Early in his presidency, Barack Obama said of the economy: “If we can’t get this done in three years, this is going to be a one-term proposition.”
Last night, accepting renomination, he complained, “It will take more than a few years to solve challenges that have built up over decades.”
In 2008, Obama told the Democratic convention: “We measure progress by how many people can find a job that pays the mortgage, whether you can put a little money away at the end of each month.”
Last night, with more than 13 million Americans still unemployed, he demanded that the American people be patient — and wait for him to try “bold, persistent experimentation,” like Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Four years ago, he warned, “You don’t protect Israel and deter Iran just by talking tough in Washington.”
Today, he’s — well, trying to deter Iran by just talking tough in Washington. And who knows where he stands on Israel?
Last night, Obama delivered a speech full of inspirational rhetoric. And he talked of expensive new “goals for America.”
But as his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, rightly noted: “This is a time for him not to start stating new promises, but to report on the promises made” — and yet to be fulfilled.
The president did get one thing right: In the coming election, voters “will face the clearest choice of any time in a generation.”
“It will be a choice between two different paths for America,” Obama said. “A choice between two fundamentally different visions for the future.”
We couldn’t have said it better.
But Obama got it dead wrong in suggesting that four more years of his “let government do it” presidency is the path that will restore the nation’s economic greatness.
Recall how Obama vowed to cut the deficit in half within two years; instead, he added more than $5 trillion in new debt — more than in all eight years of the Bush administration. Meanwhile the Democratic-controlled Senate has gone three years without even passing a budget.
The president who promised to create jobs instead faces persistent unemployment above 8 percent and zero job growth over his term — the worst jobs record of any “recovery” since World War II.
The president who promised to invest $150 billion in green energy that would “create 5 million new jobs” instead gave us the Solyndra boondoggle — which produced no jobs and a $535 million taxpayer-funded bankruptcy.
Four years ago, Obama noted that “if you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.”
Which is precisely what he and the Democrats are doing this year in demonizing Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. By the president’s own reckoning, it’s obvious why.
Yes, Americans last night heard some fiery oratory and promises about a brighter future from Obama.
But they’ve heard it all before.
At the end of the day, the president offered nothing new — nothing that will change America’s course for the better.