In an interview on ABC Dick Cheney declined to offer an opinion when asked if he thought Sarah Palin is ready to be president. Although reluctant to comment on Palin, he had no reservations about saying that he thought Obama would be a one-term president.
Former vice president Dick Cheney, back in the public eye after a major heart operation, predicts that President Obama will be a one-term president because of health care and other big government programs.
In an interview airing this morning on NBC's Today show, Cheney cited Obama's "overall approach to expanding the size of government, expanding the deficit, and giving more and more authority and power to the government over the private sector."
As for health care, Cheney said Obama has "enacted a program that a great many people are very worried about. And that there's a lot of support out there for the effort to repeal that health care package."
The former vice president also talked about his newly implanted heart pump, Obama's national security record, the Arizona shooting and his offer to step aside as George W. Bush's running mate before the 2004 election. He declined to say whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be president. "There'll be ample time for that in the months ahead."
I wish I were as optimistic as Cheney about Obama's chances for a second term. Obama wasn't ready to be president when he took office, and he is unfortunately still not ready to be president. The prospect of a second Obama term is disheartening to say the least, and I say this even in light of his recent Clintonesque pivot to the center.
For two centuries, America's free market has not only been the source of dazzling ideas and path-breaking products, it has also been the greatest force for prosperity the world has ever known. That vibrant entrepreneurialism is the key to our continued global leadership and the success of our people.
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Over the past two years, the goal of my administration has been to strike the right balance. And today, I am signing an executive order that makes clear that this is the operating principle of our government.
This order requires that federal agencies ensure that regulations protect our safety, health and environment while promoting economic growth. And it orders a government-wide review of the rules already on the books to remove outdated regulations that stifle job creation and make our economy less competitive. It's a review that will help bring order to regulations that have become a patchwork of overlapping rules, the result of tinkering by administrations and legislators of both parties and the influence of special interests in Washington over decades.
So the leftist community organizer has discovered the virtues of capitalism. And it took only a short two years of near 10% unemployment and an electoral smackdown of epic proportions. He's not what you would call a quick study.
As for Obama striking a regulatory balance, the notion is absurd. With congress is no longer dominated by Democrats, Obama has made clear that federal regulations are now his vehicle for restucturing the U.S. market economy into something greeener and more union friendly. Green and union friendly are not going to promote growth that will help the rest of us.
So here we are, two years into his administration, and Obama decides he's had a free market epiphany. What he really discovered is that voters can be pissed off to a degree he never imagined. To his dismay he's found that votes still count. All of his browbeating and armtwisting, all of his demonizing of Wall Street, the banks, and the insurance industry haven't been enough to insulate his team from the perils of re-election. As he watched his allies in the House move out of the bigger offices, the ones reserved for Speaker and Majority Leader, he must have realized that he may very well be doing the same in a couple of years.
So he reorganized his inner circle with people who can tell him how Clinton did it, and he's doing what they say. Step one: Pledge to promote free markets as the way to restore our country's economic health.
It doesn't make for a ringing endorsement of Obama's readiness to govern at the time he took office. If he's recently discovered the benefits of free enterprise, you have to ask why he's learning about it at this stage in his career.
It's more likely that he still hasn't made the connections between free markets, free people, and prosperity. It's much more likely that he still views the U.S. economy as a magical black box for generating tax revenue that he can spread around how and where he pleases. He doesn't know or care how it works. He just wants it to work.
Either way, there's no cause to be encouraged. Obama may truly have come to understand the power of free enterprise, or he may be just saying so because the Clinton administration retreads are telling that's what he needs to say. If he's come to believe, why so late? If he hasn't, why so slow? Either way, he is not and has not ever been ready to be president.
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