You're Supremely Dense

That's really the only possible conclusion one can come to when contemplating that Barack Obama has embarked upon a bus tour of Midwestern swing states to 'let the president hear stories from real Americans across the country who are suffering from the effects of a slumping economy', and apparently thinks that you're going to buy it.

Sure, he knows what's really got people down. But that's all according to his plan, and he'd rather campaign and nail down some good photo ops of him being thoughtful and sober as he 'listens' to those people who are having a rough time. GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney mocked the whole thing as a 'magical misery tour', and he's right.

Of course, this bus tour is probably the direct result of the Obama administration to bolster his deflating approval ratings, which are at an all-time low: 39%. Shockingly, the liberal media is keeping mostly mum about that little fact (in contrast, they counted down the percentage points during George W. Bush's entire presidency), but the truth is the truth, and that's what it is.

But never trouble a liberal with facts. You know, facts like the real causes of the economic slump, and the commensurate plummet in his approval ratings. No, no, Obama is out there maintaining that the problem is essentially everything but him:

At a town hall meeting on his campaign-style tour of the Midwest, President Obama claimed that his economic program "reversed the recession" until recovery was frustrated by events overseas. And then, Obama said, with the economy in an increasingly precarious position, the recovery suffered another blow when Republicans pressed the White House for federal spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the national debt limit, resulting in a deal Obama called a "debacle."

"We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again," Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. "But over the last six months we've had a run of bad luck." Obama listed three events overseas -- the Arab Spring uprisings, the tsunami in Japan, and the European debt crises -- which set the economy back.

Right. Disregard the almost trillion-dollar stimulus that stimulated nothing, disregard the almost trillion-dollar TARP (technically, he wasn't in office yet, but he was pushing hard for it as the Dem nominee) that propped up foreign banks but failed to prompt domestic banks to lend, disregard the bailouts/takeovers of hundreds of banks, insurance institutions, and car companies, disregard the multi-trillion-dollar budgets that he's pushed out, and disregard the multi-trillion-dollar Obamacare he shoved down our throats. All of these things were signed into law over the will of the American people and have poured gasoline onto the embers of the economic trouble we had, stoking a massive bonfire...but never mind all that. It was the tsunami, the Arab spring (whatever the heck that is), and Europe being irresponsible (which is ironic, considering he's implementing very European policies here...).


Here's a great example of how Obama's policies are failing right before our eyes. Take his yammering about being 'green'. One of the companies he visited a while back where he gave a rousing speech about the value of 'green' jobs is Massachusetts-based Evergreen Solar, which is the third largest solar panel manufacturer in the U.S. Back in March of 2009, Obama used Evergreen as a shining example of what green jobs should be, and their latest effort was promised to provide 800 jobs in a thriving industry. Unfortunately, they're now going bankrupt. And sending their jobs overseas to China.

You see, the dirty little secret is that none of these 'green' industries can sustain themselves without massive infusions of cash from the government. Ethanol? It causes food shortages in third world countries, and more energy is required to make a gallon of ethanol than that same gallon provides in a gas tank. Wind power? It's only viable in certain small areas of the country with enough regular wind to keep 'em spinning, and even then there are gas-powered generators as backup systems (because it costs more to let them stop and start as the wind dictates). Oh, and these same liberals who insist on using wind power also refuse to have windmills sully their landscape views of the ocean, where wind power might actually be useful. Solar panels? Well, look no further than Evergreen for that story.

This is what happens when the government tries to artificially induce favored industries and technologies for political reasons. They fail. Expensively.

This is typical liberalism, and typical of the Obama administration. It's got to stop, and we've got to establish some sort of fiscal sanity before our ship of state goes completely underwater. You're not dense, and neither is the American people. Obama just thinks you are.

Cartoons by Ramirez