I have not spoken to him directly. Here’s the reason. Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he’s gonna say all the right things to me. I’m not interested in words. I’m interested in actions. — 2010

My Take – President Obama speaks of what he knows – words.  He’s spent his entire adult life mouthing what his audience and speechwriters want him to say.  He knows that if he was ever to be challenged to put some actual skin in the game, to work a real job that turned out real product, he’d be a rank amateur and would have to struggle to stay employed.  So he’s found a way to look good, sound good, and make people feel good.

The problem is that eventually the real world intrudes upon the utopia of rhetoric.  Eventually, the lofty speeches and promises aren’t enough.  Some day, sooner or later, you have to step down from your throne and get dirty in the trenches with the rest of us.  President Obama has been campaigning for well over a decade, and when he finally won the big one and landed his first job where people expected him to do more than show up and plan for his next election, he failed.  Reports that he is disinterested in the details of government, of how he’s impatient with the process of working with others to get things done, and his lecturing to Congress and anyone else who tries to have a voice about how the election is over and he won are, to me, indications that he hasn’t a clue about how to do the job he worked so hard to get.

We need actions, even if the action is to look at a problem and say “This is not the government’s business”.  The time for pretty words is over.  Now is the time for doing, not talking.  It’s time for the President to either put up, or shut up.  If he wants to keep talking, then he needs to start talking – clearly, concisely, and without a teleprompter – about exactly why he should be given another four years to do the things he should have been doing in his first four years.  If he can’t do that, he needs to leave.

Our first and immutable commitment must be to the security of Israel, our only true ally in the Middle East and the only democracy, — 2004

My Take – I have to agree, even if I believe that the President wasn’t exactly speaking from the heart on this one.

Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is even approaching what we call a liberal, western-style democracy.  Yes, they have their issues, and I don’t always agree with them.  They’re obviously doing what they see as right for their nation, and that won’t always parallel with what we want them to do.  But so long as they don’t work against our interests, I don’t have a problem with that.  The United States should work with Israel the same way we would with Germany, Australia, or Great Britain.

Where the President and I diverge on this is that the President seems to have no problem doing things that seem to be done at the expense of Israel’s security and future.  Yes, the regimes that either fell or are falling with the support of the Obama administration weren’t democracies in any way shape or form.   At best, they were of the “One man, one vote, one time” variety.  But they were at least stable and didn’t lean toward the “burn the world down and make s’mores” side of politics, which the governments that replaced them seem to be embracing wholeheartedly.

True, Hosni Mubarak and Benjamin Netanyahu were unlikely to go golfing together, but they weren’t actively trying to kill each other either.  The Muslim Brotherhood, which won the election after Mubarak blinked and didn’t use his military to clear the streets with grapeshot, was voted “Most Likely to Start a Regional War” in high school, and has been trying to do just that ever since the polls closed.  I’m confident that whoever wins in Syria will join them in that little endeavor, probably using weapons that President Obama provided them.  Add to that the humongous number of weapons that are available in Libya now that NATO no longer cares all that much, and Israel may end up standing alone.  If they’re expecting President Obama to go on national TV and explain why he’s putting aircraft carriers and Marine Expeditionary Units in the Western Med when Syria and Egypt take another shot at the title, they’re deluding themselves.

Look, I’m at the start of my administration. One nice thing about the situation I find myself in is that I will be held accountable. You know, I’ve got four years. A year from now I think people are going to see that we’re starting to make some progress. But there’s still going to be some pain out there. If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition. — 2009

My Take – Well, it’s been almost 4 years, and progress has been anemic at best.  Unemployment, even if you believe the latest numbers from the administration, is horrible, especially if you consider the large number of people who have just given up and stopped looking for work.  The price of just about everything people need for their day-to-day lives is up, thanks in large part to the administration’s habit of printing money whenever the mood hits them.  Our allies don’t know they can depend on us, and our enemies laugh at us.

