Barack Obama: better never than late

The President very much likes to remind Americans of the mess he inherited - economy, terrorism, health care - and all that he's doing to fix it. A “hey, I’ve put in the hard yards” mentality has infused his speeches as he bemoans people's fleeting memory about what life was like way back when, in 2008, particularly on the economy.

Obama has made an industry out of underlining all the good he believes his bunch of amateurs have done. "Our progress has been unmistakable," he said as the new year dawned. "We've disrupted terrorist financing, cutting off recruiting chains, … [and] thwarted plots here in the United States and saved countless American lives."

Unfortunately for Obama, each time he recounts his “success”, he is mugged by the public, who must live in the here and now. And what’s terribly discomforting for the inexperienced one and for his menagerie of advisors, is that the public are in the main the mugs that voted for him.

On terrorism, Americans are not concerned about his undemonstrated successes. They focus on his troubling failures. Remember the Islamic terrorist who was foiled on Christmas Day?

On the economy, people crave good news and not updates on how things are gradually getting less bad.

So rather than talk of how great things could be under his continued rule, he has moved the goal post to define progress by comparing his today to what things were like under President George W. Bush.

Here’s an example. While the economy is on life support and people are still losing their jobs and their houses, if not their minds and their dignities, like a jack rabbit, he is quick to remind us that, yes, 85,000 jobs were lost in December, 26,000 in January and 36, 000 in February, but remember the job losses started in January 2009 (on W’s watch) and were roughly 700,000 a month.

True, things are not as bad as before. But tell that to the man or woman who is out of work.

An overwhelming majority of people say that Obama is steering the country in the wrong direction (56 per cent v 38 per cent), according to the March Associated Press-GfK poll. Not a good omen for Democrats as they careen towards midterm elections, trying to hang onto control of the House and Senate. Obama, to the overwhelming number of Virginians and a growing number of Americans more broadly, liken the President at the wheel of the economy to Captain Edward John Smith at the wheel of RMS Titanic.

Apart from parroting that he “isn’t George W. Bush”, Obama has done very little that can be described as positive for either US allies or for America’s working families. Granted he has done superbly for Wall Street’s large donors to the Democratic National Committee, some of whom, like Mr Hassan Nemazee, are guilty of stupendous frauds. In Mr Nemazee’s case a US$292 million (A$324 million) fraud.

He is angered that many Americans have overlooked his “achievements” in 2009. After all, he reasons, he has addressed a range of problems: hate crimes, tobacco advertisements aimed at children, and pay disparities for women. A bit like Kevin 2010 talking about a human response to illegal arrivals, the phasing out of incandescent globes or simultaneously ripping apart Peter Costello’s WorkChoices, but keeping those parts that suits his government.

With the setting down of the sun daily, Obama gets closer to signing what could be the one of the biggest domestic laws in decades, an overhaul of health coverage in America. Ironic then that as he inches closer, the more public support he loses. As many polls indicate: the public wants health care reform. Just not Obama’s version of it. Independents and moderate Democrats have tuned out. The GOP never tuned in. But the community organiser can always rely on the Bolsheviks in his party to stay loyal to his health care manifesto. Sadly for the President, Bolsheviks are in the minority. Even north of the Mason Dixon line.