Hope is Not a Foreign Policy » Barack Obama

Conservative Critics of the Libya Campaign Aren’t Isolationist–They’re Realists

Tom Skypek — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 11:41:31 +0000

The continued military adventure in Libya, the House of Representatives’ ambiguous rebuke of the President, and the President’s recent speech on Afghanistan, has led to a number of thoughtful articles on the current trajectory of our foreign policy which I wanted to share.

Colin Dueck, GOP Isolationist? No, Just More Jacksonian, RealClearPolitics
Tony Blankley, McCain Is Wrong: GOP Not Isolationist, The Washington Times
George Will, John McCain’s Never-ending War, The Washington Post

Lastly, I wanted to share the piece I wrote for RealClearPolitics, Conservatism Does Not End at America’s Shorelines. Like the three authors above, I, too, was prompted by the misleading comments of Sens. McCain and Graham. What the conservative intellectual movement needs is a substantive, honest debate on the merits of various foreign policy approaches. Throwing verbal firebombs does not constitute a serious debate. Reasonably people can certainly disagree but let’s hear the arguments. I’ve received some interesting feedback on the piece thus far. What is encouraging is that even among folks who disagree with my preferred approach, most concede the point on cost/national interest which is the crux of my argument. Foreign policy and military affairs are not exempt from the economic realities that govern the rest of human affairs.

Libya Highlights Obama’s Foreign Policy Confusion

Tom Skypek — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 12:39:18 +0000

There are few things more important to a statesman than credibility and consistency when it comes to administering a nation’s foreign policy. The Obama administration’s response to recent events in Egypt and Libya underscore its foreign policy confusion. The White House has a peculiar habit of treating allied governments and adversarial governments as equals. This stems from President Barack Obama’s professed belief that all nations are indeed equal in Washington’s eyes. Of course, the reality of international politics is quite the opposite. More than two-thousand years of human history support this fact. Some states, whose national interests overlap and intersect, join together as allies. States whose national interests collide tend to have more adversarial relationships.

Understanding the role alliance systems play in international politics is a basic requirement for any successful statesmen. Judging by the administration’s impartial treatment of other nations (both allies and adversaries), it appears as though this important fact is lost on the president and his senior advisors. Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War communicates not only the centrality of military power in the conduct of international politics but the critical role of alliance systems. While its primary actors were the city-states of Athens and Sparta, the story of the Peloponnesian War is a tale of alliance systems. In the end, it was the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League that defeated the Athenian-led Delian League.

Now consider President Obama’s treatment of Egypt (a U.S. ally) and Libya (a U.S. adversary). The Obama administration was more than eager to push former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak from power. The president held two major press conferences and issued numerous statements through White House channels urging, albeit in sometimes veiled language, for Mubarak to step aside. Mubarak, a benign dictator and strong U.S. ally, received no support from the White House during the crisis, whose message was based more on platitudes than substantive and thoughtful policy. Now a military dictatorship has supplanted Mubarak and it appears that elections may follow at a later date. The risk, of course, is that an Islamist government assumes power democratically and then proceeds to turn Egypt into a one-party state.

Now take Libya and its flamboyant and repressive leader, Muammar Gaddafi, who has masterminded and been linked to numerous terrorist attacks over the last four decades, many of which have led directly to American deaths. Some of Gaddafi’s terrorist bona fides include: the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, the 1986 bombing of the German discotheque, and Pan Am Flight 103. During the recent protests, Gaddafi has used tanks, helicopters, and fighter aircraft to attack civilian protesters (one report puts the death toll at 560); Mubarak did no such thing in attempting to maintain civil order during the protests in Egypt.

One would reasonably assume that Gaddafi’s regime should be on the receiving end of much more critical rhetoric from the White House. However, it was Egypt—a U.S. ally—which received more pointed criticism from the White House, along with the de facto request that Mubarak step aside so that another dictatorship could assume the reins of power. Gaddafi—a longtime adversary with American blood on his hands—has received virtually the same treatment afforded Mubarak. What type of message does this send to U.S. allies? Certainly not a message of consistency, credibility, or reassurance.

