Obama Fail Blog

...and their expiration dates, courtesy of Jim Geraghty National Review, via HotAir.

For example:

RAISING TAXES

STATEMENT: “No family making less than $250,000 will see any form of tax increase.” (multiple times on the campaign trail)

EXPIRATION DATE: Broken multiple times, including the raised taxes on tobacco, a new tax on indoor tanning salons, but most prominently on February 11, 2010: “President Barack Obama said he is “agnostic” about raising taxes on households making less than $250,000 as part of a broad effort to rein in the budget deficit.”

Source: National Review

Read the whole list here...

Indonesian authorities have removed a statue of Barack Obama from a park in Jakarta:

The bronze statue, inspired by a childhood photograph of a 10-year-old Barack Obama in shorts with a butterfly perched on an outstretched thumb, was moved on Monday to the nearby school the US president attended as a child.

It had been targeted by critics since it was erected in the Jakarta park last December.

Detractors argued that an Indonesian hero should have been honoured instead, noting that Mr Obama still could pursue policies that hurt the interests of the world's most populous Muslim nation.

Source: UK Telegraph via HotAir

What else can go wrong for the Obama administration?

By the way, that is a statue of Barry Soetero, not Barack Obama.

Hey, look! It's the blue dogs to the rescue!

The Senate blocked President Obama's nominee for the National Labor Relations Board on Tuesday, as Democrats fell short of the 60 votes needed to break a Republican-led filibuster.

Two Democrats, Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, broke with their party to vote against Craig Becker in the key procedural vote, which failed 52-33.

The vote also was significant for displaying the GOP's newfound muscle, as it came days after Republican Scott Brown of Massachusetts was sworn in as the newest senator, breaking the Democrats' 60-vote supermajority -- though the measure would have failed even without Brown's help, given Lincoln's and Nelson's no votes.

Source: FoxNews

Becker is a militant leftist with close ties to the SEIU and big labor:

In a 1993 Minnesota Law Review article, written when he was a UCLA professor, he explained that traditional notions of democracy should not apply in union elections. He wrote that employers should be barred from attending NLRB hearings about elections, and from challenging election results even amid evidence of union misconduct. He believes elections should be removed from work sites and held on “neutral grounds,” or via mail ballots. Employers should also be barred from “placing observers at the polls to challenge ballots.”

Source: Wall Street Journal via Michelle Malkin

Michelle Malkin has more on Becker's radical big labor ideology. Check out Big Government for more on Becker's ties to ACORN.

As for the blue dogs... Nelson and Lincoln seem to be pushing back against the radical Obama agenda that has all but destroyed their respective political futures. Good for them.

As for President Obama... He continues to pay the price for his arrogance, especially towards centrist Democrats. He is acting like his father and we all know how that turned out.

This is a two-part failure - each part is amusing or stupid in its own special way. Whether or not any of these events constitute a full-fledged failure is a matter for debate:

-Obama picked the Colts. Sure, most of America picked the Colts - that's why they were a five point favorite. But it is really amazing how everything Obama touches turns to poop - whether it is healthcare or the Indianapolis Colts. You would have thought Obama would have learned not to make sports predictions after last year's NCAA Tournament Barack-et failure.

-The Census Bureau paid $2.5 million on a confusing, Super Bowl TV commercial that seemed to be targeted at dorky white hipster-wannabes. The commercial was part of a $130 million advertising drive to promote the census. Both the cost and execution of the commercial were failures. The Daily Caller had this to say:

The U.S. Census Bureau’s “Snapshot of America” Super Bowl 44 ad has met with harsh criticism from television writers, media pundits and the Kellogg School of Management, which gave the Census ad an “F” grade — the lowest of any commercial that ran during Sunday’s game.

Television critics charge that the Census ad, which cost $2.5 million and was directed by independent filmmaker Christopher Guest (whose comedies include “Best in Show,” “For Your Consideration” and 1984’s seminal mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap”), was dry, uninformative, and culturally obscure.

Source: The Daily Caller

Remember this?

Yeah, that was before Obama snubbed the Brits, the Polish and the Germans, among others. Now, things have changed:

Chalk up another diplomatic snub to Europe. The Administration has told the European Union that President Obama won’t attend the regular U.S.-EU confab this May in Madrid—through a leak to this newspaper on Monday. Spain’s Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, whose country holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, was said to be surprised, embarrassed and incensed by the slight.

