John LeBoutillier will be on “Imus in the Morning” tomorrow, Wednesday, August 26, at 6:30 AM EST.

Please listen on your local affiliate, or through www.imus.com, a great website

As the President’s ratings tank, let us quickly examine why:

His presidency is the Mirror Image of G.W. Bush’s—only he has done in six months what it took Bush six years to accomplish: while keeping his base happy, he has alienated the center of the political spectrum and thus lost his ability to lead the country.

Here is a general rule of American electoral politics: you must have a passionate base to get nominated, but to rule effectively you must also have strong appeal in the political Center.

911 gave the Center to G.W. Bush for the period from 2001 through the 2004 election. In 2005 he lost it—first with his lame attempt to ‘reform’ Social Security and then with the Katrina Fiasco. He—and the GOP—never recovered. They lost the Congress in 2006, then lost even more seats in 2008 as well as the White House

Obama was handed the center last September when Lehman Brothers crashed—and McCain picked Sarah Palin.

The uncertainty about the future of the economy last fall eclipsed the uncertainty about an almost-unknown new national candidate: Barack Obama. Yes, the Left loved him—and the dispirited-by-Bush’s failures-Right either stayed home of reluctantly voted for McCain. But the political center—those who shun the extreme positions of both ’bases’—rolled the dice with this moderate-sounding Democrat who promised “change.” These voters—many of them self-described ‘Independents’—the fastest growing electoral group in the nation—ignored the fact that Senator Obama had the most liberal voting record of all 100 US senators! Somehow that little fact escaped the electorate last year.

So we should not be surprised that as President—with an overwhelmingly Democrat House and Senate and an in-the-tank compliant press—Obama has ruled from the far Left. It is his nature. And there is nothing to stop him—no countervailing political force to nudge him back to the center.

The result: the United States of America is shell-shocked over our two parties’ successive failures, our hypocritical elected officials, the deficits, the health care fiasco, the CIA interrogation disaster, the Professor Gates Beer Summit and on and on.

While Obama and the Democrats decline, the GOP does not profit politically. Why not? Because they, too, had all the power—and they blew it from 2001-2007.

So neither political party has any credibility left.

All this—three years before the next presidential election.

We are in dangerous political times. When there is a vacuum in the political leadership, trouble ensues.

So buckle your seat belts as we are in for a bumpy ride.

The first thing that needs to be known about Congressional Town Halls: they are a taxpayer-funded gimmick to justify franked (free) mailings to promote the event—and thus the Congressman holding the Town Hall.

Here’s the scoop: A Representative is given a set amount of yearly franked (free) mailings to every home in his/her district. In my time in the House it was, I believe, six per year.

These are very, very expensive and thus a tremendous advantage for the incumbent. For example, if there are 130,000 homes in a district, multiply that by first class postage plus the printing and paper costs and each mailing if probably worth close to $80,000. So six of them is close half a million dollars in free positive publicity for the Congressman!

A challenger running against that incumbent thus starts off at a huge disadvantage; name identification is boosted by these mailings—and by any other free publicity he/she garners on TV, radio and in the papers.

Well, guess what? These Town Halls are yet another way to boost the incumbent’s name ID. Yep. Each time he/she schedules one, he/she gets to do yet more free mailings to publicize the upcoming Town Hall.

What a dynamite way to jack up your profile—all at taxpayers’ expense—and all you have to do is show up at some location and answer a few questions for an hour!

Normally, few people attend these events. They are usually held on Saturday mornings or Sunday afternoons in a library or school gymnasium or church basement. And usually you’re lucky if 50 people show up. Oh, and they are often the same fifty people—community activists, sometimes gadflies, or people with an axe to grind. A Congressman gets to know these activists over time—and to enjoy their presence.

But what is going on now is unlike anything we have seen. The explosion of protests across the nation at Congressional Town Halls is a direct result of the arrogance of Washington DC in trying to ram this Health Care Bill down people’s throats—without anyone knowing what is in the bill!