During the 2009-2010 popular uprisings in Iran following the Iranian presidential election, the White House was mostly reticent as the regime violently suppressed the protests. Again, President Obama’s reticence is difficult to understand; the protesters were standing in opposition to the brutally repressive and staunchly anti-U.S. regime in Tehran. Washington should have been more vocal in its support of the protesters. The Obama administration’s inconsistency in dealing with Egypt and Libya highlights its poor understanding of the role alliances play in international politics. The president and his senior advisors need to re-read Thucydides.

The Tea Party Movement Must Stand with Governor Walker

Tom Skypek — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 01:01:00 +0000

Like the federal government and much of the rest of the country, Wisconsin is broke. As such, Governor Scott Walker has courageously asked public employees to make a 5.8% contribution to their pensions, which is roughly equal to the national average. He’s also asked them to pay 12.6% of their health insurance costs, which is about half the national average. These are hardly unreasonable requests considering that most Americans are paying much more out of their own pockets. At a time when most Americans are tightening their family budgets these unions expect a free ride when it comes to health care and retirement savings. Governor Walker stands in stark contrast to Barack Obama who has passed up every opportunity to cut the deficit and reduce our debt. Then he has the audacity to call Walker’s proposal an “assault” on unions. Talk about playing fast and loose with the facts.

Our socialist friends and the mainstream media want us to believe that the protests in Wisconsin are organic, grassroots demonstrations. Out comes the class warfare card. The reality is that this is an astroturf operation if there ever was one. Obama’s campaign organization–Organizing for America–and the Democratic National Committee–are funding and busing in union members throughout the country. This is classic campaign politics. Obama wants to win re-election and he can’t do that without the union vote.

This is where the Tea Party movement needs to step in and help out the govenor. The movement can’t fade away now that November 2010 has come and gone. This is another fight that needs to be won.

Conservatives Shouldn’t Fear Cuts to Defense Budget

Tom Skypek — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:32:51 +0000

Social Security may be the third rail of American politics, but the defense budget is at least worthy of notable mention. In fact, the defense budget is arguably the most politically sensitive budget item after entitlement spending. Conservatives and Republicans, who have enjoyed an advantage over their liberal counterparts on national security issues since Vietnam, too often associate a “strong national defense” simply with increases in defense spending—without considering the expenditures in the context of broader U.S. grand strategy. Many conservatives and Republicans are reluctant to propose cuts to the defense budget out of fear for appearing weak. Many just lack any strategic sense and simply follow the big government internationalism crowd which includes both liberals and parts of the conservative movement.

Liberals and Democrats are split into two camps: There are those Democrats who remember the Left’s shameful behavior during the Vietnam War and are reluctant to propose cuts out of fear for appearing weak. Then there are liberals and Democrats who can’t cut enough from the defense budget and have lost sight of the important fact that one of the few constitutional responsibilities of the federal government is to provide for the “common defence.”

Then there is a third category which includes liberals and Democrats, conservatives and Republicans: politicians with defense contractors in their states. These politicians are reluctant to cut defense programs even when they’re no longer needed in order to protect jobs in their districts and states. The F-22 is a case in point.

So what did President Obama do with the Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 defense budget? He did what was politically safe and made no cuts to the baseline budget but slightly reduced funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a liberal Democrat, he is extra sensitive to being perceived as weak and can’t afford the political risks associated with larger cuts to the defense budget; he does want a second term so why stoke the Jimmy Carter comparisons? Justin Fishel writing at FoxNews.com provides a good snapshot of the FY 2010, 2011, and 2012 budgets:

In 2010 there was a base budget of $531 billion, with an additional $130 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, known as OCO (Overseas Contingency Operations) funding. President Bush called it Global War on Terror or GWOT funding, a term dropped by Obama. Later in 2010 President Obama added another $33 billion in supplemental spending to fund the 30,000-man troop surge in Afghanistan.

2010 grand total: $694,000,000,000

The proposal for FY 2011 asked for a $549 billion base, with $159 in OCO spending.

2011 proposed grand total: $708,000,000,000

The FY 2012 defense budget asks for $553 billion in base spending, with $118 billion for the wars. That significant decrease in war spending is directly related to heavy troop withdrawals in Iraq.

2012 proposed grand total: $671,000,000,000

In January Secretary Gates announced a plan to cut $78 billion in defense spending over five years. The largest savings would come from shrinking the size of the Army by 27,000 soldiers and the Marines by 15 – 20,000 in the year 2015. That assumes the war in Afghanistan will be over for the U.S. by the end of 2014.

