The First 100 Days

My grade for Obama’s first 100 days? C-. Let’s start with the good stuff.

1) Personal Appeal: A strong “A+.” Obama is charmer with a relaxed, easy style and smile that is appealing. He is likeable, and he uses it to his best advantage. Michelle has a surprised me by taking a more traditional first lady type of role, picking issues that represent her interests and being non-controversial in her approach to her difficult role. She reminds much more of Laura Bush or Jackie Kennedy than Hillary Clinton or Rosalyn Carter. Warning: too much of a good thing can be bad. He needs to back off a bit with continual speeches and news conferences.

2) Saving the Banks: A reluctant “A-.” I don’t agree with his over aggressively approach to government bank ownership and bullying CEO’s out of their jobs. On the other hand, after straying from the original purpose of TARP funds, he got on track by back stopping the so-called “toxic” assets with government purchases and guarantees, and modifying the “mark to market” rule allowing banks to begin the process of recapitalization. I think it will be the single biggest success of his presidency. Warning: Nationalization of banks will ultimately be harmful to the country and will come back to bite him in the rear. Divest ownership interests as soon as possible.

3) Stimulus Package: A well earned “D.” His rhetoric called for immediate spending on shovel ready projects. What we got was a standard liberal tax and spend bill filled with earmarks, not well thought ideological claptrap, and waste spelled with a capital WASTE. China, on the other hand, did what Obama said he was going to do, and is reaping the rewards right now. Any recovery to our economy will be rooted in China’s growth…not ours. What he did was increase government jobs, which by definition sap up wealth rather than create wealth. He will pay the price.

4) Budget Bill: F…F….F. His overall economic policy penalizes small business and corporations, where job growth is created, while increasing the national debt by ten fold. Our economy cannot tolerate the strain. The result will be rapidly increasing inflation and interest rates. I thought it would start in about a year. No way Jose!!! Have you been watching the cost of food go up in the grocery stores recently? The future is now. Interest rates on the 10 year bond are rising already because the government is having difficulty with its bond auctions. This isn’t what the Federal Reserve wants. At the end of the day, there will be no money left for business to borrow. Jimmy Carter stagflation anyone?

5) Foreign Policy: The big “D.” Jimmy Carter thought he could make nice with the world and all those rogue governments would fall into line behind him. He got his ass kicked. Same thing will happen to Obama. Undermining the CIA and FBI with de-classification of memos to appease his ultra-left wing supporters is not helpful. Neither are potential banana republic political show-trials questioning policy decisions of a former president after the worst foreign attack on American soil. An Afghan war spilling over into Pakistan will be a disaster. This will cost him the presidency in 4 years.

6) Collapsing Auto Industry: Another big “D.” I am not sure doing something was any better than doing nothing. Obama says he doesn’t want to run car companies, but his ideology will push him into trying. Does Ford really want to compete with the United States government in selling cars? Not to worry. By the time the Obama gets done designing cars to satisfy the environmental whackos in his political circle, the government will be declaring bankruptcy on itself. This will be fun to watch.

I give him an A+ for providing me with a cornucopia of stuff about which I can write. There are some times when it is just plain fun to be a conservative Republican. This is one of those times. I only hope we don’t lose the country in the process.