And on top of the Stimulus, the 2010 budget, the astronomical deficits, the TARP, the corporate bailouts, the csars, and the Cap and Trade Bill, this Health Care Bill has pushed the majority of people into believing Obama and Pelosi and Reid have gone too far, too fast.

So the anger we see on the news at these Town Halls is real. People are scared and worried and soured by two plus years of a devastating recession. And it is a disgrace for Speaker Pelosi to blame anyone for coming to these meetings to express this frustration and fear. She works for us! They all do! And they should patiently listen to all constituents—pro and con—individuals or organized—and try to listen and then explain their own positions on these issues.

When you are an elected official and you start blaming the people you work for, then you should leave office. At once. Because you have broken the trust that is inherent in being an elected official.

Are some of these protests “organized” as the Left charges? Maybe. But so what? If Labor organizes a protest does that discredit it?

Surely most of the attendees at these Town Halls are unhappy with the status quo - and they want to let their Representative hear it. We should all applaud citizens for attending and having the courage to speak up.

Obama has mismanaged this issue. He has allowed the sour economy to bleed into his ‘signature’ goal—universal health care—or the “Public Option, as they now call it. The result is support for the Health Care bill and for Obama himself is now declining. And the decline will continue as long as the public feels Washington DC has shifted too far Left and is bankrupting the nation.

This is not the change people wanted in 2008. And thus the anger.

Prediction: other events will soon accelerate this widespread public anger.

August is here. Vacation time world-wide. Congress goes home; the President goes to Martha’s Vineyard, vacation playground of the Left.

Where are we—as a country—politically?

The Obama Honeymoon is most definitely over. His poll numbers continue to deteriorate. His opposition has firmed up—but more disturbing for Team Obama are defectors from the Obama column last fall. Indeed, the Washington Post just ran a story about Virginia voters who voted for Obama but now regret it. These voters say things like, “I thought he was going to be different… a real change… but he has turned out to be just like all the rest of the politicians favoring the special interests.” These voters say they will vote for the GOP candidate for Governor this November.

We now know our new President. Obama is a typical “tax and spend” liberal Democrat who just throws money at a problem. The Cash for Clunkers in just such an example. While the idea makes some sense, the follow-through is poor and the result is the unintended consequence of causing foreign cars to be purchased at the expense of (our) GM cars, which we the taxpayers now own. Plus a lot of good car parts are needlessly being destroyed.

Health Care: The anti-Obama campaign has crystallized in the debate over this issue. The anger seen at Town Hall meetings is indeed indicative of the over-50% of the people who do not want the “public option”—which is code for nationalized health care. Obama knew he had to get this voted on before the August recess in order to dupe the American people. Well, he couldn’t get it done. And now it looks as though this crucial aspect—the Public Option—may not make it through the Democratic Congress.

However, to save face there will be a Health Care bill of some sort this fall—with a big celebratory signing ceremony. But this will not be what the Left set out to implement.

The political cost of this Health Care fight will indeed be heavy for the Democrats. Some will lose their seats next year because of it—but probably not enough to flip Congress back to the GOP.

Speaking of the Republicans: 2009 will be a good year for them away from DC. They will win the Governorship of New Jersey—almost definitely—as the incumbent, Jon Corzine, is mired at the mid-30’s in the polls. He appears to be terminal. And Virginia is fluid, with a real chance for the Republican to win there, too.

Nationally, however, the GOP has a long, long way to go to erase the Bush Taint. As of last week, 54% of voters still blame the rotten economy on Bush. Until he is a distant memory—and until the GOP has new faces and a better, more likeable image—we will continue to be irrelevant.

Teddy Kennedy is deteriorating and may soon die. Look for major TV coverage as the “last Kennedy brother” is memorialized.

August is almost always the month of the ‘political surprise’—some unexpected event that takes the White House by surprise. With officials scattered far and wide either on break or junketing at taxpayers’ expense, the political world always seems to get caught unprepared. (Remember Saddam Hussein’s Kuwait invasion?)

So be prepared!

As a young boy his mother put everything into him. He was her first child—and with an absent husband—the boy quickly became the center of her life.

In fact, this boy was her life.

