The Amateur: Why Barack Obama Is Losing The Presidency

The race for the White House isn't over, but there is very little good news for the incumbent president. With Romney ahead in Florida, New Hampshire, and Virginia, and tied with the president in Ohio, the writing appears to be on the wall for the Obama presidency. The president has less than two weeks to turn it around. Why has it come to this? For the last four years the United States of America has been ruled by an amateur.  From the moment he took office until this very day, the actions of the 44th president have shown him to be grossly incompetent. The president has not lost yet, but he is losing.

In 2008, everyone knew Presidential Candidate Barack Obama had no executive experience. His political career consisted mainly of community organizing in Chicago, some years in the Illinois state legislature (a voting record undistinguished aside from his repeated votes to squash a bill banning partial-birth abortions, a barbaric practice that embarrasses many pro-choice advocates), and one term in the U.S. Senate. But Americans have historically shown a willingness to take a chance on an amateur. John F. Kennedy had a similarly short and undistinguished career in the U.S. Congress before making his successful presidential bid in 1960.

Amateurs make mistakes. Soon after becoming president, John F. Kennedy made a huge one. He allowed a hair-brained invasion of Cuba by fewer than 2,000 CIA-trained exiles, up against more than 25,000 Castro troops. Now, it shouldn't take a genius to figure out that 2,000 is no match for 25,000 (even if Kennedy had delivered on the promised air-cover). But Kennedy had not been on the job for long, and he was intimidated by the metal-clad chests of the generals advising him to approve the mission. Such lack of astute judgment of options presented by subordinates is a sure-fire sign of amateurism. Luckily for America, John F. Kennedy learned from his mistakes and was on his way to becoming an effective president when he was assassinated in Dallas. Unfortunately for America, Barack Obama is no Jack Kennedy.

Einstein's definition of insanity is to repeat the same behavior expecting a different result. By that law, President Obama should have been committed to an asylum long ago. For this politician never learns from his mistakes. From the moment he took office in 2009, Obama told aides his policy toward Israel will be guided by "tough love". By this, he explained that America is likely to gain concessions from the Muslim world by giving Israel a public dressing-down. Obama continued his tough love policy toward Israel for the next four years and what has America gained from the Muslim world in terms of concessions? Let's see, perhaps in Obama's mind the following count as concessions:

•  An Iran as defiant as ever in the pursuit of developing atomic weapons while calling for Israel to be wiped off the map.
• An Iran that has the gall to plot an assassination of U.S-allied foreign leaders in Washington  D.C., through Latin American proxies.
• An Iraq that has told us to leave its country without a status of forces agreement, thus eliminating any material gain the U.S might hope for from the seven year-long Iraq War.
• A Libya that is crawling with Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists brave enough to launch and successfully execute an assault on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, resulting in the deaths of four Americans, including the Ambassador.
• A Tunisia that has flag-burning marchers who chant "Obama, Obama, We Are All Osama!"
• An Afghanistan whose troops are murdering U.S. troops in growing numbers of attacks.
• An Egypt that has allowed vandalism of the U.S. embassy and a parliament whose members openly declare to the populace, "Prepare for war with Israel!"

Are these what the president calls concessions? If not, than why has the president not changed course on his Israeli foreign policy. Why has he not learned from his mistakes? For all my friends who think Obama has reversed the image of the "Ugly Americans" in the minds of the world, the evidence is crushingly to the contrary. This president has shown nothing but American weakness. Weakness gets laughed-at, not respected. Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan wielded American power un-apologetically, and gained respect from world leaders. People respect strength, not arrogance, but strength. If we want peace, we must be prepared to fight for it. And in so doing, we can call the bluffs of the Chavez'es and Ahmadinejad's of the world. But if we project weakness, they will go in for the kill. The moment Osama bin Laden thought he could bring America to its knees was when we pulled out of Mogadishu with our tails between our legs in 1993. He once testified this to a reporter.