Which makes us wonder: Can’t Europe take a hint?

One of Mr. Obama’s first, er, diplomatic acts was to return the bust of Winston Churchill in the White House to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Later, he pulled the plug on missile defense sites in the Czech Republic and Poland without trying to inform their national leaders until late in the night. No President in recent memory has cared less for America’s alliance with Europe.

Europe may soon realize that George W. Bush could well be the last trans-Atlantic President eager to cultivate friendships with European leaders, prioritize the free Continent over others, and even attend all the summits the Europeans threw his way. You can’t say history lacks a sense of irony.

Source: Wall Street Journal via The Lonely Conservative

Maybe it is a deliberate snub... Maybe it was an unintentional gaffe... Or maybe Barack Obama is a cold, unlikable guy - once you really get to know him.

Another failure of the Obama administration, courtesy of the hapless Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano:

The most embarrassing thing Janet Napolitano did on Wednesday turns out not to be napping during her boss’ State of the Union speech. Instead, as CNS News reports, the Secretary of Homeland Security apparently ditched a meeting with Congress over the handling of the EunuchBomber. Even Democrats want an answer to the question, “Where the hell is Secretary Napolitano?”

Source: HotAir

Well, technically, the reports say President Obama is ordering Eric Holder to "consider" moving the trial of 9/11 terrorist conspirators out of New York City. Since Obama made sure he was in China when Holder announced the trials, he must feel like he needs to continue acting as if this whole thing was Holder's idea. Whatever:

The White House ordered the Justice Department Thursday night to consider other places to try the 9/11 terror suspects after a wave of opposition to holding the trial in lower Manhattan.

The dramatic turnabout came hours after Mayor Bloomberg said he would "prefer that they did it elsewhere" and then spoke to Attorney General Eric Holder.

"It would be an inconvenience at the least, and probably that's too mild a word for people that live in the neighborhood and businesses in the neighborhood," Bloomberg told reporters.

"There are places that would be less expensive for the taxpayers and less disruptive for New York City."

Source: NY Daily News

Good on the mayor. However, the final nail in this coffin of failure probably came when Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) bolstered Bloomberg's statements by urging the White House to take his request seriously. This all comes days after it was revealed that Holder lied when he said he had consulted with Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly before making the decision to hold the trials in NYC.

Pulling the trials out of NYC is as close to an admission of failure as you will ever get from these clowns - this whole thing was a fiasco, a farce and a failure from the get-go. The next step is for the trials to be canceled altogether. Fingers crossed...

During his state of the Union address, President Obama said the following:

We face a deficit of trust -– deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years. To close that credibility gap we have to take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue -- to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; to give our people the government they deserve. (Applause.)

That's what I came to Washington to do. That's why -– for the first time in history –- my administration posts on our White House visitors online. That's why we've excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs, or seats on federal boards and commissions.

But we can't stop there. It's time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or with Congress. It's time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office.

Source: President Obama's State of the Union address

Yeah, well get a load of this:

Some lobbyists say they are extremely frustrated with the White House for criticizing them and then seeking their feedback. Others note that Democrats on Capitol Hill constantly urge them to make political donations.

One lobbyist said, “Bash lobbyists, then reach out to us. Bash lobbyists [while] I have received four Democratic invitations for fundraisers.”

Source: The Hill

Unbelievable. It's not so much the influence of lobbyists, but the audacity of Obama to stand in front of the nation and lie through his teeth about the administration's ties to lobbyists.

Lobbyists say the Obama White House has held many off-the-record teleconferences over the past year.

For example, lobbyists and others were invited to a teleconference with “senior Obama administration officials” on Monday to discuss the administration’s plan to improve the lives of middle-class families.

The invitation, which is addressed to “Friends,” emphasizes in bold and italics that “this call is for background information only and not intended for press purposes.” It advises callers to tell the operator “you’re joining the ‘White House Briefing Call.’ ”

Another lobbyist said these types of teleconferences occur “all the time.”

And that is why many on K Street are exasperated with Obama’s use of lobbyists as a punching bag. Some have said they understood why he used strong rhetoric on the campaign trail but are irritated the White House solicits their opinions while Obama’s friends in Congress badger them for political donations.