So from his earliest days, he was made to feel as if he was the center of his mother’s Universe. All her attention was paid to his wants, interests, cares, worries and fears.

His mother focused more on him even when she gave birth to other children. This boy was—to her —‘special’ and thus he came to feel ‘special,’ too.

As he grew up he rarely if ever heard the word “No” spoken to him. Nothing was denied him. Mother did all she could to answer his desires the way he wanted.

As the boy became a teenager others, too, wanted to please him. Some did this because they felt sorry for him; others had guilt; still others sought favors by being seen to aid the Boy.

So as he approached adulthood, he was not like most boys. No, he thought about himself differently. He knew that his life was special and that he would have everything he ever wanted. Why not? For his entire life it had been that way. His mother told him he was ‘special’ and she had seen to it that he had everything he ever wanted. So why wouldn’t that continue?

Indeed, as he entered his teens and then his twenties, he was admitted to the best high school, and then an Ivy League College and then grad school at Harvard.

[Who is this? Can you guess - yet?]

Life was his oyster! He had it all! Everybody loved him—or seemed to love him! And he never wondered why this was so because it had always been so. After all, Mother said, “You will have anything you want.”

After graduating from Harvard, he went off to a life that was almost pre-ordained. Setbacks were glossed over. Indeed, the run for the U.S. House of Representatives ended with a humiliating defeat. But it didn’t hurt him one iota! No one called him a ‘loser’ or said he’d have to go back to the starting gate and begin all over, as “they“ say about other first-time losing candidates. Not with this young guy! No way! Instead, they urged him to run for an even higher office! No wonder that he just ’knew’ that he would get to the top of the political heap because big, powerful people always wanted to help him, just as his mother had predicted.

In fact, his political party begged him to run for state-wide office. They threw money at him—even though he really had accomplished nothing in his life to warrant or deserve such support.

He soon came to take it all for granted. In fact, he expected it. Anything he asked for he received—as he always had. Experienced party campaigners and staffers flocked to his campaigns - certain that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was the next stop. Money rolled in, too. All the big party fundraisers went into overdrive to curry support for him. He also got incredibly favorable press coverage from a normally cynical political media contingent.

After winning state-wide, it was immediately clear: this was a mere stepping stone to the White House. So he glossed over his day-to-day duties, delegating those to others. He focused on expanding his national profile; he wrote a self-promoting campaign-intended memoir—even though he had accomplished absolutely nothing in his life except for winning an election—so he wrote about the only thing he knew anything about: himself and his relationship to his namesake father and his father‘s family.

The media—predicting Big Things—began comparing him to past political icons—including Ronald Reagan.

The hype grew and grew—way beyond what this young man deserved or had earned. But he didn’t see it that way. No, he saw himself—as his mother had always told him—as the new Savior; the new sheriff riding into town to clean it up. And anyone who said, “No,” to him was to quickly be dispatched far away. It was his way—or the highway.

[Any idea - yet - who we are talking about?]

So the time to run for President of the United States came—and he ran in a long, arduous, difficult two-person race. He was upset in the New Hampshire primary and then the race stretched on for months. He eventually won—but it was closer than it should have been given the free and favorable coverage given him by a media that really helped him along the way.

He won the general election and was inaugurated amid high hopes and great fanfare.

His presidency began with bold pronouncements and a desire to take the nation in a totally new and different direction—different even that what he had pledged a few month earlier in the campaign. With a Congress of the same party, there was no force to check the President’s excesses. So the two branches of government reinforced each others’ worst extremes—and federal spending exploded.

When the new President needed something controversial from Congress, he simply held a gun to their head and demanded and threatened dire national consequences if they didn’t give him everything he wanted—at once! And the Congress buckled to the popular new President’s wishes.

[Any idea yet which President we are talking about here?]

Massive new federal spending followed. Unbelievably wasteful projects in Members’ districts were a part of this, along with federal subsidies and bail-outs of private corporations. And the true costs of new spending programs were kept secret from the Congress and the American people in order to get the popular support needed to pass these new spending bills.

