send mail to: bob@bobjenningscomments.com

If you like motorsports, try bob jennings' World O' Racing.com

How can you not be impressed by Barrack Obama? He is a master politician. His campaign for president was brilliant. Not only did he kick the collective ass of the Republican Party last November (which they deserved), he gained the confidence of 53 percent of the U.S. electorate that he could solve the problems facing us all.

Two presidents have truly captured the imagination of this nation during my lifetime -- John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. Obama has the same dynamics going for him. Even if he fails, the 44th president will be noteworthy if for no other reason than the history his election generated.

I am impressed by what the president has accomplished in his life, against many odds. Obama is a special human; intelligent, resourceful, articulate, attractive and he carries a style with him that is reminiscent of John F. Kennedy.

Barrack Obama came from a single parent family, took advantage of the opportunities presented to him, made the most of his God given talents (which are numerous) and made his way to the top with a well planned and strategic approach.

I first heard of Barrack Obama while watching the Democrat national convention in Boston, on TV, in July 2004. The 42 year old Illinois state legislator delivered the convention's keynote address. Even then Obama was being touted as a future star of the Democrat Party, which at that time, was sorely in need of fresh faces.

Obama won the Illinois Democrat primary, for the U.S. Senate, against six opponents, to run for the seat being vacated by Carol Moseley Braun. Talk about your typical Chicago political machine crook! That someone like Carol Moseley Braun could be elected to the U.S. Senate could only happen in Illinois -- or Minnesota (Senator Al Franken?). In November 2004, Obama was elected with 70 percent of the vote. 

Speaking of Chicago, which was an interesting place to have spent fifteen years of my adult life, how can a guy who comes off like your basic neighborhood bully (and not much more), as Mayor Richard M. Daley does, retain control of such a vibrant city? That's a question that has come to mind many times over the past several years.

I'm sure there were many like me who considered the 2008 Democrat nomination for president a lock for Hillary Clinton. Obama announced his presidential candidacy in February 2007. Many pundits, at the time, questioned Obama's timing and the wisdom of his choice.

David Axelrod, a political consultant from Chicago, engineered Obama's U.S. Senate campaign in 2004. Axelrod designed and Obama waged a brilliant presidential campaign against Clinton in the primaries and an effective, inspired run against John McCain in the general election, winning 53 percent of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes.

Given the many positive aspects of Barrack Obama, it's unfortunate the president is taking our country down such a perilous path. The president is deeply committed to redistributing wealth, punishing success, growing the government, consolidating power, weakening our military defenses and pushing the United States toward a global "one world" concept. I don't believe in any of these measures. They run counter to what the framers of our Constitution intended -- and if you want, they are anti-American.

What has the U.S.A. always been about? In this country, a person can be whatever they want if they make the right moves. We are a society which rewards hard work, persistence, desire, motivation and talent. President Obama is the perfect example of that, like his hero Abraham Lincoln. 

However the president, Democrats, Liberals and the far left wing of American politics are trying to change this country so that hard work, sacrifice and ability will no longer determine how people are rewarded. If this happens, our nation will become a second rate version of what it once was; like France, Germany and Great Britain.

The members of the mainstream media adore the president without restraint. Newsweek editor Evan Thomas recently compared President Obama to God on the MSNBC program "Hardball with Chris Matthews." "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God" said Thomas.

That's a bunch of crap! The president is a historic figure; the first American, of African descent, to be elected to lead this nation, but in the end he's only a politician. He's not God. Evan Thomas' sentiments are symbolic of the way the mainstream media is in a constant swoon over Barrack Obama.

On April 15, thousands of Americans, in different cities across the country, protested President Obama's spending measures in public gatherings. In reaction, actress - comedienne Janeane Garofolo called the tax day protesters racist because they hate the idea of having a black president.

Garofolo, who enjoyed her greatest fame playing the sarcastic producer on the cable TV comedy series "The Larry Sanders Show," came off like an imbecile with her comments on Keith Olberman's program on MSNBC. It's convenient for a moron to classify dissent with Barrack Obama's policies as being racial. By doing that, they are being racist however. As Garofolo spoke, Olberman nodded in agreement to what his former failed Air America radio network colleague was saying.

I get a laugh from Olberman. He comes across as a smart ass stand up comedian. He does not seem to have any grasp of what he is talking about. Olberman is so jealous of Fox News star Bill O'Reilly he cannot stand it. He is anything but the political journalist he professes to be. Olberman would be much more believable on ESPN, doing his stale ego-centric routine with former sidekick Dan Patrick.

Olberman is like a fly, which just landed on a pile of shit and is buzzing around your head at a picnic; very annoying but essentially harmless. Nobody watches Olberman and MSNBC anyway.

Evan Thomas, Janeane Garofolo and Keith Olberman are but three examples of the partisan love affair the news and entertainment industry harbors for Barrack Obama. Despite an increasing skepticism over the president's policies, a slight majority of the public indicate they like the president. That represents a steady decline in favorable numbers for Obama.

That affection is difficult to understand -- especially when we recall that during his first foreign trip after becoming president, Mr. Obama repeatedly criticized and apologized for the very people who elected him.