If you’re going to cut defense spending it makes sense to slash ineffective pet programs, of which the Pentagon has many, rather than funds for ongoing operations in Iraq and, especially, Afghanistan. I don’t agree with our current strategy in Afghanistan, but if we have troops in harm’s way we have a moral obligation to fully fund them. Anyone who has worked in the Pentagon has seen these pet programs and inefficiencies, though Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has made some significant progress in streamling Pentagon operations.

Thinking about the defense budget in a vacuum is strategically unsound but a common practice in Washington. A budget is required to help an organization achieve its objectives; a budget is a means to an end. So this begs the question: what is our grand strategy? Rather than reflexively opposing cuts to the defense budget, conservatives should not cower from reasonable cuts to the defense budget. Any analysis should consider the following four questions:

For what reasons does America engage in foreign affairs?
What are America’s national interests?
What are the threats those interests?
What is America’s grand strategy?

The answers to these questions will determine what kind of military is required to support these ends and how much it will cost. I believe that our current grand strategy is too costly and disconnected from the national interest and Constitution. I recently laid out my vision for a conservative foreign policy in the Washington Examiner in a piece entitled, “It’s time to end big government internationalism.” In it I argued:

Since the end of the Cold War, American statesmen have defined the national interest in far too broad of terms, squandering taxpayer dollars in support of a foreign policy that does not clearly advance America’s core national interests. In FY 2008, Washington provided foreign aid to about 154 countries. Today, the U.S. military has a presence in about 150 countries. The majority of these aid packages and military deployments do little to promote America’s national interests; still, this type of big government internationalism has become unquestioned convention for the Washington foreign policy establishment and conservatives are as guilty as their liberal counterparts in pushing the global welfare state.

Many Republican and Democratic policymakers conflate American diplomatic, economic, and military primacy with omnipotence. As a result, they have consistently failed to reconcile America’s desired end states with its available means—eschewing important economic realities such as the $14 trillion national debt while failing to make the difficult tradeoffs often required of effective statesmen. In order to avoid the fate of previous great powers, the United States should adopt an economically sustainable grand strategy that advances a set of more narrowly defined national interests, encourages burden-sharing among its allies, and is consistent with the Constitution. More specifically, Washington should reduce its global footprint, keep its military power in abeyance, and discharge that power only in defense of the national interest.

The sole aim of Washington’s international engagement should be the preservation of American political and economic liberty—not to remake the world in its image. In his book, A Foreign Policy for Americans, former U.S. Senator Robert Taft argued, “I do not believe it is a selfish goal for us to insist that the overriding purpose of all American foreign policy should be the maintenance of the liberty and peace of our people of the United States…”

So where would I cut? I would do a few things right off the bat. I would redeploy the 50,000 military personnel we currently have in Europe (it costs serious money to train, equip, and sustain forces in a foreign country). Correspondingly, I would scale back our commitments to NATO. NATO is a military alliance without a clear mission. It achieved its Cold War-era objectives, but it is no longer useful in the 21st century; it should be replaced with bilateral or smaller multilateral alliances to increase burden-sharing and reduce the stress on the U.S. force. The alliance’s biggest test in recent years–Afghanistan–has yielded disappointing results. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)–the NATO military organ in charge of operations in Afghanistan–places the vast majority of the burden on the U.S. Some troops have quipped that ISAF really stands for “I saw an American fight.”

I would also adopt a new strategy in Afghanistan, one that significantly reduces our land (conventional ground forces) commitments and emphasizes special operations forces and airpower. In terms of major acquisition programs, I would initiate a sweeping program review to weed out costly programs which are not required to achieve our military and defense policy objectives. Each military service has pet programs which continue to exist more because they embody the service culture (read U.S. Air Force and the F-22) than actual military requirements. Weapons acquisition must be driven by military requirements, not service cultures or Capitol Hill politics.

Defense is one of the few legitimate responsibilities of the federal government. There are many other programs, which are well beyond the scope of the government’s responsibilities, which should be eliminated all together to address our dire fiscal situation. Conservatives need to realize, however, that there is nothing unconservative about reasoned and rational cuts to the defense budget. The fact remains that there is waste in the Pentagon and part of that waste stems from an overly costly grand strategy, one that is disconnected from America’s core national interests. Republicans in Congress must think very carefully about this nation’s involvement in foreign affairs and whether our current strategy is appropriate. The Tea Party movement should take this opportunity to extend its limited government message to U.S. foreign policy. Without pressure from the Tea Party movement, many Republicans will shrink from this challenge.