The President himself?

He had high ratings to begin with. His own party gave him anything he asked for. His arrogance grew by leaps and bounds. How could it not? He was getting any and everything he wanted. Snap his fingers and presto—he is given all he asks for! Just like it has always been since his Mother began telling him his life would be this way.

And over the years he had become petulant, too—like a spoiled child—because no one had ever said, “No,” to him. But DC is a tough place—and no President gets everything he wants. Well, he would show ‘em! No one dares deny me what I want!

With this arrogance and hubris came a false pride that caused him even to intercede in local issues which are not part of a President’s job description. But he saw himself as ‘above’ the regular presidency—he was, after all, God’s gift to the world. So he stepped into a local situation fraught with emotion on both sides—and it was a huge mistake. It caused his poll ratings to decline even more quickly.

Politically he took his party to the far fringe of the political spectrum—far, far away from the crucial political ‘middle’ and thus doomed his party to losses in mid-term elections.

[Figured it out yet? Who is the President of the United States described here?]

As a political figure he proved surprisingly inept at speaking without a script or the TelePrompter. Halting speech, many pauses and “ahs” and “ums” punctuated his off-the-cuff speaking style.

His presidency’s signature issue was motivated by a private grudge he held from an event involving his family that occurred several years before he was elected. This event churned inside him—and now that he commanded the Political Universe—he used all his Presidential powers to bully, force, jam, finagle, goad, press the nation and the Congress to enact a law that “paid back” those who aggrieved him and his family years earlier. This singular action would lurch the nation into massive new deficits—and damage the national economy for decades to come.

The President, in his arrogance and hubris, also never could bring himself to say he was “wrong” or he was “sorry” for any mistake he made.

What of the American people in all of this?

They had hopes after the election that the new President would be able to go to DC and solve some of the nagging problems gripping our nation. But, after an initial honeymoon that lasted about six months, they soon re-divided into roughly 50-50 blocs: Red states and Blue states. However, with a Congress and a President of the same party they ignored public opinion and dragged the country in one direction - even with half the American people in total disagreement.

[Any idea yet who this is all about?]

History judges Presidents according to the likes and dislikes of the historian writing his or her particular take on an era and a President. So some will adore something others will detest. It is up to each of us to decide what we think of a President—not just his personal attributes—but whether what he does is good or bad for our nation.

OK. It is time now to reveal which President is described above:

Is it:

A) Barack Obama?
B) George W. Bush?
C) Both?

The answer is C - this column describes both G.W. Bush and Barack Obama and how similar they are as people and as political leaders coming, as they do, from opposite ends of the political spectrum.



In fact, they are mirror opposites of each other.

And we, as Americans, have now twice in a row selected Presidents Hell-bent on taking the country in a direction that will bankrupt the nation.

In 2012 we have to do better.

President Obama’s diatribe against the Cambridge cops about the arrest of his “friend”, Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates contains perhaps more than the so-called Mainstream Media is reporting.

In fact, Barack Obama had his own ongoing ‘problem’ with the Cambridge police while he attended Harvard Law School.

As first reported in March 2007 by the Somerville Times, Harvard law student Barack Obama accumulated 17 unpaid parking tickets between 1989-1991—and never paid the fines ad associated penalties totaling $375 until a few weeks before announcing his presidential campaign.

In other words, as a practicing lawyer in Chicago, he allowed these tickets and penalties to remain unpaid; as an Illinois State Senator he allowed these tickets and fines to remain unpaid; and as a United States Senator he allowed these almost-two-decade-old signs of his disdain for the law to remain unpaid.

As the Washington Post reported in 2007, “Obama received 17 parking tickets in Cambridge between 1988 and 1991, mostly for parking in a bus stop, parking without a resident permit and failing to pay the meter, records from the Cambridge Traffic, Parking and Transportation office show.”

Only when he was afraid that the media would dig this up as he launched his presidential campaign did he swallow his scofflaw attitude and pay what he owed to Cambridge.

