This Obamabot finally has to admit it: President Barack H. Obama is exactly like President George W. Bush.
After the Christmas Day Underpants Bombing, President Obama held a press conference where he said:
The bottom line is this: The U.S. government had sufficient information to have uncovered this plot and potentially disrupt the Christmas Day attack. But our intelligence community failed to connect those dots, which would have placed the suspect on the “no fly” list…Now, I will accept that intelligence, by its nature, is imperfect, but it is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged. That’s not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it…
I know that every member of my team that I met with today understands the urgency of getting this right. And I appreciate that each of them took responsibility for the shortfalls within their own agencies.
The president went before the citizens of the USA, took responsibility, and publicly castigated members of his administration.
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
The President did it again yesterday.
In our ever-changing world, America’s first line of defense is timely, accurate intelligence that is shared, integrated, analyzed, and acted upon quickly and effectively. That’s what the intelligence reforms after the 9/11 attacks largely achieved. That’s what our intelligence community does every day. But, unfortunately, that’s not what happened in the lead-up to Christmas Day. It’s now clear that shortcomings occurred in three broad and compounding ways…I have repeatedly made it clear — in public with the American people, and in private with my national security team — that I will hold my staff, our agencies and the people in them accountable when they fail to perform their responsibilities at the highest levels…
[U]ltimately, the buck stops with me. As President, I have a solemn responsibility to protect our nation and our people. And when the system fails, it is my responsibility.
The president again admitted that mistakes were made by the people he is in charge of and, at the end, took personal responsibility.
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
President Obama has also said repeatedly that he will close our detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
[M]ake no mistake: We will close Guantanamo prison, which has damaged our national security interests and become a tremendous recruiting tool for al Qaeda. In fact, that was an explicit rationale for the formation of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. And, as I’ve always said, we will do so — we will close the prison in a manner that keeps the American people safe and secure.
The president acknowledged that Gitmo was a big recruiting tool for terrorists and that it was harming our national security.
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
President Obama also acknowledges that “The Global War on Terror” shouldn’t be focused on a “tactic” (terrorism). Rather, it’s a war against specific groups of people and that acting like a international cowboy bully isn’t enough to protect the American people.
President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove [we are at war], and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies.
He’s dispensing with the He-Man act and going after the root causes and the people responsible for terrorist acts specifically.
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
The president has made health insurance reform and getting affordable coverage available to tens of millions of Americans that are currently without health insurance, people who rely on emergency rooms for all their healthcare needs, subsequently increasing costs for everyone else a major priority of his administration. Though there is much debate about the final legislation that’s about to be passed, it’s a bigger step forward than has been seen in decades. This is a president that acknowledges we have a systemic problem that needs to be addressed and has helped move the ball down the field. He also signed the SCHIP legislation extending medical coverage to millions of un-served kids.
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
Faced with an economy headed sharply downward, a collapsed banking industry, and a stock market in the toilet, President Obama undertook a series of stimulus measures that are slowly but surely turning things back around.
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
President Obama has put tremendous focus on green energy, a green energy economy and restoring science to its rightful place in policy development. He oversaw an increase in federal mileage standards. He went to an international summit on climate change and, though he was unable to secure all had hoped for, he showed our country and the world that he’s serious about solving the global climate change problem. He signed legislation reversing a ban on stem cell research. He even appointed a Nobel Laureate scientist as his Energy Secrectary.
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
The ability of American workers to form labor unions and to be protected from unfair employment practices by Big Business have been or will be enhanced by things like the Lily Leadbetter Act, Equal Pay laws and the pending Employee Free Choice Act. President Obama has been a vocal supporter and proponent of these pieces of legislation.
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
President Obama specifically stated that America will not use torture and said “Waterboarding violates our ideals and our values. I do believe that it’s torture.“
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
President Obama has pledged to end the military policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, he signed into law legislation extending hate crime legislation to include gender and sexual orientation, and recently appointed a transgendered woman to his administration.
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
Finally, President Obama formed a federal agency to protect consumers from predatory lending practices by credit card companies and other financial malfeasance through the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. He also signed into law the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act.
Remember when President Bush did that? Man, that was awesome.
Yeppers, President Obama. That guy is just like President Bush.
I’m just sayin’…
Just so everyone is clear: I don’t think President Obama has done everything right and I don’t even think the achievements I’ve mentioned here all go far enough. There are even areas where he has continued on in the same vein as Bush did. But more often than not, that is simply not the case and I’m just saying that accusations that he’s “just like Bush” are absolutely, positively, absurdly wrong.
