Failure of Obamanomics

About four years ago, my son (JB) and I went for the jugular: McCain vs. Obama as the best prospect for the White House job. He took the latter while I stuck to my conservative guns. He vividly compares ideological and philosophical differences, age, relevancy, fluency, and alacrity, answering heavy questions and youthful appeal as a charismatic kid from Harvard Law School.

As political events heated up, I saw Barack Obama’s superiority as a speaker with hortatory speeches that dwarf anybody and most everybody. Toward Election Day, I slowly slipped into that unbridled enthusiasm subscribing to his “Change you can believe in” slogan as did a legion of young people across the country.

Obama’s “American Promise” was so thoroughly articulated it’s almost a mortal sin ignoring it. I still believed in it, then. Most were ready for change he promised for the better. Slowly, what he promised revealed itself as a world-class chutzpah that resembled the proverbial tip of the iceberg of his presidency.

Today, the president has the audacity to openly lie that spending was far less during his charge than most presidents over the last 60 years. Sorry, sir, but while you inherited $1 trillion in deficit from President Bush, how do you spin and hide a $4 trillion overspending under your presidency? Why would you want to spend more after overspending? Is it right to bring our country close to Fiscal Cliff?

The slick use of fuzzy math isn’t going to make a difference. The issue of the economy at its worst and, if I may reiterate, under Obama’s charge, is most prominent among people’s mind, especially among the unemployed, underemployed, folks who’ve succumbed to home foreclosures, paying more at the gas pump and hopelessness as they look forward to a blurry future.

The Obama “American Promise” has turned into a sad litany of promises as to venture audacity so he doesn’t have to face justifying his woefully dismal performance on the economy and other equally vital national concerns. And so Obama has a record he refuses to stand on, much less defend.

In 2008, he lied to the American people about his direct relationship with ACORN, an extreme leftist group who has embraced European socialism. ACORN wanted its agenda to replace the principles upon which our country was founded. No sir! It’s time to send Obama packing!

Strangely, Obama’s strategy to make certain issues stick with Romney has failed. That being said, I think the “Change you can believe” has taken on a new definition: Move over so Mitt Romney could terminate your European model socialism (inundated with your warped definition of inequality). Too, the Wisconsin/California blow out (heard around the world) is a clear litmus test of your failed leadership. Gone!

Obsolescence isn’t an option either and not when we know that your European model will drag everybody down the abyss of an entitlement culture. It’s time to return our country to the very principles that allowed it to prosper over the last 200-plus years. It’s called freedom!

Remembering summer

This summer brought some sentimental journey into days we used to know a long time ago. I remember the happy faces of folks I went to school with, many of whom have faded, some with canes or walkers as they enter their sunset years.

Slow and fragile they may be but they used to excel in sports or showed unsung valor in the military. Their steps quicken and eyes glow brightly as they talk of their best days some 40 to 60 years ago.

Sad tidings of private school closures deepened the sentimental glimpse of bidding classmates adios for the school year, heading into summer. I feel for everyone involved in the education of pupils who now must matriculate elsewhere. The bad economy has paralyzed all dreams of what could have been an alma mater. It’s really sad how the Fiscal Cliff has scared off both privately run schools and businesses, large and small. Sadly, darker days are the only certainty in “Emergency Island,” crowned by “Fiscal Cliff” hill somewhere up north.

Summer means doing farm work, the “in thing” for most of my peers in the ’60s. Each day was as hard as the next. Farm work is hard work that begins at dawn and ends at dusk. By the time we return home, we’re bone tired, ready for supper and a good night’s rest.

We didn’t have radio anywhere until about 1965. Television came a bit later. It was a single channel broadcast system that must have been a relic of the ’30s. Watching television then was a family affair. Often, we had to endure garbled pictures daily and nightly until midnight. We had no choice for we wanted to hear a week’s old national news on CBS, soap operas, Father Knows Best, the Ed Sullivan Show and Gun Smoke.

The old Matsumoto movie theatre was the center for those who could afford a flick. Otherwise, you wait for moviegoers to tell you what the star did or how he killed the bad guys. I mean the original story is so regurgitated the actual episode completely changed by next day’s story telling. But that was gossip on the islands, venturing into the big time.

Nevertheless, I revisited the old school buildings that no longer exist between CK elementary and Saipan Intermediate School (now Hopwood Junior High). The old porch, classrooms and playground at CK were familiar places where our new senior citizens once walked and left their footprints a long time ago. I am sure they too have fond memories of days gone by where they learned their ABCs until graduation from high school.

Most have had successful careers in both government and private industries while others cruised along. Be that as it may, how pleasant it is walking down memory lane, once more remembering folks who are now grand patriarchs and matriarchs. As we fade into the sunset we ask: Would our eyes still glow, steps quicken, cane and walkers replaced or do we accept the quirk of fate? Have a good one! Si JR.

John DelRosario Jr. is a former publisher of the Saipan Tribune and a former secretary of the Department of Public Lands.