Indeed, the MSM all but ignored this incident; they have been “in the tank” for Obama since he spoke at the 2004 Democratic Convention. Of course they were never going to reveal anything unflattering about their new ‘Post-Racial Hero.’

But the unexpected diatribe at Wednesday evening’s press conference reveals a long-standing and perhaps deep-seeded attitude toward the Cambridge police department—and maybe toward authority in general.

(Having lived there for six years, I can attest that the Cambridge Police are professional, courteous and respectful of the tens of thousands of students and foreigners and people of color who inhabit their city.)

Here is what we now have learned:

At the mention of Professor Gates, Obama could not contain himself; his self-discipline eroded and he slurred the Cambridge police as “stupid.”

He stepped all over his health care press conference—to the point that the network news has—for over 24 hours—focused more on the Gates-Obama story than the progress of the health care bills in Congress;

At a time when his poll rating are declining steadily, the last thing President Obama wants are stories exploring the whys of his decades as a scofflaw;

Perhaps all of this reveals much about our new President: not only his attitude toward the police, but why he developed a cool exterior to hide much underneath.

Clearly we do not know Barack Obama as well as we should. Criticizing the first black President is a risky endeavor. But he has now opened the door—just a smidgen—but it is open at last.

We have a right to know this fellow’s true opinions—not just about the “stupid” police—but about many other things he so far has cleverly and cynically kept from us.

Let us hope we learn these things—soon—before he leads us to places we cannot come back from.

Obama is declining—his ratings on his handling of the economy are actually plummeting—and the honeymoon is rapidly coming to an end. Opposition to his policies is hardening - and he is in a race to pass as much of his agenda before Democrats in the House get cold feet in advance of he 2010 mid-term elections.

Americans want progress; they expected some improvement by now after all the grandiose promises from Team Obama. The problem with creating the image of The One or The New Messiah is that expectations are then raised to such a high level that no one could ever meet those expectations.

The Obama White House cannot match the promises of the Obama Campaign in 2007-2009; yet they are going to be held up against those promises and pledges.

Polls show support for the President’s handling of the economy is declining. Stories are leaking that there is panic inside the Obama Economic Team over the failure of the Stimulus Bill to reverse the downward jobs picture. Thus the renewed talk lately of a “second stimulus” —all while we have our first Trillion Dollar Deficit—with three months left in the fiscal year!

The jobs picture is ugly; the President himself has now backtracked on the short-term picture and even he predicts it will get worse before it gets better.

Now we see a new push from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to “rahm” the nationalization of heath care down Congress’ throats in the next few weeks - all before they read the polls about how a plurality of Americans now oppose this bill.

So the clock is ticking on the aggressive, leftward agenda of the new Administration. They know they have to pass as much of their program between now and the early fall or else the window closes and the 2010 political season begins.

But what of the Republicans?

Nada. Zip. Nolo Contendre.

The GOP—as a national force—is presently in hibernation.

All the attention lately—instead of a coherent, simple and clear-cut message of credible fiscal conservatism—has been on the odd behaviors of Mark Sanford and his Argentinian ‘soul mate’ mistress followed by more drama from an erratic, over-wrought and almost sad Sarah Palin.

While Sanford is finished as a national figure, Palin is clearly not. She has a reservoir of support; the same people who loved G.W. Bush when he first ran for President in 1999 and 2000 love her now.

But there are differences in her status: the GOP candidates for Governor this year in Virginia—and New Jersey where Chris Christie leads Governor Jon Corzine by 8 points—have announced that they will not have Governor Palin in to campaign for them.

There appears to be too much downside to Palin—a toxicity that scares off these credible candidates with legitimate chances to win this November.

Still, Palin can draw big crowds and raise money and thus she will have a place inside the GOP and the conservative movement for a while to come.

But she brings more baggage than assets.

If we want to win in 2012, then we need a new candidate—perhaps someone not even on the scene today who has none of the Bush-Cheney-McCain taint on them.

The present group of GOP leaders are a desultory crew with no joy, no pizzazz and no charisma.

But despair not: who ever heard of Obama a few years ago?

Why can’t a new GOP/conservative star arise between now and 2012?