But .....

What's going to happen when those same pro-Obama voters start having to pay for President Obama's lavish spending with increased taxes?

I may end up being wrong, but I don't think so. I anticipate much lower poll numbers for the president by year's end. There will eventually come a time when the economy will be the Obama economy rather than the Bush economy, despite constant reminders from the president (talk about a cop out!) to the contrary. There will be a mistaken foreign policy statement or action issued by the Obama administration that takes hold and is recognized as a blunder by more than those of us who already disagree with the direction the president is taking the United States. 

So it's an anomaly. People are starting to recognize what the Obama programs mean and they disagree. But they like the man -- although by a continuing smaller percentage. I am impressed by the president's talents and traits too. But I am opposed to the way he is leading the country.

It doesn't mean I think the president is a bad guy. He's someone I would probably enjoy meeting and conversing with. He's sharp and he's tough. Rush Limbaugh suggests that Obama is an angry man with a grudge against the U.S. I am not ready to agree with Limbaugh about that at this time. But I am concerned about the president's hostile approach to business, individual success and American free enterprise. I think Obama sincerely believes socialism should be the basis for twenty first century America.

My biggest disagreement with Barrack Obama is that he is intent on tearing down capitalism, which has served the United States so well for 233 years, since we declared our independence from Britain, on July 4, 1776. The president wants to lessen personal freedom and replace it with collectivism, where the government makes our decisions. Mr. Obama believes our country should belong to an international community of nations at the expense of U.S. sovereignty.

Next comes the painful reality that Mr. Obama's measures to rebuild are not working.

What about the Obama stimulus package?

Barrack Obama turned over the details of creating his $787 billion stimulus package to Nancy Pelosi. "Empress Nancy" went nuts and cobbled together a catastrophe that is filled with ridiculous pork barrel legislation which members of Congress, both Democrat and Republican, should be ashamed of; creating a debt which unborn generations will have to repay. The president even acknowledged when he signed the bill that it had flaws. Why did you sign it Mr. President?

There is no politician I dislike more than House Speaker Pelosi. I cannot take "her highness Nancy." I am offended by her smug approach to being at the top of the political food chain. The Speaker is an arrogant, pompous matron! She is a Marxist who is caught up in delusions of grandeur and determined to pursue power and enjoy the trappings of elegance, like the military jet she flies between Washington D.C. and her San Francisco home almost weekly. Nancy Pelosi has also proven she is a liar with her responses about whether she knew about CIA plans to use waterboarding to extract information from terror suspects as early as 2002.

Yet the president entrusted Speaker Pelosi with creating his stimulus legislation. Passage of the measure was done so quickly and carelessly that most of the legislators who voted for the package did not even take time to read it. That's a misuse of public trust.

Mr. Obama promised that his stimulus package would mean that unemployment would not exceed eight percent and if it wasn't passed, we would experience joblessness at nine percent. Now that unemployment has reached 9.4 percent, the president tells us to expect ten percent. What's going on?

How many millions of jobs have been lost since Obama took office? To narrow it down, how many jobs have been lost since the stimulus measures were implemented? How many jobs have been added by the stimulus package? What's the net gain -- or loss? What are we talking about? There were 345,000 jobs lost last month. How high would unemployment be if all the people who have given up trying to find work were still looking -- eleven, twelve, thirteen percent?

Under Obama's stimulus I get $20.00 every two weeks. How does that help? It will either buy 2/3 tank of gas for my car, feed me for two or three days -- if I eat cheap or buy a couple shots of Wild Turkey 101 at my local bar. It's nice but it isn't going to enhance my life to the point that I will become part of a nationwide collective shot of adrenaline to the economy.

Thankfully the stock market index has been on a slow rise since early March -- although in recent weeks the Dow Jones has gone up and now mostly down. But record numbers of jobs continue to be lost and tough times will likely prevail through the end of this year and longer. Banks still won't lend money and the housing market continues to be in a shambles -- even with housing starts running high last month.

Obama has tripled our national debt in the name of economic measures in five months -- yet he announces we are broke.

Rather than spend trillions of dollars the U.S. government will have to borrow from Communist China, why not try an alternative method? Doesn't it make more sense to rebuild the economy by doing away with federal payroll taxes for a number of months and putting that money directly into the pockets of people?

Not only would it cost less but it would work better than bankrupting the United States for the next one hundred years. At the same time, Americans would have an actual say how the public money is spent. Also let us not forget the Peoples Republic of China is our leading rival and a potential adversary. Do we really want China to own our national debt? I mean like hello. Earth to Obama.

It's likely a large percentage of the vote Obama received, last November 4, came from those who felt anger and resentment over the rampant greed and ego practiced by Wall Street firms and their boards when they voted multi-million dollar salary packages for executives who presided over financial collapse last summer. Yeah that pissed me off too. But that contemptible behavior was not the sole property of the Republicans. The good old "Socialist Democrats" had a hand in all that too.

