Obama’s growing list of failures

The list of monumental failures by President Barack Obama continues to grow as his Presidency becomes defined by lack of direction, lack of purpose and lack of leadership.

From Afghanistan to the Economy to oil spills, the Obama administration lackluster record highlights a Presidency of ineptitude, incompetence and inability to respond in times of national emergency.

The White House’s slow response to the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has become the Obama’s Katrina — a testament to the federal government’s inability to react quickly in a crisis.  The President’s expanded war effort in Afghanistan has failed so miserably that even the General in charge of the operation admits “nobody is winning.”

While Obama claims progress on the economy, more Americans remain out of work than at any time in the nation’s history and economists admit that many of them may never find a decent job again.

Now comes word that the President’s attempt to throw more taxpayer money into the “war on drugs” is a “colossal failure.”

Reports the Associated Press:

This week President Obama promised to “reduce drug use and the great damage it causes” with a new national policy that he said treats drug use more as a public health issue and focuses on prevention and treatment.

Nevertheless, his administration has increased spending on interdiction and law enforcement to record levels both in dollars and in percentage terms; this year, they account for $10 billion of his $15.5 billion drug-control budget.

Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn’t worked.

But while evidence points to Obma’s growing record of failure as President, the media that fawn over him continue to look the other way.

Write Michael Medved on AOL.Com:

Less than five years after George W. Bush wrecked his presidency through his limp response to a natural disaster in Louisiana, President Barack Obama has escaped largely unscathed from his similarly feckless response to a man-made disaster in precisely the same part of the country. Republicans have gained scant traction for their attempts to tag the massive oil spill off the Louisiana coast as “Obama’s Katrina.”

Is this a clear-cut case of media bias, or an appropriate contrast in press coverage of two very different calamities?

In one of the few prominent criticisms of Obama’s crisis management, The New York Times explicitly acknowledged a resemblance between the bumbling reaction of the Obama and the Bush administrations to their respective Gulf Coast catastrophes. In a stinging May 1 editorial, the nation’s “journal of record” declared that “the administration should not have waited, and should have intervened much more quickly on its own initiative. … The timetable is damning. … What we do know is that we now face a huge disaster whose consequences might have been minimized with swifter action.”

Nevertheless, neither the Times nor its counterparts in mainstream media followed up aggressively in emphasizing the administration’s incompetence.

But while the media continues to look the other way when it comes to Obama’s mistakes, Democrats worry that his Presidency, combined with the lackluster Democratic leadership in Congress, could spell disaster at the polls.

Some admit privately that Obama could become the biggest Democratic disappointment in the White House since Jimmy Carter.

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• From the Top Down, Sloughing Off Blame for the Spill (time.com)
• Gulf Oil Spill Has High Stakes for Obama (usnews.com)
• Oil Spill: Like Exxon Valdez with Katrina-like Political Implications? (themoderatevoice.com)
• Obama Budget Unexpectedly Bolsters War On Drugs (huffingtonpost.com)
• U.S. Drug War Has Met None of Its Goals (abcnews.go.com)
• The Obama spin-machine: Lots of propaganda, very little fact (capitolhillblue.com)