By Liz Cope and Anna Allegrini
A Conservative’s dream: the chance to finally tell Mr. Obama some of the things I’d like to get off my chest. Certainly, I’ll never be invited to have a beer at the White House after this, but for what it’s worth, I’m asking him to hear me out. I won’t use a teleprompter – this comes scripted from the heart.
Mr. President, when you ran in 2008 on “Hope and Change,” you struck a chord nationwide. In you, Americans saw a unifier, a bridge builder, a mold breaker. Americans saw old stereotypes fall away when a black man, a son of a single mother, a potential statistic, became President of the greatest nation in the world. You were portrayed as America’s perfect boyfriend, but now I wish we’d never dated.
You promised “transparency” yet I am still trying to uncover the facts about Obamacare. You promised an economic recovery, but yet America struggles with high unemployment and a shrinking labor force. Over 46 million Americans are on food stamps and the poverty rate is over 15%. You promised to cut the deficit in half during your first term, yet each child born today will instead inherit over $150,000 in debt, and college grads face joblessness. You told me you inherited a “mess”, yet it is a mess you helped create, given that Democrats won control of Congress in January, 2007, and those same Democrats, including you, must take their “fair share” of responsibility for voting in the stimulus and budgets during fiscal years 2008 and 2009. You’ve left me with a big bill for your dinner.
I now see that the “fundamental transformation of the United States of America,” of which you spoke on February 19, 2008, is actually the end for my beloved country. Only a man who believes that our Constitution is a “charter of negative liberties” could call for such transformation; a transformation that would focus not on what the state and federal government “can’t do to you” but rather “what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf”. Conservatives are not interested in fundamentally transforming America. Conservatives are perfectly content to build businesses and make decisions independently, and would appreciate it if Government would just stay out of the way.
Only a leader with a certain disdain for my intelligence would celebrate a serious tax hike on the middle class and call it an improvement to our health care system. Of course, to you, Obamacare is “not a tax”, though the Supreme Court ruled it to be so.
Only a leader with a certain disdain for the Constitution would mandate religious institutions to offer health care options that are against their morals and conscious. Mr. President, abortion is not health care, particularly partial-birth abortions, which you support. In your stance, you are completely out of step with 75% of Americans, who do not support using taxpayer funds for any abortion procedure.
And Mr. President, as much as you attack others regarding their integrity, your character is lacking. For example, in 2007 you gave an intense speech at Hampton University in Virginia accusing the Bush Administration of not waiving Stafford Act requirements for New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. You implied it was racially motivated, that New Orleans wasn’t considered “part of the American family”, like Florida or New York, yet upon investigation it was uncovered that YOU, Mr. President, were one of the 14 senators who actually voted against the bill waiving the Stafford Act for New Orleans, and have also refused to provide it following Hurricane Isaac. You say that conservatives are ‘Waging a War on Women’, yet your own campaign underpays female staff. You swore that the murder of Chris Stevens, our Ambassador in Libya, was due to an anti-Muslim internet video, yet it now comes to light that your administration knew it was a terrorist attack all along. Your campaign has ruthlessly accused your opponent of murder, being a felon and evading taxes – all of which are horrible falsehoods and completely un-Presidential.
So here we are, hopefully at the end of our romance. You have proven to be quite oversold. Your charming persona has turned out to be hype. I don’t even know if I like you anymore. You’ve tried to make me buy things I didn’t want and you’ve not taken responsibility for your mistakes. And let’s not even discuss my “lady parts”, thank you very much. How rude! And now, worst of all, are all the bills you’ve left me with! I am not better off than I was 4 years ago and my credit cards are maxed, all thanks to you. Are you even listening? I don’t think you are… I feel like I’m talking to an empty chair.
