Obama: 1 year later

{This is actually going to be a 2-part blog. One will talk about Obama's first year in the White House, while the other part will deal with yesterday's Republican win in Massachusetts}

It's amazing what a year brings and how fast it is. It seems like only yesterday where you feel like you and many others have witnessed history. We all know what we were doing one year ago today. The United States swore in their first African-American president, and many were happy to see it. So where am I going here? Well, I plan to give you straight-up commentary. First off, I'm definitely going to try to be fair and balanced on this one. By no means am I going to make him look bad or good. These are just views from a conservative American citizen who is just looking at how he is running the country, along with his allies in Washington. It's also a look at how I think we are looked at internationally.

And yes, I'm also aware that being the Commander-in-Chief is not an easy position. I am aware that Barack Hussein Obama did inherit quite an economic mess that has been built up through the years, even before Bush 43. He also inherited the position where he is leading the country through two unpopular wars. At the same time, I understand he is trying to please the American people. He's made hundreds of promises, but can it really be possible to keep them? Come on now, it doesn't take a genius to figure that out. Coming in to the Presidency, we all knew he was arguably the most liberal-minded person in the Senate. He attended a church with an anti-American preacher for 20 years. He had ideas what his critics considered 'radical' and maybe 'socialist'. He also had to shake off his 'celebrity image' which I believed he eventually did. Americans voted him in mostly because they felt that he could fix the economy. So we gave him a chance.

I respect the guy and in the beginning, I thought that as long as he surrounded himself with some smart and great people who will work with him, he could slowly but surely get the job done. Unfortunately, he's allying himself with the Fed and Wall Street bozos that got us into this mess in the first place. I'm no expert, but I have read alot of financial articles from the experts that believe Obama has so far made wrong decisions in his administration. Heck, even the writers of Rolling Stone magazine (who I consider his cheerleaders), wrote him a huge article of criticism about 'selling out to Wall Street'. There is one thing that I will cut Obama slack on: and that's his honesty at times. Before he was sworn in, he did say that more than one million jobs will be lost, alone in the year of 2009. We all saw it coming (or at least I did), and indeed it happened. On top of that, unemployment rose to 10% by the end of '09.

Obama's part in trying to help occurred just a month after he was named 'President Obama' when a mega-stimulus package was passed. The message behind this was creating jobs. By summer, people were already complaining about it, saying 'Where are these jobs that he promised?'. I quietly thought that it would take more than 5 months for it to happen. I knew as time would tell, this package could create something. Even Nancy Pelosi said in a Rolling Stone interview last March, 'that if nothing happens with job creation, we will apologize and admit we were wrong....'. Of course, I don't see that happening, but Satan's sister from San Fransicko should start getting her speech ready if she hasn't already. This was a debt that unfortunately our children as well as our grandchildren will be paying for, for generations. I do think that Senators and Congressmen and women should have taken the time to know what was in the bill. While watching Fox News, I have heard reports that the money from the package went to unnecessary things. Examples include a railroad station (that has been shut down for 30 years) and 3 villages in New Mexico with no zip codes that exist. So there. Some people believe that this 'stimulus package' will be the mark of Obama's presidency.

All right, health-care. I wasn't a big fan of the health-care bill that he was trying to rapidly pass. Okay, I'll be fair: it was mostly the wacko Harry Reid and his friends, er, senators that were quickly trying to make it happen. For one, I don't think the government has any right to get into our medical system and free enterprise. I don't want this nation to be present-day Venezuela or any socialist country. I've read people's opinions about 'Socialism is around us in America'. Yes, I know the govt. has control of our roads, law enforcement, garbage, postal service, etc.... But health-care is a different area. I don't want to be told what to do or when to die. No, I don't claim to be an expert in this either. I, along with several members of Congress (who passed this bill), have not read the 2,000 page Nancy Pelosi script. Luckily, my local Congressman, John Shimkus, did not support it. Yes, I do believe our hospitals need fixing, and I know health-related material is the #1 cause of personal debt for the people. There is a reason why people from England and Canada come all the way over here to get treated, and we should not ruin that. I could go on about this, but I'll move on to the next issue....

The wars. Just recently, Obama announced at West Point that we would be given a timetable to stay for a limited time overseas fighting terrorism. Excuse me? Stay until the job GETS DONE! He might as well have told the world that he is not committed to winning in Afghanistan. I also forgot this was a guy who has bowed to Saudi's leader and wants terrorists put on trial in NYC. For those reasons, he gets a very low grade on foreign policy.

So while the health-care is still on the mend to getting it together, we witnessed a strange thing yesterday, which happened just on the eve of Obama's year anniversary. A Republican winning Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in the state of Massachusetts! Why the exclamation point, you ask? It's considered a miracle in the first place for a Republican to win in a very liberal state. I don't like to call myself a Republican, but I do consider myself happy to know that Americans like the voters yesterday wanted to turn the tide on the people of Washington. They're already sick of the present-day Congress spending big everyday, and they simply don't want the health-care bill go into passing. It isn't just my opinion, but pretty much all the pundits spoke for the people of Massachusetts. And no, I won't take away the fact that a guy like Scott Brown ran a great campaign. Martha Coakley's people were very slow to responding to things. And we won't forget that she knew that Curt Schilling was a 'Yankee'! That of course did not help, as it offended many Red Sox fans in the state.

Overall, this should have been a 'great awakening' for all powerful Democrats right now, especially the 'big 3 (Obama, Reid, Pelosi)'. If it wasn't, then there's no telling what will motivate them to slow their own. If this big spending behavior continues to happen, its everyone's prediction that the Democrats will suffer major (I mean, major) humiliation in November.

And lastly, my grade for Obama for 1st year: C-