Channeling David Byrne to explain Obama's poor performance in first debate

Have you ever had a moment when things just seem to come together? That moment when everything just crystallizes into one clear moment of realization?

I’m thinking that moment happened for about 61 million people on Oct. 3 after listening to our president ramble on about his health care plan, clearly trying with all his might not to use the term ‘death squad’.

At some point in the waning moments of the first presidential debate tens of millions of people had to have sat up razor straight and thought, “My God, what have we done?” And just to continue channeling David Byrne, the crystallizing moment most likely continued with, “How did we get here? This is not my country. This is not my Constitution.”

Mitt Romney stood tall at the debate. He was ready for his opponent, and clearly, without a Teleprompter close at hand, Obama wasn’t ready for Romney.

Certainly we can all understand how this country was swayed by Obama four years ago. He is a tall, good looking man with a gift for gathering an audience up in his hands.

But that was four years ago. All he had to do then was convince us that he was the better choice over George W. Bush.

Even the most polished pol among us would have to admit that really wasn’t a tall task.

Now, Obama is in the position of having to defend his record of the past four years, and without someone feeding him his lines, it is now crystal clear, he just doesn’t have the answers.

Four years ago we, and I mean we in the collective sense because I did not cast my lot with him, elected a man to the White House on a campaign of Hope and Change.

Since when did Hope become a campaign platform?

And where’s the change? Our economy is stuck in a rut, and four years later it really doesn’t matter how we got here. The fact is Obama launched a stimulus effort that did not work, and we’re billions of dollars in debt for the effort.

You know the left is desperate. They’re crowing about unemployment dipping below 8 percent. They don’t mention it’s for the first time since Obama took office. They also don’t mention that the number most likely dipped because people simply stopped looking for work and were dropped off the unemployment rolls.

It should now be abundantly clear to everyone that we need a president who knows how to steer clear of red ink. We need a business man at the helm, not a community organizer who convinced the majority of voters into casting a ballot for him on a promise of Hope and Change.

Obama didn’t deliver, it’s that simple, and yes, the blame lies solely on him. He surrounded himself with some of the dullest crystal he possibly could have; a treasury secretary who didn’t even bother to pay his own taxes? Timothy Geithner failed to pay some $35,000 in taxes, and while I admit that I wouldn’t have known I was responsible for paying them, I also was not the head of the New York Federal Reserve. Geithner blew off the whole issue as an oversight. Wow. Could you even imagine having a $35,000 oversight? We should also note here that Geithner was instrumental in the rescue of Bear Sterns, working alongside Bush’s Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. Some experts also considered Geithner’s decision to not bail out Lehman a direct contributor to the worsening of the global economic crisis. And this just months before Obama decided he was the right many for the treasure secretary cabinet post.

Really?

Rahm Emanuel. Now here’s a guy that knows how to be a public servant. In fact, he’s made a career out of it. To take it a step further, he made a killing during his short term at the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation. Yes, that would be Freddie Mac. The very same Freddie Mac that was half the housing crisis. Emanuel, who earned more than $300,000 while doing what some describe as ‘nothing,’ was named to the board of in 2000 by then President Bill Clinton. This was after he left the Clinton administration as an adviser and took a position with an investment banking firm, where, despite any prior banking experience, made more than $16 million with the firm in his less than three-year stint there. Emanuel, apparently not one to stick with much of anything for long, left Obama’s cabinet after just two years and ran for mayor of Chicago, where he is firmly entrenched today.

Eric Holder, well, at least he was an attorney, and even an attorney general, before being appointed Attorney General.

I could spend an entire column, in fact I have, addressing the botched Fast and Furious ‘anti-gun smuggling operation that resulted in the death of a border patrol agent. Holder still needs to be held accountable to the American public for his actions during the operation and subsequent investigation. Unfortunately, Obama stepped in and declared executive privilege to protect him.

This is just a small handful of the people Obama appointed to be his trusted advisors when he took office.

Isn’t there a saying about surrounding yourself with the right people?

How could he have come to the conclusions necessary to choose these folks?

Of course, this is also the same president that pushed through a health care bill that forces Americans for the first time in the history of our great nation, to purchase a product.

“This is not my Constitution. My God, how did we get here?"

It’s all becoming very clear to me now.

Stan Huskey is the editor of The Times Herald. He can be reached at 610-272-2500 ext. 215 or at shuskey@timesherald.com. Follow @StanHuskey on Twitter.