Tag Archives: President Barack Obama

May 22, 2011 · 3:43 pm

Pumping Blame

Where should the blame go for Newburyport's high gasoline prices?

“President Obama rose in approval ratings following the raid which killed bin Laden at his hideout in Pakistan after years of intelligence gathering. The terrorist was brought to justice thanks to waterboarding, wiretapping, and targeted assassination. It’s funny how the one time President Obama should have blamed something on George W. Bush, he didn’t.” Argus Hamilton

We are a generation of blamers. In fact, we do it so routinely that we are experts on what causes our problems.

I would love to take that “blame game” to any Newburyport gas station and ask customers to place blame for the high gas prices.

We’re all getting impacted by the price hikes on gasoline. I took my truck in to buy gas recently. The tank was half empty when I went in and my wallet was half empty when I went out!

I’m trying to imagine the financial toll on local schools districts as they add in transportation costs for those gas-guzzling school buses at the high gas prices we now have. How about Triton with students in distant Salisbury? Are they headed for four-day school weeks at longer hours to save on travel costs?

On April 6th in Langhorne (PA), the President was asked by someone in the crowd if there was anything he could do about the high gas prices. His answer was that increasing oil production was neither a short-term nor a long-term solution. He added that the answer to the problem was more efficient cars, especially electric cars. He advised the questioner that if his car got low gas mileage he should trade it in.

Let’s get this straight. High gas prices are the problem and I’m asking for help. The President’s advice ignores my plight and suggests I spend money, I’m short of, on another vehicle. The vehicle he’d like me to drive costs way beyond my current means. Someone here is detached from reality!

Gasoline prices in the US have risen noticeably and in my opinion the President has a lot to do with it.

(1) He has gotten us into trouble in the Middle East where much of the oil we get is produced. His “leadership from behind,” as one of his advisors called it, has been embarrassing. He has encouraged regime change in areas where those who will take over idolize the departed bin Laden. He has made getting present and future oil from this region difficult and costly.

(2) He has spent us into immeasurable debt causing the value of the dollar and our savings to decline. It now costs a lot more of our dollars to buy what we need, including gas.

(3) He has restricted the production of oil off our coasts. His apologists cite environmental reasons but why was he interested in investing with Brazil in drilling off their shores?

After last year’s BP disaster caution made sense for future drilling. However, that was a year ago and the studies and recommendations that were to be released are long overdue.

According to a recent CNN poll, 69% of Americans now favor increased offshore drilling. Folks want something done and the President is again leading from behind.

A bill was passed on May 6th by the House of Representatives called HR 1230 (Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act). As the title suggests, the bill forces the administration to move ahead toward offshore drilling.

The bill passed, 266-149. Most Republicans supported it as well as thirty-three Democrats.

Unfortunately, our representative (John Tierney) chose to vote against it. Our elected official appears oblivious to the reasons I gave for the high oil prices and instead wants investigations to see if individuals could be manipulating the price of oil upward. Meanwhile the gas prices are high and threatening to go higher.

Next time you’re at the pumps, remember the connection the current President and our US Rep have to the high price you end up paying. Blame them. They deserve it.

(This article appeared in the May 20th edition of the Newburyport Current.)

Barack Obama and Carl Crawford

Barack Obama

We were all caught up in various degrees of expectation when Barack Obama was elected in 2008.

Twenty-seven months later our expectations are affected by realities. And many of those realities have statistics relating to them

Unemployment Rate – January 2009 (7.8%), March 2011 (8.8%)

Gas per gallon – January 2009 ($1.84), April 2011 ($4)

US national debt – January 2009 ($10.7 trillion), April 2011 ($14.2 trillion)

Median price of US resale homes – December 2009 ($175,400), February 2011 ($156,100)

US casualties in Afghanistan – 2001-2008 (634), 2009-2010 (858)

Rounds of golf – George W Bush (24), Barack Obama (60+)

Approval rating – January 2009 (63% approve/20% disapprove), April 2011 (47% approve/48% disapprove)

Granted, statistics can be misleading but when combined with expectations they enable folks to react with something beyond uneducated bias.

John Burciaga’s usual columns in the Newburyport Current refuse to face the realities we’ve experienced during the Obama administration. Instead of disputing the statistics, John plays his favorite (only?) card – the race card.

To John, (“Memories of the uncivil war”) those who question the President probably have skin-texture motives.