Obama’s Reckless $3.73 Trillion Budget

Tom Skypek — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 21:45:09 +0000

Today President Obama submitted his FY2012 budget to Congress and the numbers are staggering. The president had a real opportunity to provide leadership and make good on his promise to begin to address America’s fiscal crisis. But for all the president’s talk of fiscal responsibility and a renewed commitment to deficit reduction, the proposed budgets lacks any meaningful cuts, though the White House purports that it will cut the budget by $1.1 trillion over the next decade. This figure assumes very optimistic rates of growth for the economy–rates of growth most serious economists would refute. According to Bloomberg News, “The deficit for the current fiscal year is forecast to hit a record $1.6 trillion — 10.9 percent of gross domestic product — up from the $1.4 trillion the administration estimated previously.” The budget also proposes a series of new tax increases, confirming that the Obama administration still believes that they can tax their way out of this fiscal crisis. This is where the Obama administration is sorely mistaken: we do not have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem. Rhetorically, the president acknowledges that we have a spending problem, yet he irresponsibly continues to add to the debt as if there were no consequences to massive indebtedness. His rhetoric is simply inconsistent with his actions. He is a tax and spend liberal Democrat and his latest budget is further confirmation of this fact (as if we needed any additional evidence).

The president’s budget plan fails to make any meaningful reforms to entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security) which accounts for roughly 40% of the annual budget. What is more, Obama doesn’t include any of the recommendations from the much-heralded debt commission which he established. “The only way we can make these investments in the future is if our government starts living within our means,” Obama said of his proposed budget. “What we’ve done here is make a down payment.” This is doublespeak at its worst; he preaches about fiscal responsibility while in the same sentence pushing for new spending. We simply don’t have the money to pay for any of this; we can’t even cover this year’s budget. I’m not a mathemetican, but you can’t tell me that 2 plus 2 = 5 and expect me to believe it. The budget proposes an 11% increase in education spending. The Department of Education should be abolished; federal involvement in the education system has resulted in no measurable enhancements in the delivery of education. Education should be left to the states.

The administration continues to perpetuate the idea that we can tax ourselves out of this crisis. Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) conducted analysis of the president’s FY2012 budget and identified a number of new tax increases including raising the top marginal income tax rate from 35% to 39.6% and raising the capital gains and dividends rate from 15% to 20% along with a host of other tax increases which represent a $1.5 trillion tax hike over the next decade. Just what a weak economy needs: more taxes.

This budget isn’t even close to addressing America’s fiscal crisis. Obama’s talk of “tough choices” is pure fiction. The president took the low road here and did what was easy, dressing up a financially irresponsible budget in courageous rhetoric. But this budget required no political courage and offered no leadership. The Republicans need to chop a lot more than $100 billion from this behemoth. What House and Senate Republicans need to do is adopt Sen. Rand Paul’s plan which would cut $500 billion from the budget in FY2012. Paul’s plan, which has been criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike as a bridge too far, would trim the projected $1.6 trillion budget deficit by just one third. How can anyone claim to be serious about deficit reduction and then say that Paul’s plan is too aggressive? Certainly not anyone who owes their election to the Tea Party, I hope.

Barack Obama, the Fiscal Conservative

Tom Skypek — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 00:44:02 +0000

We will go through our federal budget–page by page, line by line–eliminating those programs we don’t need.

President-Elect Barack Obama, November 2008

Remember this? Whoever debates President Obama in 2012 ought to ask him about this quote. I’d like to hear his response. It appears that this has never happened. All he’s done is add line items and red ink to the federal budget. I was reminded of this quote when I stumbled across this outstanding ad sponsored by the Cato Institute.

The Obama-Reid-Pelosi Agenda Lives

Tom Skypek — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 18:43:59 +0000

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will seek the position of House Minority Leader in the next session of Congress. And, of course, Harry Reid will return as the Senate Majority Leader (much to the chagrin of Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer). The election results were a repudiation of big government liberalism–cap and trade, Obamacare, the so-called stimulus, and TARP.

