While the far Left is gratuitously foaming at the mouth over Joe Wilson’s emotional, and true, comment at Obama’s road show before a joint session of Congress, let’s recall a little history about disrespecting the President.

Just for giggles, look at all the examples that come up to a youtube search for bush booed.

OK, now look how Democrats disrespected him at the 2005 SOTU speech, when he brought up a national problem that needed fixing, Social Security. Listen to what he was warning about. Then look at the political and economic landscape today. Look how much spending and borrowing we’ve been doing, all the while still ignoring the pending insolvency of Social Security.

The reality about this clip and Democrats in Congress is this. Bush was telling the truth about Social Security. And last night Joe Wilson was telling the truth about Obama.

related link: Obama’s Pan American Health Care

At the beginning of President Obama’s speech to the joint session of Congress tonight, a truism was spoken about ‘comprehensive’ (that’s political-speak for government controlled) health care. President Obama said . . .

A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943.  Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session.

The truism that seems to escape Democrats is that for sixty-five years, they continue to ignore the will of the people. That socialized medicine is one thing that Americans do not want, and it’s time to move on.

Instead, we are to believe that, without increasing taxes on 95% of Americans, he can somehow offer health insurance to over 40 million more people (not all legal citizens mind you) and at less cost, and all this being debt neutral. That is to say, without increasing the national debt by ‘one dime.’ That’s not saying much since he has already quadrupled the national debt over what it was when he took office. Pushing it upon generations not yet born.

Already, Medicare and Social Security will bankrupt the country all by themselves without adding ‘comprehensive health care’ to the mix. And I’m not hearing any solutions to that.

Then the community organizer / agitator in him shows with these words . . .

I won’t stand by while the special interests use the same old tactics to keep things exactly the way they are.  If you misrepresent what’s in this plan, we will call you out. (Applause.)  And I will not — and I will not accept the status quo as a solution.  Not this time.  Not now. {emphasis added}

If he really believes what he is saying, then he ought to be confident enough to also say that if his plan does not increase availability, and does not increase the quality of care, and does not decrease the cost, and does not increase the debt, then he will scrap His nationalized health care before his term ends and will enact H.R. 3400 and see how that works. Fair enough?

His sales pitch, and that’s what tonight’s performance was, was full of rules He wants for people and business on how We choose to care for Ourselves, and permissions He will give same. Which begs the questions, since when is how I take care of myself, my family, or my employees health care any of your business? The Constitution does not grant that power to the President or to Congress.

Essentially, he is saying ‘trust me.’ Sorry Barack, your history of performance does not warrant trust. Hope maybe, but not trust. Trust won’t happen until he demonstrates the ability to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States first.

Came across a link where you can catch a bus to Washington, DC for the culmination of the Tea Party Express this Saturday, 9/12. The one closest to Pensacola is Mobile, AL.

Check the list for a city near you.

http://912marchondc.ning.com/notes/Updated_Bus_List_for_the_March

Unless you’ve been in a coma lately, a lot of people are up in arms over President Obama making an address to school students. I feel obligated to weigh in.

As amended, I don’t see a problem with the president urging kids to pay attention, do their work, and stay in school. All kids need to get that message. The sorry thing is, and what people are upset about, is that Obama made an attempt to capture this audience for a political purpose. It started out to be a community organizer’s wet dream. But as amended, it’s a good thing.

That our education system is failing our children really becomes obvious when you look at SAT scores.

I remember JFK putting out a message to school kids and schools that emphasized physical fitness. It wasn’t on TV in our classroom, but it was directed to the students. It wasn’t a political message, it was a good message, and the schools and kids responded positively. And anything that Obama can do to motivate kids to excel (or at least graduate) would be good.

What happened to President Obama?

His wax wings having melted, he is the man who fell to earth. What happened to bring his popularity down further than that of any new president in polling history save Gerald Ford (post-Nixon pardon)?

The conventional wisdom is that Obama made a tactical mistake by farming out his agenda to Congress and allowing himself to be pulled left by the doctrinaire liberals of the Democratic congressional leadership. But the idea of Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi pulling Obama left is quite ridiculous. Where do you think he came from, this friend of Chavista ex-terrorist William Ayers, of PLO apologist Rashid Khalidi, of racialist inciter Jeremiah Wright?

But forget the character witnesses. Just look at Obama’s behavior as president, beginning with his first address to Congress. Unbidden, unforced and unpushed by the congressional leadership, Obama gave his most deeply felt vision of America, delivering the boldest social democratic manifesto ever issued by a U.S. president. In American politics, you can’t get more left than that speech and still be on the playing field.

In a center-right country, that was problem enough. Obama then compounded it by vastly misreading his mandate. He assumed it was personal. This, after winning by a mere seven points in a year of true economic catastrophe, of an extraordinarily unpopular Republican incumbent, and of a politically weak and unsteady opponent. Nonetheless, Obama imagined that, as Fouad Ajami so brilliantly observed, he had won the kind of banana-republic plebiscite that grants caudillo-like authority to remake everything in one’s own image.

Accordingly, Obama unveiled his plans for a grand makeover of the American system, animating that vision by enacting measure after measure that greatly enlarged state power, government spending and national debt. Not surprisingly, these measures engendered powerful popular skepticism that burst into tea-party town-hall resistance.

Obama’s reaction to that resistance made things worse. Obama fancies himself tribune of the people, spokesman for the grass roots, harbinger of a new kind of politics from below that would upset the established lobbyist special-interest order of Washington. Yet faced with protests from a real grass-roots movement, his party and his supporters called it a mob — misinformed, misled, irrational, angry, unhinged, bordering on racist. All this while the administration was cutting backroom deals with every manner of special interest — from drug companies to auto unions to doctors — in which favors worth billions were quietly and opaquely exchanged.

“Get out of the way” and “don’t do a lot of talking,” the great bipartisan scolded opponents whom he blamed for creating the “mess” from which he is merely trying to save us. If only they could see. So with boundless confidence in his own persuasiveness, Obama undertook a summer campaign to enlighten the masses by addressing substantive objections to his reforms.

Things got worse still. With answers so slippery and implausible and, well, fishy, he began jeopardizing the most fundamental asset of any new president — trust. You can’t say that the system is totally broken and in need of radical reconstruction, but nothing will change for you; that Medicare is bankrupting the country, but $500 billion in cuts will have no effect on care; that you will expand coverage while reducing deficits — and not inspire incredulity and mistrust. When ordinary citizens understand they are being played for fools, they bristle.

After a disastrous summer — mistaking his mandate, believing his press, centralizing power, governing left, disdaining citizens for (of all things) organizing — Obama is in trouble.

Let’s be clear: This is a fall, not a collapse. He’s not been repudiated or even defeated. He will likely regroup and pass some version of health insurance reform that will restore some of his clout and popularity.

But what has occurred — irreversibly — is this: He’s become ordinary. The spell is broken. The charismatic conjurer of 2008 has shed his magic. He’s regressed to the mean, tellingly expressed in poll numbers hovering at 50 percent.

For a man who only recently bred a cult, ordinariness is a great burden, and for his acolytes, a crushing disappointment. Obama has become a politician like others. And like other flailing presidents, he will try to salvage a cherished reform — and his own standing — with yet another prime-time speech.

But for the first time since election night in Grant Park, he will appear in the most unfamiliar of guises — mere mortal, a treacherous transformation to which a man of Obama’s supreme self-regard may never adapt.

related links: Obama, the Mortal | Can You Trust President Obama? | Who Do You Trust?

I rarely post entire articles of a columnist, often using portions of an article to help make a point. In this case however, there is no room to expand on Mr. Krauthammer’s piece. His analysis of Obama’s presidency is spot on.