30 Bad Moves, Executive Edition

Yes, it’s been a tough January for the Obama White House and Democrats in general.  But let me preface the following by reminding everyone that there are no permanent victories in politics.

With that out of the way, I’ve compiled a retrospective of Obama administration Un-Greatest Hits, from the very beginning of his presidency.  Each of them is a blatant red flag that would indicate to any objective observer that something wasn’t quite right at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.: multiple instances of hubris, tone-deafness, over-reaching, or just plain incompetence.

When you look at these red flags collectively, and with the benefit of hindsight, it’s no surprise that Obama is currently in a popularity tailspin and struggling to avert a crisis of confidence.

The list, which has got to be far from exhaustive, starts below: 30 Bad Moves by Obama.

  1. “I won.”
  2. “No lobbyists here” = plenty of lobbyists.
  3. Tim Geithner
  4. Eric Holder
  5. Tom Daschle
  6. Target: Rush
  7. Stimulus, aka “the beginning of the end”.
  8. Target: Santelli
  9. “Tea parties?  What’s that?”
  10. “What AIG Bonuses?”
  11. Thuggery in Detroit.
  12. “Not as bad as we think.”
  13. Scare-Force One
  14. Target: Boston PD
  15. Sub-Carterian Conduct: Somali Pirates
  16. “The Stimulus worked as intended.”
  17. Target: CIA
  18. Sub-Carterian Conduct: Iranian Election Aftermath
  19. “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery.”
  20. “You can keep your healthcare (wink-wink).”
  21. Target: Fox News
  22. Linda Douglass
  23. E-mail Gestapo
  24. IG-Gate
  25. Afghanistan “Strategy”
  26. Sub-Carterian Conduct: soldier murdered in Arkansas.
  27. Al Qaeda Trials – in NYC – with full Constitutional protections for the defendants.
  28. Sub-Carterian conduct: Fort Hood
  29. The broken CSPAN promise.
  30. Sub-Carterian conduct: Underwear Bomber

I hate to be a pessimist, but if you think we’ve seen the last of these bad moves, you are likely wrong.  Obama can reinvent himself as a post-partisan Wall Street-smiting paladin all he wants, but not a single head has rolled in the White House after Scott Brown’s triumph in Massachusetts caused the Obamacare bill serious bodily injury and forced Obama to “pivot”.  So the trend can only continue.

Case in point: Obama’s visit with GOP-ers in Baltimore yesterday is basically a repeat of item #1 above: same message (get with the program), different approach.

Let’s just hope he doesn’t get worse.

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