In the twilight days of his re-election campaign, the president has doubled-down on amateurism. A few weeks ago, Obama told the Israeli prime minister he had no time in his schedule to meet with him. Immediately afterward, the president went to be a guest on David Letterman's comedy show.  Then, there was a gathering of world leaders at the UN in New York. The president skipped it and went with Michelle to star in an episode of The View, followed by campaign fundraising with Jay-Z and Beyonce. This president does not lead, he only campaigns!

The full rankness of the president's amateurish nature was on display throughout the three presidential debates with his challenger, Mitt Romney. In the first debate, Obama seemed like he was hardly in attendance. That debate was crucial because it defeated the entire premise of the president's re-election campaign, which was "Kill Romney" from the start. For the last year, the president has shown no interest in laying out an agenda for his second term. All he has wanted us to do is hang-on and trust that the reforms of the first term will kick-in. Aside from that message, the rest of is campaign has been to scare us to death about the prospect of Mitt Romney becoming president. This image of the uncaring, cutthroat-capitalist Romney evaporated when the real Mitt Romney showed up at the first debate and showed compassion, command of the facts and issues most relevant to the country, and made himself appear a viable and attractive alternative to Barack Obama. In the three debates, Obama's attacks on Romney have consisted of the most meager substance and have instead hit at some vague target like "the rich one-percent" whom Romney has supposedly been mainly concerned with helping, and how Romney does not care about the rest of us. Such class warfare is emotional, not factual.

It is not surprising that almost overnight, following the first debate, the ground shifted in the polls from a solid Obama-lead, to a deadheat, and then to a steadily climbing Romney-lead. Obama's performance improved in tone and energy (but not in substance) in the second debate. Romney absolutely skewered the president's record on the economy with a withering barrage of facts. The president was strafed with the Keystone veto, the wasted taxpayer dollars on financially bankrupt solar companies, the AAA credit downgrade, and stagnant job growth, among other hits. Romney was moving into the kill with his interrogation of the president on the Libya embassy scandal when the moderator, CNN's Candy Crowley,  injected herself into the debate on the president's behalf saying, "he called it" [the embassy attack] "terrorism" in the Rose Garden speech. She turned out to be wrong.

The third debate showed the president to appear petty and peevish, making condescending remarks to Romney such as, "We're glad you think Al Qaeda's a threat." No Mr. President, we wish you could demonstrate to us that YOU think Al Qaeda's a threat, but your cover-up of the cause of death of four Americans in Benghazi with persistent remarks that a youtube video and spontaneous protests caused the event tells us you do not think Al Qaeda's a threat! Romney avoided a fight with the president in the third debate because he wanted to present himself with the confidence of being a presidential candidate who is winning. Consequently, the challenger appeared presidential and the incumbent appeared as the challenger. Since then, the Romney surge has continued in all the swing- state polling.

The president's most recent display of amateurism has come in the wake of the third debate and in the shadow of the Romney tide: the publication of President Obama's second term agenda! Yes, it is a handsomely packaged booklet entitled The New Economic Patriotism: A Plan for Jobs & Middle Class Security. One has to look in vain for Obama's second term agenda in all his many speeches over the last year, and in all three presidential debates the last three weeks. With two weeks left until election day, with his campaign staring defeat in the face, Obama rolls-out his second term agenda. What does it contain? More of the same. More spending. More stimulus. Nothing new. More of Einstein's definition of insanity, with the nation teetering on a fiscal cliff. Pure amateurism - true to form.

There is no single issue defeating the president. It is not jobs or the economy. If it were, than why has he gained no traction from an unemployment figure that has dropped below 8 percent in the last few weeks? Barack Obama is losing because the public is waking up to the notion that this man has been out of his depth, in over his head, incompetent, in his performance as president of the United States. We have been ruled by an administration that is bringing the country ever closer to a run on the dollar, immeasurably more vulnerable to terroristic attacks, and to being a laughing stock among the international community. Like King Belshazar in the book of Daniel, he has seen the writing on the wall, he has been found wanting, he knows his days are numbered, his reign is coming to an end, very soon.

Jason A.