Source: The Hill
via The Lonely Conservative

You got Constitution in my Declaration of Independence!
You got Declaration of Independence in my Constitution!

Yet another failure in the State of the Union address. This time, the failure lies somewhere between a simple gaffe and a troubling glimpse at our president's complete lack of knowledge of America's history. That's a fairly wide range, but a fairly common question when deciphering Obama - is he a goofy moron or a dangerous clown?

Watch the above video. And read on...

One would hope the President of the United States would know the difference between the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. But in last night's State of the Union Address, President Obama said:

"We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal…."

Um, wrong founding document, Mr. President. It is in our Declaration of Independence that we read:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

As a Facebook friend of mine quipped, "So, does he blame the speechwriter or Bush?"

Source: Free Republic

Good grief. Wasn't this guy supposed to be a great legal mind? After all, being a lawyer is essentially the only thing he has ever done.

Remember when we were force-fed by many in the media articles about the storied legal career of Barack Obama? The first black President of Harvard Law Review (who never wrote a signed legal opinion; nor released his transcripts) and the teacher of Constitutional Law at the University of Chicago. He was our last best hope to restore respect for the Constitution in the Oval Office.

If George Bush or any Republican had made the same mistake can you imagine the media firestorm? I still recall that the New York Times ran a series of photos on the front-page when George Bush tried to open the wrong door while he was on a diplomatic visit to China. This is leagues above that simple faux pas.

Source: American Thinker

The media has been trying to figure out whether Scott Brown's stunning victory in Massachusetts would force President Obama to take a more moderate tone in the second year of his presidency.

With tonight's State of the Union address, Obama has made it clear that he will continue to push his agenda in the face of plummeting public support and numerous embarrassing failures. He will fight and attack banks, business owners, his political enemies, the Supreme Court and anyone else who gets in his way. It won't be more of the same - it will be even more of even worse.

He would be well-served to read about how his father's arrogance and unwillingness to adapt to reality ultimately led to the disintegration of his professional and private life:

Obama Sr. never quite lived up to his enormous potential. He achieved his dream of studying at Harvard after graduating from the University of Hawaii. He divorced Dunham in 1963 and married another woman.

He returned to Kenya and became a close aide to Mboya, a fellow Luo tribesman, at the Ministry of Economic Development. According to his old "drinking buddy" Ochieng, he antagonized other officials with his "boasting," was "excessively fond of Scotch" and ended up in poverty "without a job." He got into frequent car accidents, one of which led to the amputation of both his legs. He was killed in another car accident, in 1982, at the age of 46.

Source: Washington Post

President Obama's half-brother, Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo, has spoken about his father's flaws:

“My mother used to say of my father, he’s a brilliant man but a social failure,” Ndesandjo said, speaking at the press conference in China two weeks before Obama is scheduled to visit that country. Ndsesandjo currently resides in China.

Source: WorldNetDaily

The UK Daily Mail sums it up nicely:

We have discovered that his father was not just a deeply flawed individual but an abusive bigamist and an egomaniac, whose life was ruined not by racism or corruption but his own weaknesses.

Source: UK Daily Mail

If they want to save face, the administration really needs to consider a ban on cameras whenever the teleprompter is present. Either that, or they need to ween Barry off his pacifier teleprompter. The details on the above photo:

This isn’t a press conference, a speech, or even a White House briefing. It’s a committee meeting. As Rich said, people used to poke fun at Reagan’s notecards. Either he needs this much help to get through opening remarks in a normal business meeting, or he’s become a little to attached to the TOTUS … and neither option makes him look very professional.

Source: HotAir

Hey, at least he wore a tie!

Looks like another failure of the Obama stimulus plan

Raise your hand if you think President Obama will use his State of the Union address to announce a spending freeze on $3,000 stimulus roadsigns tonight. Fat chance...

Michelle Malkin was all over this story back in May 2009. Even though CNN deserves credit for pursuing this story, it is amazing how long it takes for this stuff to bubble up to the MSM...

Arkansas Democrat Marion Berry is retiring. He is retiring because he can't win. He can't win because President Obama has consistently pushed an agenda that is not supported by voters, especially in red states.

None of this should surprise you. However, Obama's comments Berry are eye-opening, even for someone who runs a fail blog dedicated to Obama's missteps (hey, that's me!):

Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.

