular sentiment of their constituencies and not some sort of societal hierarchy. 

Now, while I will always submit that we have the best system of government in the world, even when you include its imperfections, it would be refreshing for Congress to start representing the interests of common citizens instead of special interests or an ideological agenda.  Perhaps if Pelosi, Rangle and Reed stepped off their imperial perches long enough, they would understand why so many Americans, particularly the 90% who already have health insurance, may support reform but do not want to reinvent the system all together.  

The truth is that, left to their own devices, President Obama and the liberal leadership in Congress were well on their way to socializing our health care system and having the government take over one-sixth of the national economy.  Now, the president offers an ambiguous defense of the public option and would have us belief that it is an incidental part of greater reform.  He evens mentions confronting the issue of medical malpractice litigation , if only mildly, as a viable ingredient in his new recipe for reform. 

Most will not likely believe that the president’s heart on the issue of healthcare has changed.  He has been on the record throughout his public life and as recently as the presidential campaign trail, as being a proponent of a single-payer system, which is merely a euphemism for government control.  But if only for this moment, the citizens of our country have slowed down Mr. Obama’s march to socialism.