Clearly, though, that’s not how the Democratic Party or the White House interprets the election results. Thinking about 2012, this seems like a good thing for conservatives and Republicans. Not only will Obama not be able to run against the “do-nothing” Republican Congress (since we only control one chamber), but the unpopular liberal triumvirate of Obama-Reid-Pelosi remains. Now, if I were a Democratic strategist, I would do everything I could to make sure that neither Reid nor Pelosi hold leadership positions in the Congress. They are toxic politically and will be red meat for conservatives in the 2012 election. Having said that, I hope they stick around.

Dissenters are “Enemies,” according to President Obama

Tom Skypek — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 21:18:03 +0000

In a recent interview President Obama referred to dissenters as “enemies.” This is remarkable on a variety of levels. First, Obama was supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime, post-partisan politician. Referring to people with whom you disagree as “enemies” isn’t exactly civilized political discourse. Reasonable people can disagree and not be “enemies.” Second, I find it amazing how the left and progressives always talk about “diversity,” but as their words and actions clearly show, they never mean intellectual diversity.

John Boehner summed it up nicely:

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as “our enemies.” Think about that. He actually used that word. When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush used the word “enemy,” they reserved it for global terrorists and foreign dictators — enemies of the United States. Enemies of freedom. Enemies of our country.

Enemies? Really? Word choice matters; it really matters when you’re the President of the United States. Ostensibly, the issue to which Obama was referring was illegal immigration. So in effect, President Obama said that Americans who believe in the rule of law and have a problem with illegal immigration are “enemies.” This is creepy statism as its finest. Can you imagine if George W. Bush had said something like this?

The Making of a National Security Advisor

Tom Skypek — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 22:05:43 +0000

President Obama announced earlier this month that his current deputy national security advisor, Tom Donilon, would replace the retiring Marine Corps General Jim Jones. Donilon was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae, and a paid consultant for Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Apollo Investments. Donilon is kind of a strange pick, then, considering his background as a lobbyist and his association with Fannie Mae. It’s strange because this administration made such a big deal about excluding lobbyists from policymaking positions but has granted a number of waivers to high-ranking officials, including Deputy Secretary of Defense William Lynn.

Personally, I don’t think lobbyists should be excluded from policymaking positions solely because they were lobbyists at one point in their careers. I do think it matters, though, who they lobbied for and what they lobbied for (for example, lobbying for Fannie Mae at the height of the housing bubble raises red flags for me). But there are a lot of talented lobbyists who make great public servants. Still, it’s a bit hypocritical of the administration, but it really hasn’t bothered the mainstream media enough to cover it.

The position of national security advisor (the actual title of the position is “Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs) is an interesting one. It requires a range of management skills and high-level policy experience. It’s not as much of a straight management job as is the position of secretary of defense. Yes, a national security advisor is a manger–he/she manages the National Security Staff, but at the end of the day the national security advisor is a policymaking job. In fact, if you want to remake American foreign policy, become national security advisor, not secretary of defense or secretary of state. The national security advisor helps to craft American foreign policy at the highest levels of government, and depending on his/her relationship with the president, has considerable impact on the direction of American grand strategy. History suggests that effective national security advisors must:

