From The Weekly Standard, Stephen Hayes writes An Election about Everything

excerpt:

It’s about a government that makes promises to those who have defended the country and then fails those veterans, again and again and again. It’s about a president who offers soothing reassurances on his sweeping health care reforms and shrugs his shoulders when consumers learn those assurances were fraudulent. It’s about government websites that cost billions but don’t function and about “smart power” that isn’t very smart. It’s about an administration that cares more about ending wars than winning them, and that claims to have decimated an enemy one day only to find that that enemy is still prosecuting its war against us the next. It’s about shifting red lines and failed resets. It’s about a president who ignores restrictions on his power when they don’t suit him and who unilaterally rewrites laws that inconvenience him. It’s about a powerful federal agency that targets citizens because of their political beliefs and a White House that claims ignorance of what its agents are up to because government is too “vast.” In sum, this is an election about a president who promised to restore faith in government and by every measure has done the opposite.

As even Barack Obama acknowledges, the upcoming election is about his policies and those elected officials who have supported them. It’s about an electorate determined to hold someone responsible for the policy failures that have defined this administration and the scandals that have consumed it—even if many in the fourth estate will not.

And it’s about time.

Our politics is healthier when candidates in both major parties win election because they’ve campaigned on a policy agenda. We hope that the Republicans who run for president in 2016 will engage in a detailed and thorough-going debate on substance and ideas.

But much of the political debate this year has unavoidably focused on Barack Obama and his performance as president. Most voters think he’s done a lousy job and disagree with his policies and priorities. Democrats have supported him. Republicans have opposed him. That’s what will matter on November 4.

HKO

Making citizens dependent on government solutions for every problem in our lives is likely to disappoint. Competency is not the issue , bad policy is the issue. There is no good way to do the wrong thing.

Tag Archives

Accountability on Trial

Recent Posts

Recent Comments