Looking Back at 2009

Events in no particular order:

The Obama Transition Team announced that the questionnaire for possible appointees would be the most detailed ever in order to ensure an ethical administration. It included questions such as "Have you ever owned a gun?" or "Have you ever dated a Republican?"  or "Did you pay all of your taxes?" Answering "yes" to any of these disqualified you from a government post.

Obama spent much of the year traveling to foreign countries and apologizing for everything that America ever did. This was so successful that Afghans are now burning him in effigy.

After years if insisting that they were not against war in general, just the war in Iraq, Democrats have realized that they are against war in general.

The left throws around the term "teabaggers" as if they had been using it all of their lives. I would bet that a year ago, 99% of them didn't know of any use for the term except something for making a cup of tea.

When the Obamas spent Christmas in Hawaii a year ago the big news was how good he looked in a swimsuit. Now it's how tired he is.

Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for not being George W. Bush. Ironically, he seems to have read one of Bush's old speeches on just warfare instead of his acceptance speech. He probably skipped out on the parties after he realized that he had read the wrong speech.

Obama is quicker to judge the Cambridge police force than terrorists.

The general world population still thinks highly of Obama. On the other hand, the world leaders keep laughing behind his back. At Copenhagen the top leaders said that they were unavailable for a group meeting. It turned out that they were already having a meeting without Obama. He found out about it and crashed the meeting half-way through.

The US has long enjoyed a special relationship with Great Britain. Obama redefined this, substituting the word "snubbed".

The senators who held out the longest on health care got the best rewards - hundreds of millions for their states. Those of us in the other 50 states wonder why our senators are so cheap?

The stimulus amounted to something over $2,000 for every person in the country. So far, I haven't seen $2,000 spent on my behalf.

I'm not sure what constituency Obama is trying to please. Conservatives and Libertarians hate him. His economic advisers and lack of a public option in health care have alienated the Progressives. The tax on "Cadillac" insurance plans will hit unions hard. Pacifists gave up on him after he ramped up the war in Afghanistan twice. Environmentalists are disappointed as are gays. Neither has gotten any priority. Centrists are shocked at his deficits and his takeover of the banking and automotive sectors. Who is left to support him? Even Doonesbury and Arianna Huffington have turned on him.