Understand the national security bureaucracy. As the national security advisor, you need to have a comprehensive understanding of how the Washington national security bureaucracy works. More specifically, you need to have a firm understanding of how the federal interagency works–how the Departments of Defense, State, Energy, Homeland Security, Treasury, and Justice work to implement the president’s national security agenda. It helps if you’ve had experience working for or closely with a number of these organizations. And of course, you need to understand the intelligence community (good luck!). You also need to realize that most of the personnel who comprise the national security bureaucracy are not political appointees serving at the pleasure of the president, but career civil servants who may be less receptive to ambitiously implement the president’s agenda.
Be an effective decision-maker. When a foreign policy crisis strikes, the president will look to you for options. You need to present clear and concise options for presidential decision, clearly enumerating the costs and benefits of each decision. Sure, the Pentagon is responsible for developing military plans but it is the White House who must weigh how a presidential decision will affect the geopolitical environment. As such, you must be able to think strategically and understand how a particular course of action best advances America’s national interests. If you’re an effective decision-maker, you will help the president to be an effective decision-maker.
Be an effective manager. Manging the National Security Staff and interfacing with the National Security Council, you will undoubtedly have to manage some big Washington egos and sort out regular turf battles between State and Defense or CIA and the FBI. To do this, you must be familiar with the Washington national security bureaucracy. It also helps if you’re selfless and know a lot of people. One of your job roles will be to play peacemaker.
Be a realist. You must realize that while the United States is the most powerful country in the world, its resources are not unlimited. Therefore, you must ensure that the end-states the president and his/her administration seeks are consistent with the means with which they have to achieve them. This also requires you to clearly identify threats, understand the importance of military power, and to realize that, as Hans Morgenthau famously remarked, “International politics, like all politics, is a struggle for power.”
Be able to cultivate a personal relationship with the president. Access to the president is crucial. You don’t want to be hiding out in the West Wing trying to catch the president as he leaves the Oval Office. Obviously some people work well together and others do not. To some degree this is a matter of personal chemistry.
Understand grand strategy. You need to be able to think at the grand strategic level of statecraft. You need to ask and be able to shape policies to address broad, sweeping questions such as: What are America’s national interests? What is the best way to defend and advance the national interest? What ought to be America’s role in the world? For what reasons do we engage in foreign affairs? Is our current national security strategy meeting our objectives? Who are our allies? And, of course–when is it appropriate to use military force?

It’s unclear to me whether or not Donilon checks these boxes. I simply don’t know enough about the man to make an informed judgment. I know far more about his predecessor and I think it’s safe to say that General Jones checked off all of these boxes except one: Obama and Jones never developed the type of close, working relationship that is required to be an effective national security advisor. As Bob Woodward, and others have noted, Jones was never part of Obama’s inner circle of advisors. My primary concern, however, is that the departure of Jones, coupled with the upcoming departure of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates–the administration will lose all of its realists and that the direction of American foreign policy will be solely at the whim of liberal internationalists.

Here’s another take on the Donilon selection from Marcus Baram.

The Myth of Shovel-Ready Jobs

Tom Skypek — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 23:18:05 +0000

In a recent (and now infamous) interview with New York Times reporter Peter Baker, President Obama appraised his first two years in office, confessing that “shovel-ready” jobs don’t actually exist:

While proud of his record, Obama has already begun thinking about what went wrong — and what he needs to do to change course for the next two years. He has spent what one aide called “a lot of time talking about Obama 2.0” with his new interim chief of staff, Pete Rouse, and his deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina. During our hour together, Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency. But he did identify what he called “tactical lessons.” He let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.” He realized too late that “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects” when it comes to public works. Perhaps he should not have proposed tax breaks as part of his stimulus and instead “let the Republicans insist on the tax cuts” so it could be seen as a bipartisan compromise.

Obama’s assessment that his political fortunes will be different if only he doesn’t allow himself to be seen as “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat” misses the mark. President Obama’s troubles are linked to his ideology–his liberal, redistribution of wealth ideology that wants nothing more than to increase the size of government, his view that government is the solution to every problem this country faces. America is very much a center-right country and Obama’s ideology is simply incompatible with a majority of Americans. Why did he elected, then? A lot of voters bought his rhetoric. He didn’t run as a pure liberal. He talked about cutting taxes and balancing the budget; rhetorically, he pushed conservative policies. Of course, his record has been anything but conservative.

What is most troubling in this article is his confession that he “realized too late,” according to Baker, that “shovel-ready” jobs don’t exist. This is an extraordinary confession. It really is. One of his key arguments for passing the stimulus package was that “shovel-ready” provisions in the legislation would get people back to work right away. The stimulus amounted to almost $1 trillion in new spending and has done little to stimulate the economy. A recent Gallup survey put unemployment at 10.1%. The president went “all in” on shovel-ready jobs (with taxpayer dollars) and lost.

The president simply doesn’t understand how to create jobs. Jobs are not created by the government. Government can only prime the conditions for private sector job creation by lowering taxes and reducing harmful regulations. And what does he do? The complete opposite. He pushes through new fees, new regulations, and is about to let the Bush tax cuts expire which is tantamount to pouring gasoline on a fire. Obama is a Keynesian and Krugman acolyte, through and through. What we need is more Friedman and Sowell.