Carl Crawford

That brings me to Carl Crawford. When the Red Sox signed the outfielder to a pricey contract in the off-season, the expectations from fans around here were high. After all, Carl had a .295 career batting average and had stolen 107 bases over the last two years.

Unfortunately, Carl hasn’t started out so well this season. In fact, Manager Terry Francona has tried to change him around in the batting order hoping to make him productive.

The home fans haven’t been thrilled, either, after enduring Carl’s .127 batting average and ten strikeouts through the first thirteen games. Some of the fans have started combining their expectations of Carl with his performance and have begun delivering vocal, negative reviews. Some places call that, “booing.”

When will John Burciaga come to Carl’s defense in a column? When will he tell us the horror stories of Louise Day Hicks, Bill Russell, and Jackie Robinson? When will we be told that if Carl’s skin was lighter he’d wouldn’t be booed?

Baloney, John. Like the man you make excuses for, Carl hasn’t delivered. The unfair part is that Carl has only been at it for thirteen games in a 162-game schedule. It’s early for him but Barack Obama has been at it for over two years. From where I’m sitting, he appears to be unconscious to the negative realities he has created here and elsewhere that impact us.

Training film?

Speaking of unconscious, I was amused to see that Vice President Joe Biden reached that state during the President’s speech on the budget deficit. Some have hinted that his dozed off condition was not a sign of rudeness but actually the shooting of a training film for air traffic controllers.

Seriously, the President has not met expectations and thus earns the negative reviews. When John Burciaga brings skin color into the discussion, rather than performance, it reads like either racism or the effort of someone who has run out of defenses. Which is it, John?

(This article appeared in the April 22, 2011 issue of The Newburyport Current.)

Hear, See, Speak No Evil of President Obama

Criticism offends his defenders

I guess the point of the Newburyport Current’s editorial, “Another anti-Obama overreaction,” and John Burciaga’s, “Goodbye to town hall meetings from hell,” is that those of us in disagreement with Mr. Obama are fair game for any cheap shot that comes to mind.

The editorial “only” describes us as, “hysterical,” while Mr. Burciaga chooses; “politically unwashed, naïve, reliant on bloggers of low mentality, nonreaders, yahoos, clingers to idiocy like a crucifix, rejecters of Jesus Christ, and thugs.”

I think that what escapes these writers is that Barack Obama received only 53% of the popular vote in the past election. So even back in November (2008) 47% of the voters did not want Barack Obama to be the President.

Bringing things up-to-date, the September 12th daily Presidential Tracking Poll by Rasmussen has, “33% strongly approving of the way Barack Obama is performing in his role as President.”

Both written pieces seem to assume that the President won by a landslide and is still held in high regard. The facts indicate otherwise. 53% bought into Barack Obama’s campaign rhetoric but far less are still on board as the reality of implementing his ideas kicks in.

Mr. Burciaga’s cheap shots made perfect sense to the winners early on but now they sound like they belong to an extreme lefty who is not paying attention to what has gone on since Barack Obama took over.

A person strongly approved by only 33% of the voting public should have expected some opposition when he tried to get the schoolchildren of the voters to consider: (1) What they could do to help the president, and (2) What is President Obama inspiring you to do. For the President even to think that such questions are appropriate reminds me of Brian’s line in The Breakfast Club – “Claire, you’re so full of yourself.”

It interested me that GHW Bush addressed the nation’s schoolchildren in 1991. His efforts were not received any better than Obama’s were. If the Current editorial had stated that the Democrats’ negative reactions to President Bush were, “anti-Bush overreactions,” I would have conceded that the editorial was evenhanded…….but it did not happen.

Mr. Burciaga writes as one who is tolerant of only those who agree with him. I wonder if he realizes that it was Obama’s ideas that turned some of the town hall meetings into sideshows not the elected officials attempting to defend them. Congressman John Tierney was very wise to defend Obama’s ideas from long distance rather than from before a live audience.

Looking ahead, I wonder how Mr. Burciaga will handle the compromises that the increasingly unpopular President will have to make to salvage any of his increasingly unpopular plans.

Nonetheless, one thing remains certain, no matter what Barack Obama says or does, Mr. Burciaga will be available to demean all critics in The Newburyport Current.

( Appeared as a letter-to-the-editor in The Newburyport Current on September 18, 2009. )