Enough is Enough

It's time. There is only so much a reasonable person can endure. After this Friday evenings debate, where McCain clearly schooled Obama on having an understand and confirmed reasonable plans to deal with diplomacy, foreign relations, Iraq and Afghanistan as well as a better understanding of his and Obama's plan for taxes and their affect on the economy, I am now formally fed up with the bias in the media. Having watched Nightline and read reviews of the debate in a number of newspapers, they completely leave out the exchange of facts and non-contextually quote McCain leaving out the incredible and expert handling of the facts and issues by McCain and rant and rave about how “Presidential” Obama looked. What? Really? Remarkably they give McCain credit for being more accurate factually, but yet they declare Obama the winner based on issues like “Obama faced the camera, sculpting his talking points with verbose hand-movements, while McCain stood stoically, chopping at the air.” Apparently, since Obama cannot win on content, the debate was reduced to a fashion show as the virtual tie-breaker. Someone shoot me now!

It amazes me that there were no press references to the schooling Obama received on his verbalized approach to handling issues in Pakistan and Iran. For that matter, Obama had one story of experience he shared that night, when he anecdotally referenced a recent visit to Green Bay, WI, whereas McCain rained down story after story of legitimate applicable experience working with world leaders in first hand locations across the planet.

If I were cheering for Obama right now I would be embarrassed. The best retort the Obama Campaign came up with in regard to the debate on Friday night was a claim that all of McCains experiences simply characterized him as "old." What? Really? What an obvious tact. What a shameful attempt. Why didn't they just say “McCain is ugly.” or “I know you are, but what am I?” or “YOUR MOMMA!” The fact remains that Obama, from his own understanding of taxation, to the economy, to his opinions on the continued war effort, is clearly without understanding. What in the world does he bring to the table? I have yet to figure it out. How does identifying an obvious need for hope and change uniquely qualify him to lead? Someone please explain how playing Captain Obvious but without having real answers somehow equals a good presidential option?

I am happy to itemize the many issues I have with Obama. And while I have attempted to be reasonable so far during this campaign season, now that Obama has had a chance to debate McCain and the press still attempts to imagine he is the same caliber candidate as McCain, I think it is time for the gloves to come off. So here are a few myths worth shattering in round one of uncovering Obama.

1. He is going to solve healthcare in America: false. His outrageously expensive plan leaves millions of Americans without healthcare and only attempts to provide for children. Get ready to pay more and get less. (According to Obama supporter Hillary Clinton, his healthcare plan leaves something around 15 million Americans out in the cold.)
   
   
2. He really care about fixing wallstreet via regulation and taking care of mainstreet: Not even close. Wallstreet is where the pocketbook of mainstreet resides. Separating these two issues is naïve and an oversimplification by Obama. The fact is that his financial advisors Mr. Summers and Mr. Rubin, advisors of Obama, were party to the deregulation of Wallstreet during the Clinton era. That's right. Obama is connected directly to the people who created the problem in wallstreet. (UPDATE: Obama is seeing his connection with the problems in wallstreet and while just a few days ago he was accusing McCain of being at fault, SUDDENLY blaming someone is not supposed to matter any more. FLIP-FLOP! I guess he only now gets the connection of wallstreet to mainstreet now that the debate is over. Thank you for joining the rest of us! When will naïve shifty hypocrisy end!?)
   
   
3. He will solve our woes in Iraq and Afghanistan: If by solve our woes you mean: put our soldiers in harms way, divert funding in ways that diminish our current gains on the current war fronts, and as a result keep us going back to the Middle East again in the future... Then yes, sure, under that definition, his shallow examination of the dollars invested in Iraq and short-term view of savings at the expense of increased instability in that region, then by all means vote for the man. But understand that you will not be able to find a military leader involved in Iraq and Afghanistan that sees Obama's recommendations as anything but naïve or at best completely dangerous. Obama, at best pointed out some poor estimations McCain made about the Iraq war, but then again many people on the left side of Congress made some of those same assertions at the same time. For the record, Obama said more about questioning our exit strategy for Iraq when it started. His was a question of nailing down a more detailed plan for Iraq (not that he had one) and not sp much an ideological statement about not belonging in Iraq, like He and so many want to pretend it was. That plays out well now, but is revisionist.
   
   
4. Obama is going to better the opinion of America in the world: His significant lack of experience will almost certainly work against any possibility of this. Obama, in his lack of experience was schooled by McCain with regard to Obama's hypothetically imagined hunting of bin Laden via bombing Pakistan without that countries cooperation. His attempt to sound brave and solid as a potential Presidential Commander in Chief ends up, yet again, seeming naïve and an oversimplification of an legitimate strategy. What was at one time an attempt by Obama to sound reasonable with regard to pursuing diplomacy in intense world situations, now makes his lack of experience seem like a liability. I can't believe for a minute that someone listening to Friday debate truly thinks that Obama really understands presidential diplomacy let alone how to manage a military effort.
   
   
5. McCain represents big government and big business and Obama represents benefits to regular people: Obama completely doesn't understand his or McCain's written policies around taxation and entitlement programs. For one, both McCain and Obama have plans to close loopholes in corporate tax rules, despite what Obama says. At the same time Obama wants to jack up taxes in the companies that employ us, redistributing that money to the poor among us. This isn't even fully accurate. Yes. He will increase taxes to the companies that employ us. (Tell me, how do you think that will affect your wages, employment and future raises?) Then understand that Obama is simply granting, in return, a tax credit to Americans, which means that you get to pay less taxes. You don't get money, you don't get benefits, you simply are granted the opportunity to be DEMANDED LESS TAXES by the government (though, this isn't even true based on a reasonable analysis of Obamas tax plan.) At best, will this offset any of the outcomes of higher corporate taxes? Imagine that Obama is right to assume that the trickle-down of benefits isn't working in America (while we know it does because people get raises and new opportunities get created.) What we know, by gas prices alone, is that there is an non-debatable trickle-down of cost to the consumer when these companies get taxes jacked up by Obama. Suddenly, a smaller government with less taxation starts to look good the whole way around. It is an interesting if not irresponsible piece of fiction to imagine that Obama and regular folks equal “us” and that somehow the corporate world equals “them” and that these two eco-systems are not intimately tied together. Wake up Obama! Hurting any cost-related segment of our economy ALWAYS trickles down to mainstreet!
   
   
6. Obama believes in me and says, “yes we can”: No,... he can't. You are the largest component of his plan. It is hilarious to me how many people throw money into the lottery each month imagining that there one dollar will turn into a million, yet they never count the cost over the months, never realizing they are putting in way more than they will ever get out. I think that people following Obama see these vague hope-filled naïve and oversimplified programs by Obama and imagine that the dollar they are putting in will turn into a million coming out. But the fact is that the devil is always in the details. And the details, especially in the hands of big government, tend to yield far less return over a lot long period of time than if you had been left to make many of these decisions in the manner of your choosing. You are not the recipient of the "we" in his rhetoric. You are the mule that will facilitate his political agenda through your mainstreet pocketbook!
   

Well, that's enough for now. And I am not so naïve as to think that this list of facts changes anything at all. Regardless of the complete lack of legitimate experience that Obama has, his followers will still have to talk-up how presidential he looks and how important that must somehow be. I just hope those same followers would feel as good when he actually has to resolve some world conflict and then be reduced to a puppet following the advice of anyone other than himself because of his lack of real world qualifications.

In conclusion, I am not saying don't be a democrat. I am saying... don't be a sucker for this guy. It is time to say, enough is enough.