So, Mr. President, it’s the end of your first term, and you haven’t accomplished what you set out to do.  Are you prepared for this to be a ‘one-term proposition’?  Because I am, and I have a feeling I’m not alone.

My interest is in making sure we‘ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices. If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well-thought out oil strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage. I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done. — 2008

My Take – Today, the average price of a gallon of 87 octane gas in the United States is $3.71 a gallon.  In January 2009, it was $1.84.  For those of you who studied your figuring in school, that’s an increase of 201%.  The prices for diesel and jet fuel have had comparable increases.  That cost trickles down through everything we buy that has to be transported, which means everything we buy.

So how is this the President’s fault?  He doesn’t run the oil companies, or the gas station chains.  He can’t use the government to put up drilling rigs, or build refineries.  The government doesn’t own power stations, or the power lines that bring electricity to homes and businesses.

But what he can do is get the heck out-of-the-way and let the country generate the energy that it needs, be it petroleum, or natural gas, or electricity.  Yes, the government has a responsibility to make sure that private industry doesn’t cause grave damage to the environment, either through extraction of resources from nature or through polluting when generating energy  or processing petroleum.   But that responsibility shouldn’t be used as a bludgeon to bring the energy industry to its knees.

This President hired an energy secretary who stated a goal of bringing our gas costs up to what Europe pays.  He denied permits to build a pipeline for oil from Canada, which would not only have brought more oil into our market, but would also have employed thousands of people in building and maintaining it.  He capitalized on a blown oil well in the Gulf to shut down oil exploration in our waters while providing subsidies to foreign companies to explore for oil in their waters.  He’s flushed billions of dollars away on green energy pipe dreams, and we will be paying for it for generations.

Yeah, that’s one comprehensive energy policy we’ve got, huh?  Problem is, I don’t think it’s got the interests of the American people as one of its objectives.

I think the trick is figuring out how do we structure government systems that pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution — at least at a certain level to make sure that everybody’s got a shot. — 1998

My Take – In this country, if you don’t think you have a shot, you’re kidding yourself.  Maybe you don’t have a great family background.  Maybe your education was less than optimal, or heck, it even sucked.  Maybe you had a rough time growing up, and maybe even got in trouble with the law.  But so long as you work hard and smart, there’s no reason you can’t at least keep your head above water.  It might be hard and dirty, but at least it’s honest.

Redistribution, or rather institutionalized theft, is the biggest disincentive to getting ahead I’ve ever seen, and it works on both sides of the equation equally.  Why work hard when a paternalistic government will just take from someone else to make sure you don’t end up face down in a gutter?  Why bust your hump day after day just so Uncle Sam can take what they think is fair and give it to someone else?

Now, I’m not saying that those who need a temporary hand up, or legitimately cannot work for their daily bread shouldn’t receive help.  Americans have a long tradition of helping out our family, friends, and neighbors who need a hand.  But if someone looks at the productive part of our society and says “You need to give it up so that others can have a fair share”, then that’s a problem.  Ask me for help, and  I will give you the shirt off my back.  Put a gun to my head and rob me in the name of ‘fairness’, and I will fight back.

I don’t think me calling House Republican members would have been that helpful. I tend not to be that persuasive on that side of the aisle. — 2008

My Take – No kidding?  You mean stern looks, pouting, and blaming every administration before yours isn’t a good negotiating technique to get the other side to work with you?  I would have thought that demagoguing in the press about how the evil Republicans are obstructing your wonderful plans would be enough.

The politics of this administration are more partisan than anything I’ve ever seen.  It seems almost desperate in the “Got to have it, got to have it now, don’t care who we hurt, who we piss off, or how much it costs” way it does business.  Dissent is treated as a personal attack, opposition is belittled by the chattering classes in the press, and disrespect seems to be the order of the day.

I’m not saying that changing regimes in Washington will change that, but I honestly don’t see how it could get much worse and we still have a semi-functional government.

Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency. — 2009

My Take – This ‘transparent’ administration just told the courts they have no business deciding whether or not the executive branch needs to comply with congressional subpoenas when it’s quite likely a crime was committed by members of the administration.  How exactly do you invoke executive privilege, which is supposed to protect communications between the president and his advisors, in a matter in which your advisors claim they had no knowledge?

I am seriously waiting for Fred Thompson to say “What did the President know, and when did he know it?”.  Forget the second coming of Jimmy Carter, is Obama the second coming of Richard Nixon?

You know, I would say Incomplete…but what I would say is the steps that we have taken in saving the auto industry, in making sure that college is more affordable and investing in clean energy and science and technology and research, those are all the things that we are going to need to grow over the long term. — 2012

My Take – College is more affordable?  I guess all that talk about the education bubble I’ve been hearing is just defeatist propaganda perpetrated by the enemies of our glorious forward thinking leaders.  I’m sure that students and parents must be brimming with joy every time they get a letter from their educational institute advising them of a tuition hike that is several times more than the inflation rate.  But the President knows all about education.  He picks a great NCAA basketball tournament bracket, doesn’t he?

And yes, the auto industry has been saved, at least the part of it that couldn’t make it on its own in a competitive marketplace, assuming you don’t count Ford, Mercedes, Hyundai, Toyota, or Kia, all of which seem to be doing really well making cars in the United States without a penny of taxpayer money.  But hey, all those years of loyal service to the President’s party has to earn the UAW something, didn’t they?

And where would we be without all that investment in green energy that President Obama has brought down like rain on a fertile field.  I mean, just this morning, I couldn’t get out of my driveway without stopping to let columns of fuel efficient vehicles, powered by new advanced battery technology that was energized by clean, cheap solar panels bolted any flat surface and windmills that not only generated clean power, but also freshened the air and provided necessary avian carrion for our fragile coyote population.  Except that that didn’t happen, and more money than I or my children will make in our lifetimes might as well have been set on fire, because at least then it could have generated some heat to run a steam turbine and generate some actual electricity.

But you don’t make progress by being stingy with the public funds, now do you?  Unless, of course, you count the amazing amount of innovation that occurred in aviation in the 1920’s and 1930’s when the government wasn’t spending much money on airplanes.  Or maybe you can point to the early years of computer networking, which was indeed funded by DARPA.  But then, DARPAnet was pretty much a government and university only kind of thing for the better part of two decades, until someone figured out how to make some money from web pages, and then the Internet took off.

Yeah, those programs that the President has been so proud of have been really great for the economy and the country, haven’t they?  Four more years of this and we’ll be just where he wants us to be.

You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, a lot like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy towards people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations. — 2008

My Take – As a citizen who comes from one of those small towns in the midwest, where for a long time jobs were hard to find, but people held on through the lean years with hard work and taking care of each other, the President can kiss my bitter, clinging butt.  While those of us in fly over country kept our faith in ourselves, in our country, in our heritage, and in our religion, our ‘betters’ in the more ‘enlightened’ parts of the country have been promising the profits of our labor to three generations of people who think that welfare is a career, not a temporary situation.   I hate to break it the President, but it’s those of us who refuse to let go of the bedrock upon which our country was founded and built that keep the wheels on while profligate twits like him debate how many welfare cheats can dance on the head of a pin.

The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action. — 2007

My Take –  I agree with what he said in 2007.  Congress declares war.  The executive branch prosecutes wars, but it has to get an OK from the people’s representatives before it does so.   Apparently going to Congress over Libya wasn’t necessary, no matter how necessary it was before the President was elected.  By sneering at those who called him on it, the President spit upon over 200 years of tradition and good practice, including during times of national emergency, such as after Pearl Harbor and 9/11.  I just hope that Libya was an aberration, and not a portent of what we can expect in the future.  When a national leader has unfettered power to instigate wars, without even the rubber stamp of getting approval from the legislature, nothing will stop them from using and abusing that new power.