Is Obama on the Way to Failing in His First Year?

I received this today, it's a mish mash of several different columns, the sources of which I've not been able to identify beyond the Daily Beast's column by Mr. Zuckerman.  So, I'm going to post this straight, if I step on someone's toes, please let me know and I will be happy to post the appropriate link to where ever that particular paragraph/sentence, etc, comes from. I have been informed that Paul R Hollrah wrote the majority of what follows:

A most interesting editorial, not from Fox News or Rush Limbaugh, but from Mortimer Zuckerman of U. S. News. The tide is turning.

Mortimer Zuckerman is the Editor in Chief of the U S News and World Report and was a supporter of Barack Obama during his run for the Presidency. This is a staggering appraisal of the President's first year in office- coming from someone who supported President Obama.

In a January 20, 2010 editorial, the Editor in Chief of U.S. News & World Report, Mortimer Zuckerman, had this to say:

“...Obama’s ability to connect with voters is what launched him. But what has surprised me is how he has failed to connect with the voters since he’s been in office. He’s had so much overexposure. You have to be selective. He was doing five Sunday shows. How many press conferences? And now people stop listening to him… He’s lost his audience. He has not rallied public opinion. He has plunged in the polls more than any other public figure since we’ve been using polls. He’s done everything wrong. Well, not everything, but the major things… I don’t consider it a triumph. I consider it a disaster.”

I have found out who has written the following, paragraphs.  I have been informed that they are actually the writings of one Paul R. Hollrah.  I have not yet found an online source that I can link to, but when I do,  I will[according to, Ashley Messenger, Editorial Counsel, U.S. News & World Report--see update below]

And that’s what his friends are saying about him.

As the boy president occupied the White House on January 20, 2009 it was predictable that his presidency would last a year, at most, because the things he promised and the things he stood for were so uniquely un-American. Looking back over his year in office, any reasonably precocious fourth grader could make a cogent argument in opposition to nearly everything he’s done. In fact, his policies have been so extreme and so far outside the mainstream that he was destined to achieve the most spectacular fall from grace of any American president in history. It was easy to see him serving out the final three years of his term as a virtual exile in the White House… afraid to venture out among any but the most rabid partisans.

Seeing his most ambitious initiative, healthcare reform, die in the flames of the Massachusetts Massacre, Obama made a hastily-planned “sortie” to Ohio for yet another Bush-bashing, self-aggrandizing stump speech on job creation. It was vintage Obama… full of left wing hyperbole and planted questions from the Kool- Ade drinkers in the hand-picked audience… but there were just two things wrong with it: 1) Almost everything he said was either wrong or an outright lie, and 2) He is so overexposed that no one in the television audience really wanted to see him.

Obama Kool-Ade drinkers in the media, and elsewhere, like to describe Obama as a “very bright man, a true intellectual (compared to George W. Bush and Sarah Palin, of course).” If that is the case, why has he demonstrated such a great inability to learn from his failures? The strident words and the in-your-face attitude of his Ohio speech were proof that he has totally misread the meaning of the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts .

Whatever hopes and dreams he had for his time in the White House, whatever grandiose plans he had for transforming the United States from a constitutional republic with a free market economy into a socialist dictatorship with a centrally planned economy, were all lost on Tuesday, January 19, 2010… one day short of a full year in office. Yet, he appears to have learned nothing from the experience.

Comedian George Gobel once asked, rhetorically, “Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?” In the context of 21st century American politics, and assuming that he has any capacity at all for honest self-examination, Obama must be feeling today very much like a pair of brown shoes at a black tie soiree.

When a politically naïve and totally inexperienced young black man, with a glib tongue and an exceptional ability to read words convincingly from a teleprompter, announced that he was ready to serve as President of the United States, liberals and Democrats saw it as a perfect opportunity to expiate whatever white guilt they may have felt… which was apparently considerable among those on the political left. It didn’t seem to bother them that, as one pundit has remarked, “every time he walks into a room he is the least experienced and the least qualified man in the room.” Nevertheless, his friends in the worldwide socialist movement and the international banking community figured out how to smuggle hundreds of millions of dollars in illegal campaign funds into the country, the black community rallied to his banner, and American liberals and the mainstream media jumped on board the bandwagon. Together, they made it happen for him. But now, just one year later, Obama appears destined to become the unhappiest man in American politics… unhappier than even former Senator John Edwards, who runs a close second, and former president Bill Clinton.

Clinton will be the third unhappiest man because, after capturing the big prize, he frittered away whatever chance he had of ever being compared favorably with Franklin D. Roosevelt as one of the 20th century’s greatest Democratic presidents. Not only was he a politician of unusual skill and insight, he was widely known as a policy “wonk” among policy wonks and he had the drive and the personal charm to be loved and respected around the world. Unfortunately, he was never able to put the public trust at the top of his priority list. Instead, he surrounded himself with a large cadre of trusted enablers who allowed him to conduct himself as if he were, not the President of the United States , but the class stud on an extended spring break in Acapulco .

Now that he’s been out of office for nearly a decade and he’s married to the current Secretary of State, he spends his days trying to find something useful to do without calling an undue amount of attention to himself. Having lied so shamelessly to the American people, having perjured himself in a court of law, having turned the Oval Office into a sexual playpen, and having suffered the humiliation of impeachment, he’s smart enough to know that he has little reputation left to protect. So in order to protect whatever legacy remains, he walks a tightrope every day… and he has many more years to walk it without falling off.

