Indictment of a summer visitor

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To the Editor:

Obviously, the president’s one hundred million dollar taxpayer funded jaunt to Africa did not suffice, so he is returning to the Island yet again, after strangely eschewing it last year. Perhaps he feared it would not have been advantageous during a campaign to be seen here, since he may have looked out of touch in a time of uncertainty for the country, and this would have been put on glaring display.

On foreign fronts, Mr. Obama and his administration have involved the United States in two illegal wars, one of which was in Libya, with a present one being in Syria, as we arm dangerous Islamic fascists who are no friends of the Western world. He has also sent a total of forty thousand additional troops to Afghanistan, and I wonder if there is anything to show for it beyond those who return either maimed, or worse, return in what the funeral industry calls transfer cases.

Bin Laden’s apprehension was ten years in the making, and it took intelligence specialists five years alone to track down his most trusted courier. I can affirm the painstaking nature of intelligence gathering, since once having worked for N.S.A., l know how long intelligence operations can take. This was at a time when N.S.A. was not used against Americans and the I.R.S. was not a political weapon. When the right moment for action arrived, the window of opportunity almost shut due to Mr. Obama’s dithering, which lasted a critical 24 hours before he finally stepped out of the way and let Seal Team Six accomplish the mission.

GM currently produces inferior products compared to those of past enemies Japan and Germany, but that does not matter, as the American people were forced to bail out GM as a reward to the United Auto Workers Union for their faithful get out the vote efforts on behalf of Barack Obama and his party, and to keep the union’s failed pension program from running aground.

Even a comparison between the dollar and the euro may not be entirely relevant, since the badly battered euro has suffered loss as a result of the threatened insolvencies of countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, all of which are tottering because of out of control spending by their respective governments.

Mr. Obama’s brand of crony capitalism includes men like Jeff lmmelt who, as CEO of General Electric, has made billions, but somehow fails to pay his “fair share” of taxes, so the only things that have changed in Washington are the players. Solyndra, once touted by the president as being the wave of the future, went bankrupt after absconding with 737 million tax dollars, leaving the former CEO and CFO invoking their Fifth Amendment rights in a way reminiscent of mobster Carlos Marcello, who invoked his rights 35 times in only 15 minutes during Congressional hearings on organized crime in the late 1950s.

Concerning the economy, everything possible that could be done to handcuff and shackle the private sector, Mr. Obama has done, and with an eerie precision, he has missed nothing, starting with the healthcare monstrosity with which he has saddled businesses, down to the last minor details of everyday regulatory interference. Never mind that the economy remains becalmed with barely a breeze to rustle the sails, and this is after four years. I would prefer the kind of mismanagement that gave us 5.4 percent unemployment rather than the recent 7.6 percent, which has become our new normal. Mr. Obama previously said that he wanted to be a transformational president, but appears to be attempting to transform this country into the type of collectivist state such as the one my grandparents left behind. If this is his goal, then he is doing an exemplary job indeed.

Respect? I believe that Mr. Obama should receive the exact same kind of respect that some people here once gratuitously gave to President Bush during his term of office.

If the media were watchdogs instead of lapdogs, they would look up the tail numbers and registrations of all the private jets at the airport during the president’s visit, and then we might know at least a few of the people who have audience with him. The Obamas do not come to this Island for the sea, salt air, or to play golf. They come here, like their predecessors, the Clintons, because this Island has become the summer sandbox of some of their wealthiest supporters, and these are individuals who can write checks starting with any number they please, followed by a substantial rank and file of zeros.

Michael F. Fontes

West Tisbury