Our inadequate president

"Even now I wonder what I might have accomplished if I'd studied harder." Ronald Reagan, Eureka College commencement address, 1982.

Ronald Reagan, the Eureka College "C" student, was derided as an "amiable dunce" by longtime liberal insider Clark Clifford. But after two and a half years as president, Reagan turned a wretched economy into a soaring one. Nearly three decades later, self-described genius Barack Obama faces an economy that is still stuck in the mud.

Writing for the American Thinker, Clarice Feldman adds her thoughts:

Obama entered office on a groundswell of a disconcerting mania, a mania in which voters imagined on this blank slate of a candidate all sorts of truly fantastic abilities and policies, none of which were warranted in his paltry, truly shabby history.

The man with no available school records, for example, was painted as a genius and his brief time as a University of Chicago adjunct (basically teaching assistant) puffed up to a professorship in constitutional law. The guy who cannot speak a logical, coherent, grammatical sentence on his own was pawned off as a literary genius to unsuspecting, foolish voters. It was inevitable that the reality of his time in office could never match the dream. It was unfortunately equally inevitable that he would prove inadequate to the difficult job of the presidency.

Still, which of those who voted for him could have envisioned the hash he's made of things in every respect? Unemployment far exceeds what he warned it would reach if we didn't pass his stimulus package; the housing market shows no sign of lift off; the dollar sinks more each day; manufacturing is at a virtual standstill, and Americans grow more pessimistic about the economy each day. The landmark legislation of his first (and I hope final) term, ObamaCare, is so badly conceived and drafted that Americans are likely to see the best medical service in the world destroyed unless it is soon repealed or ruled unconstitutional. In the meantime, as uncertainty about its future grows, more and more businesses are paralyzed and unable to plan for their futures.

Ronald Reagan Trail posts:

Henry
Chillicothe
Peoria Heights
Washington, Illinois
The town of Eureka
Eureka College's Reagan Museum
Returning to Eureka College and the 1982 address
Eureka College
Carl Sandburg
Galesburg
Wyatt Earp
Monmouth

Technorati tags: politics Reagan republican Ronald Reagan history Obama Barack Obama