Barack Obama: Whiner in chief

One of my best teachers in eighth and ninth grades was Walter A. Hoskins, who taught social studies. During the spring of 1951, we spent considerable time discussing President Harry Truman's firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur as the commander of United Nations forces in the Korean War. MacArthur rejected civilian control of the armed forces.

The political price Truman paid was immense. By the summer of 1951, Truman's popularity had plummeted to 23 percent, a record that still stands. He did not seek re-election in 1952. But history has shown that he was one of the nation's best presidents.

Truman did the right thing regardless of the political consequences. That's a quality in short supply in the White House today. Let's take a look.

Within months of being elected to the U.S. Senate from Illinois in November 2004, Barack Obama delivered the commencement address at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. Galesburg, some 200 miles west of Chicago and the birthplace of Carl Sandburg, was an important stop on the Underground Railroad in the mid-19th century, and it was the site of the fifth Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858.

Those who heard Obama's speech did not have any reason to think that only a year and a half later he would deliver a speech in Springfield, Ill., announcing his candidacy for president of the United States. And even fewer would have believed that in 2009 Obama would take the oath of office as the nation's 44th president.

Sen. Obama told the graduating seniors at Knox College that day, "The true test of the American ideal is whether ... we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them." He told them they would face new challenges by saying, "You see it when you drive by the old Maytag plant around lunchtime and no one walks out anymore."

He asked those in the audience to dream, to imagine what could be done to give every American a fighting chance in the 21st century. He held out the promise of affordable college education for everyone who wanted to go. He promised new jobs based upon job retraining and lifelong education. He promised a pension that stayed with you always. And he said, "Ten or twenty years down the road, that old Maytag plant could reopen it doors as an ethanol refinery ... ."

A couple of weeks ago, just over eight years after delivering that commencement address, President Obama returned to Knox College to speak again. He began his speech with a reference to the Maytag plant that had relocated to Mexico. He announced that America was poised to reverse the forces that had so long battered the middle class. But then he said we're not there yet.

Referring back to his 2005 speech, he condemned a "winner-take-all economy" where a few do better while most languish. And then he said, "Unfortunately, over the past couple of years, in particular ... Washington has made things worse." Over the past six months, he said gridlock had gotten worse in Washington, something he did not think was possible.

Putting a point on it, he stated that "with this endless parade of distractions and political posturing and phony scandals, Washington has taken its eye off the ball." And he concluded by saying the only thing he cared about "is how to use every minute of the remaining 1,276 days of my term to make this country work for working Americans again."

As my wife's grandmother would have said, "Lord-a-mercy." Obama lashes out at Washington's failure, apparently believing we don't know that he is Washington. More than that, this is the man who won the White House by promising all of us "change we could believe in."

It takes real chutzpah to stand before the American people and assume we're not smart enough to figure out that he hasn't been able to deliver on his fundamental promises.

The president's speech was divisive, partisan and churlish. It was as political as any speech he gave on the campaign trail last fall. It was laced with class warfare rhetoric, and it absolved him and his administration of any responsibility for the paralysis that has gripped Washington since he took office.

If you read between the lines, it's clear that the whiner in chief knows he's failed. At Bloomberg.com, Megan McArdle reported that "the speech seemed like a confession that the president knows he can't do much. The deep problems afflicting America — social and economic breakdown in inner cities and rural areas; rising economic insecurity; widening gulfs between ideologies, regions and socioeconomic classes — are simply far beyond the president's reach."

Writing in the Telegraph, Nile Gardiner said, "President Obama spoke the language of decline ... . America deserves better than the failed statism that has bankrupted cities like Detroit, and threatens to do the same to the rest of the country."

The brutal truth now on display is that Obama is a failed president. He didn't stop long enough in the Senate in Springfield or on Capitol Hill to acquire the experience necessary to lead a complex and deeply divided government . Some of us knew that in 2007-08. Now it's on display for anyone with a working brain.

Don't let the door hit you on the way out of the White House, Mr. President.

The Shadow and I heard President Truman speak at Memorial Auditorium in Gary, Ind., on Oct. 25, 1948. We can tell you that Barack Obama's no Harry Truman. Goldman can be reached at:  EmailMe