Obama Mirrors Bush Policies

The Obama and Bush administrations have been for the most part polar opposites. However, most of what has gone right for Obama has been because he has mirrored or extended Bush policies, especially against terrorism. Here are a few examples:

• Obama continued the Bush policy of hunting for Osama Bin Laden. And when Obama found him, he did exactly what Bush would have done; he killed him and ignored his civil liberties.

• Obama continued the Bush policy of keeping terrorists housed in Guantanamo Bay. Obama, like Bush, is holding detainees’ indefinitely without a charge. And when the enemy combatants are charged with criminal acts he is trying these detainees in a military tribunal and not a civilian court. These are all liberal promises broken by the naïve and misguided President elect who seemingly thought extreme Islam was a hoax.

• Obama has not only continued the Bush policy of using drone strikes to knock out al-Qaida targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen, he has escalated the use of this strategy.

• Obama went to war to overthrow a rogue and genocidal tyrant in Libya similar to how Bush went to war with Iraq. The difference is that Bush had the fortitude to finish the job. In effect, Obama was supporting the Bush “Freedom Agenda” in the Middle East when he went to war against Libya. As other oppressed Arab nations saw Democracies flourish in Iraq and Lebanon (Cedar Revolution backed by Bush), they too wanted the same freedoms. As a result, dozens of revolutions broke out across North Africa and the Middle East. Unfortunately, Obama missed out on many of these opportunities to oust terrorist supporting governments.

• Obama has continued both the Bush Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In fact, Obama has implemented the Bush “surge strategy” in Afghanistan.

Obama has also successfully mimicked a few alleged successful George Bush domestic strategies:

• Obama continued the unpopular Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP) that bailed out banks and financial institutions. To date, many of the loans have been paid back with interest.

• Obama has continued the Bush tax cuts for all tax brackets. Obama’s economic advisors correctly understand that raising taxes on the wealthy during a recession would be bad for the economy.

• Obama also continued the Bush policy of bailing out the automotive companies. Although many credit these bailouts for keeping GM and Chrysler solvent, bailouts did not stop them from going in bankruptcy, which ultimately got their financial standing under control.

Obama and Bush also have some troubling policy similarities:

• Both Obama and Bush will go down as the top Democratic and Republican deficit spending presidents in U.S. history.

• Both Obama (Democrats) and Bush (Republicans) are responsible for getting us into one of the worst recessions in U.S. history and both were unsuccessful in getting us out of the mess in a timely matter.

Oddly, Obama is quick to blame Bush for all of his failures, but he has never given Bush any credit for his successes. For instance, when the 1 trillion dollar stimulus and quantitative easing techniques failed to alter the recession’s outcome for the better, Obama would routinely blame Bush for getting us into the mess in the first place. And let’s not forget Obama and Democratic policies, under Bush, such as those used by mortgage giants Fannie and Freddie were a leading cause for the financial and housing collapse. Still, Obama has taken no responsibility for the economic calamity and his failed measures to correct the recession. And finally, in his speech following Bin Laden’s death, Obama alluded to the fact that the Bush administration took its eye off the prize (Bin Laden). But, according to reports, information collected under Bush’s watch led directly to the killing of Bin Laden (and some of that information came from enhanced interrogation techniques). Still, Obama gave Bush no credit. It is therefore a fact that had Obama been President after 9-11, we would have never gotten the intelligence necessary to kill Bin Laden. The bottom line, Obama is only successful when he emulates Bush policies.

My Book: Is America Dying? (Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble)