The new Obama

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/ ... vis-hanson

Barack Obama lately has been accusing presumptive rival Mitt Romney of not waging his campaign in the nice (but losing) manner of John McCain in 2008. But a more marked difference can be seen in Obama himself, whose style and record bear no resemblance to his glory days of four years ago.

Purportedly, the president has recently been reassuring Democratic donors that his signature achievement, Obamacare, could be readjusted in his second term — something Republicans have promised to do for the last two years. What an evolution: The president has gone from telling us we would love Obamacare, to granting favored companies exemptions from it, to giving private assurances to modify it after reelection — all before it has even been fully implemented.

Obama’s calls for a new civility four years ago are apparently inoperative. The vow to “punish our enemies” and the intimidation of Romney-campaign donors are a long way from the soaring speech at Berlin’s Victory Column and “Yes, we can.” Obama once called for a focus on issues rather than personal invective. But now we mysteriously hear again of Romney’s dog, his great-grandfather’s wives, and a roughhousing incident some 50 years ago in prep school.

Good points. Along with that, has anyone else noticed the Obama campaign that could do no wrong four years ago seems to be slipping up time and time again? Is the media just being tougher on them?

I think it has more to do with disenfranchised voters and special interest Obama supporters who were promised the world on a silver platter but received the mess we are all in today.

There may be less DoD troops in Iraq today but there are still lots VBIEDs going off and suicide bombers wandering in to mosques and markets. Is the war over in Iraq or was the swapping of DoD personnel with Department of State employees and contractor just a shell game?

The Obama administration can't (won't?) give an honest answer on jobs and job creation. Large loans were granted to companies like Solyndra even though the Obama administration was warned that Solyndra had a 70% chance of failure.

GITMO is still open and now at the behest of the Obama administration, that sort of conflicts with the 2008 campaign promise the close GITMO right after he was elected. Conditions as bad as they ever were since the DoD deployed troops there and now many of our NATO partners are withdrawing. Somehow Pakistan is still our Allie but many of the HVTs we have recently killed or captured have been found in Pakistan. Foreign policy failure or is there some monkey business going in in the background?

Transparency? Wasn't that another plank in Barry's platform? Try getting a copy of Barry's college transcripts, it took two years of badgering to get a .pdf version of his birth certificate and many contend it's a fake. Obamacare? "Just pass this bill, you can figure what's in it later."

Given all of the above coupled with the state of the economy it makes sense that many Americans are "evolving" on their positions on Obama and another term.