“I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.” [snip]

Source: Politico

This. Is. Mind. Boggling.

The President of the United States of America needed two teleprompters to speak to a group of 6th graders.

Source: The Lonely Conservative

I'm not convinced he NEEDED the teleprompter to speak with kids. It is possible the teleprompters were used to impress the kids - a possibility that would mean Obama's arrogance is beyond the scope of anyone's imagination and the President of the United States is nothing more than a prop comic without a punchline.

UPDATE: The Weekly Standard is reporting that the teleprompter was used for Obama's remarks to the press, following his remarks to the students. Two questions about that:

1. Was the teleprompter in the room with the kids? Or was the teleprompter set up after the kids left the room? In other words, did the president need to show the kids how cool he was with his teleprompter and speaker system? Arrogance is never out of the question with this guy.
   
2. Isn't it wrong to hide behind the pretense of speaking to children when you are really just using their classroom as a prop for prepared remarks about an education program?
   

With President Obama's first year in office coming to a close, the Associated Press has compiled a list of statistics that define what could be the most fail-y year for a leader of a Western power since the AFL-NFL merger (football joke!).

Some lowlights:

13 million—Number of people 16 and older unemployed as of January 2009.

14.7 million—Number of people 16 and older unemployed as of December 2009.

7.7 percent—Unemployment rate January 2009

10.0 percent—Unemployment rate December 2009

$10.6 trillion—Outstanding public debt Jan. 20, 2009.

$12.3 trillion—Outstanding public debt Jan. 14, 2009.

139—Bank failures between Jan. 20, 2009, and Jan. 14, 2010.

274,399—Number of properties that received forclosure-related notices in January 2009.

349,519—Number of properties that received forclosure-related notices in December 2009.

Source: Breitbart via Drudge Report

How about some more statistics, courtesy of Obama Fail Blog - the only fail blog dedicated to documenting Obama's failures:

1- Teleprompter shattered during a speech
1- Handshake with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez
1- F-bomb dropped by Joe Biden while speaking into a microphone
2- Failures in Copenhagen
3- Bows to foreign leaders
3- White House gate crashers
5- 9/11 co-conspirators that will be granted civilian trials in New York City
5- Pounds of contaminated food from Michelle's garden donated to food kitchens (estimate)
17.2%- Real unemployment rate, as of December 2009
94- Number of days Obama dithered on Afghanistan troop decision
100- Terrorists that will be moved from Guantanamo Bay to Illinois (approximate)
142- Bank failures (Jan 20, '09-Jan. 15, '09) (That's an update to the 138 number in the original AP report. Click here for full FDIC list of failed banks)

Ladies and gentleman, welcome to another failure of the Obama administration - Michael Meehan edition!

The Setup

In this morning's Obama Fail Watch, we linked to a story about a thug roughing up Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack. The thug was Democrat strategist Michael Meehan and he is working for Massachusetts Senate candidate Martha Coakley. You can read the backstory at The Weekly Standard.

At the time of this mornings fail watch, it seemed like a bit of a stretch to link Meehan and Coakley to the Obama administration. After all, using Chicago thug tactics to intimidate a political opponent doesn't make you a member of the Obama administration.

The Punchline

Michael Meehan IS a would-be member of the Obama administration. More specifically, Meehan is an Obama nominee (Obama-nee) for the Broadcasting Board of Governors! From the website of Meehan's own consulting firm:

In November, President Obama nominated Meehan to be a Member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors pending Senate confirmation. Created in 1994, the Broadcasting Board of Governors oversees all of the US government's non-military international broadcasting outlets, including Voice of America, Alhurra television, Radio Sawa, TV Marti, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe. These services have always been central to America’s effort to inform and engage global audiences, commonly referred to today as public diplomacy.

Source: Blue Line Strategic Communications

Between Meehan's Senate confirmation hearings and the ongoing Erroll Southers fiasco, we may have some damn fine Congressional testimony on the horizon. Hopefully, President Obama doesn't bar C-SPAN from covering the circus.

UPDATE - Looks like Big Government beat OBF to this story by a couple of hours. Regardless, this story still needs to make the rounds. The more the merrier. Check out Big Government for more on the White House press release announcing Meehan's nomination to the Broadcasting Board of Governors.