What about Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae? The Bush administration tried to regulate both organizations, but the Democrats in Congress, led by Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Barrack Obama jammed subprime loans down the throats of financial institutions. The collapse of the housing market, more than anything, was the leading component in destroying the sick economy.

It's why the credit market froze and hardly anyone can borrow money. It's why the leading source of wealth for most people has dried up because the value of homes has dropped so drastically. It's a mess and it can be laid at the feet of the Democrats.

Angelo Mozillo, former CEO of the now defunct Countrywide Mortgage, was listed as the person most responsible for the financial collapse, in an article featured in the February 23, 2009 issue of Time magazine. Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, was Countrywide's point man in Congress and was securely in Mozillo's pocket.

Frank Raines, a close Obama confidant and friend, was ranked ninth in that same Time magazine article. Raines took over as CEO of Fannie Mae in 1999, after serving as President Bill Clinton's budget director. During Raines' tenure, at Fannie Mae, the organization became overrun with subprime mortgages. He left in 2004, after Fannie Mae became involved in an accounting scandal. Raines was the primary fund raiser for the Obama presidential campaign.

George W. Bush did a lousy job with the economy, during his final two years in the White House. The former president was a strong proponent of deregulation. He spent too much money and Bush's final Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson unleashed the original $700 billion TARP catastrophe, in the form of the first federal bailout, last September and that was a huge mistake.

The Bush bailout opened up the floodgates and it gave impetus to the insanity of Obama's fiscal policies, where the bailout totals now exceed $1.6 trillion. As alarming as Bush's measures were, his successor has created a national nightmare.

To date, the federal government has spent $60 billion trying to save General Motors and $30 million on Chrysler. Obama gave Chrysler and GM billions of dollars early this year in federal bailout money?

Why didn't Obama and his "Socialist Democrats" make the wise decisions to reorganize GM and Chrysler from the outset? Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney proposed that Chrysler and General Motors go through bankruptcy reorganization in 2008 and bankruptcy is what happened in the end. Think of all the money we taxpayers could have saved if Obama had played it smart.

Could it be we have a man with compulsive spending disorder in the White House?

After Obama realized Chrysler was destined for bankruptcy, he ordered his associates to play hardball with victims of the auto maker's downfall. For those creditors who protested the Chrysler bankruptcy, they were threatened by the administration with public ridicule.

In regard to Wall Street greed, Obama and company played a direct role in one of the most disgusting examples of greed ever in the financial sector, with their acceptance of huge bonuses paid to AIG personnel. AIG received $170 billion, from which it paid $100 million to favored executives.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner knew about the bonuses as did President Obama. Yet both tried to hide that fact from the American people. The president went so far as to publicly criticize the executives accepting the bonuses, while enabling the bonuses to be paid and all the while trying to hide it from Americans. How's that for hypocrisy?

Oh yeah -- by the way, guess who were the three largest beneficiaries of AIG political contributions? In order, they were Senators Chris Dodd, Barrack Obama and 2004 "Socialist Democrat" presidential nominee John Kerry.

Now the Obama administration is putting together the components of federalizing the nation's health care system which is the best in the world. The president wants to go to a single payer system that will only insure sixteen percent of those currently without medical coverage and will cost more than $67,000 for each person covered.

At the same time, Mr. Obama's promises that people can retain their current medical plans if they choose to do so. Adoption of a national health program will make it impossible for private plans to exist however. Seventy percent of Americans are happy with their health care coverage. This makes no difference to the president who will tax health care benefits for most Americans, although members of labor unions will be exempt from the tax.

Obama's plans blow me away! The whole thing is completely crazy!

In countries like Canada and Great Britain, where national health has been implemented, citizens lament their coverage because of prolonged waits for medical attention, the exclusion of elective surgery and the inability of these programs to treat life threatening and chronic ailments. President Obama and his supporters realize this but are intent on forcing this on us, much like they did when they coerced financial institutions to finance subprime mortgages.

I worry that President Obama does not grasp the intricacies of foreign affairs.

For all of his other problems, Richard Nixon understood foreign policy. I do not believe Barrack Obama does. He wants to have a dialogue with Iran, which sponsors state supported terrorism and has declared its intent to destroy Israel. He reprimanded North Korea the way he might scold his child after Kim Jong-il fired ballistic missiles into the sky.

On his first trip abroad as president he bent over backwards to kiss the butts of European leaders and even criticized the citizens of the country he was elected to lead. To cap things off, Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner made public hints the U.S. might consider an international currency.

About the planned North Korea attempt to fire missiles towards Hawaii on July 4, Mr. Obama said " This administration -- and our military -- is fully prepared for any contingencies. It's just we are prepared for any contingencies," he said. "I don't want to speculate on hypotheticals. But I do want to give assurances to the American people that the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted in terms of what might happen."

The president refused to publicly support the Iranian citizens who bravely protest the recent corrupt elections. Obama snubs Israel while trying to redefine the war on terror as a street crime.

Damn -- I honestly feel that we as a nation are in for big trouble with Barrack Obama in the White House. Brilliant and attractive as he may be, the president is a misguided man. I'm afraid the United States is going to suffer terribly as a consequence.