Former Senator John Edwards is destined to be the second unhappiest man in American politics because he will be known forever as the most thoroughly despised scumbag in the political arena. A trial lawyer, Edwards amassed a $60 million fortune by winning large jury awards against doctors, hospitals, and corporations. His specialty was cases in which children were born with cerebral palsy, which he blamed on doctors who had waited too long to perform C-sections, a claim that doctors and medical researchers have described as “junk science.” Then, like Obama, he decided that his experience in the courtroom, his glib tongue, and his one term in the U.S. Senate qualified him to be President of the United States . He entered the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries, raising an incredible amount of money for a newcomer to elective office… most of it raised illegally by “bundlers” in plaintiffs’ law firms across the country. He was unsuccessful in his quest for the Democratic nomination but was selected by his Senate colleague, John Kerry, as his running mate.

Two years later, in 2006, Edwards met a young blonde film producer, Rielle Hunter, and embarked on a love affair with her. On February 27, 2008, Hunter gave birth to a daughter, for whom Edwards has consistently denied paternity… until now.

Taking into account that all of this was happening while his wife was waging a long battle with breast cancer, Edwards now has the well-deserved reputation of being the sleaziest of the sleazy. He is so universally despised that, if he is on the lookout for a friend, he might as well resign himself to getting a dog… or moving in with O.J.

Simpson. Terry Moran, host of ABC’s This Week, put it all in perspective. He said, “What’s interesting to note is that Edwards’ latest admission (that he is the father of Hunter’s child) came while he was in Haiti . As if the people of that sad place didn’t have enough problems.” Clearly, the one thing Clinton and Edwards share that places them near the top of our list is their sexual peccadilloes, a shortcoming that Obama does not appear to share with them… at least from what we know so far.

What we do know about Obama is that, since his teen years, he has been mentored by, gravitated toward, and surrounded by the most dangerous sort of America-hating socialists, communists, and Marxists… from Frank Marshall Davis and Saul Alinsky to Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, George Soros, and countless radical left college professors.

What destines Obama for the top spot on the list of unhappiest American politicians… aside from the failure of his economic recovery program, the failure of his radical cap-and-trade proposal, his failed attempt to give labor bosses unprecedented power to intimidate blue collar workers, and his ill-fated attempt at healthcare reform… is the fact that he carries on his shoulders the hopes and aspirations of every black child in America. It is unfortunate that, because he is so far outside the American mainstream, and because he carries so much hatred in his heart for the country he seeks to lead, his failures will be viewed by generations of black children, not as the failure of a black socialist attempting to bring down a constitutional republic, but simply as the failure of a black man.

A man can fail in the eyes of his countrymen and still be dearly loved by those closest to him. But in Obama’s case, his wife and his two daughters will be there to suffer every agonizing step of his fall along with him. And for the rest of his life, each time he looks into their eyes, and into the eyes of black people everywhere, he will see the crushing disappointment that his ill-fated attempt at national transformation has caused them.

He will be the country’s unhappiest man, living the rest of his life knowing that his daughters know that the whole world sees him as a failure. He is simply the wrong man, in the wrong job, in the wrong country, at the wrong time in history.

I strongly suspect that IF the bill authorizing the government to seize control of the health care industry is rammed through, the election this fall will damage the Democratic brand tremendously.  I think that the leadership of Democratic party both in Congress and in the White House have seriously under estimated the anger that is building across the country in opposition to the free spending ways of this Congress and this President.  But the one of the final things Mr. Obama said after Thurdays Blair House Kabuki theatre is telling.  Roughly he said that,  if the country is unhappy with this plan, that's what elections are for...

Let's just hope that Messers Obama, Reid and Mrs. Pelosi aren't successful either with this bill or with the Cap & Trade bill, Mr. Obama would like passed this spring.

UPDATE:  I received the following rather threatening email from US News & World Report:

To Whom It May Concern,

Your post (http://thevailspot.blogspot.com/2010/02/is-obama-on-way-to-failing-in-his-first.html) contains a copy of an article written by Paul R. Hollrah, however the article is not attributed to him. Mr. Hollrah's name was left off the post. The first sentence of the article, however, begins, "In a January 20, 2010 editorial, the Editor in Chief of U.S. News & World Report, Mortimer Zuckerman, had this to say:…." This sentence, in conjunction with the fact that the copy of the article is not properly attributed to Mr. Hollrah, leaves the reader with the false impression that Mr. Zuckerman wrote the entire post that follows. We demand that you correct this error, either by noting that the article copied onto your site was written by Mr. Hollrah, or by removing the post in its entirety.

U.S. News & World Report and Mr. Zuckerman do not by this letter waive any of their rights in connection with these matters and specifically reserves any and all rights it has against you.

Please notify me -- directly or through your attorney -- as soon as possible to confirm that the correction has been made.

Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Sincerely,

Ashley Messenger
Editorial Counsel
U.S. News & World Report
contentmanagement@usnews.com

So, Miss Messenger, the appropriate changes have been made as I stated in the opening paragraphs.  Now, when I have a specific source for the above material attributed to Mr. Hollrah, I'll gladly link to it.