For Obama to win, he believes America must lose

George C. Landrith

Senator Barack Obama has decided that for him to win, America must lose -- economically and militarily. Despite the facts, consistently throughout his presidential campaign Obama has hyped economic calamity and military failures. And now we learn that he worked to delay an agreement that would bring American soldiers home. Why? Because Obama has decided that if Americans believe the economy is in the tank and that our military is losing or at least not winning, his slogan of "change" will sound better. Simply stated, Obama believes that he wins if he can get Americans down on America.

Obama throws the "recession" word around freely even though there is no recession. The word recession has an objective standard and meaning -- a period of economic decline as evidenced by a decline in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for two or more consecutive quarters. Simply stated, a recession is six or more months of negative economic growth. Yet, America has not had two such quarters. In fact, despite the housing financial market troubles and high energy prices, the economy has been growing, not shrinking. 

Interestingly, both high energy costs and the nation's current mortgage financial troubles can be laid at the feet of liberals. Liberals have spent the past 30 years preventing America from drilling and producing more of its own energy. Today, we pay near record prices for energy thanks to those policies. Additionally, liberals are the biggest beneficiaries of Freddie Mac's and Fannie Mae's political contributions. And former Clinton administration officials were up to their necks in the Enron-style accounting scandal at Fannie Mae. Barack Obama is the third largest recipient of lobbying money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Democratic legislators Christopher Dodd, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Paul Kanjorski round out the rest of the top five. 

But the most devastating news for Obama is that in July, he was working overtime to keep American soldiers in Iraq and wanted to delay their return home. In July, Obama was traveling abroad in an attempt to look presidential and to meet a few world leaders so that he wouldn't look so entirely inexperienced. He gave a big speech in Germany where he talked down America. The Europeans loved it. Obama could be elected as the president of the European Union by a landslide. But it didn't play so well in America. His poll numbers began to drop almost immediately. 

We now find out that only days earlier while Obama was visiting Iraq, he asked Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement to draw-down the American military presence in Iraq -- so that the troops coming home wouldn't be credited to Bush. Obama cynically wanted our soldier's return to be on his watch (assuming, of course, that he wins) so he can claim credit. So much for honor in politics!

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, reports that Obama didn't merely mention it, but made delaying the return home of U.S. troops a key part of his discussions with Iraqi leaders. According to a report in the New York Post, Zebari said, "[Obama] asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington." The same report reveals that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's advisers have observed that Obama appears to be interested in claiming the victory that American soldiers have already won in Iraq by arguing it was his wisdom and his intervention that somehow transformed failure in Iraq into success.

Despite all of his high-minded talk of change and transforming politics in Washington, Obama, as Bill Clinton is reported to have said, has the political instincts of "a Chicago thug." There is nothing new or high minded about Obama. He is a typical, run of the mill Chicago machine politician. Obama would prefer to keep U.S. soldiers in harms way in Iraq so that they can come home on "his watch" and so he can claim credit for the victory. That would explain why he has been so unwilling to admit that the surge worked. 

Obama is more interested in getting credit for a military victory in Iraq (even though he voted against funding the troops) then he is in getting American troops home. Obama is not a leader. He is poser. Sadly, Obama is nothing more than a self-interested hack politician who gives a good speech and who puts his own interests ahead of the interests of the nation. 

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Mr. Landrith is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was Business Editor of the Virginia Journal of Law and Politics. He had a successful law practice in business and litigation. In 1994 and 1996, Mr. Landrith was a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's Fifth Congressional District. He served on the Albemarle County School Board. Mr. Landrith is an adjunct professor at the George Mason School of Law. He is recognized as an authority on constitutional law and jurisprudence, federalism, global warming, and property rights.

george@ff.org