The Working File

Here is Jim Miller on Obama, written on the eve of his taking the oath of office:

He has no executive experience. He has never even headed a small law firm, much less commanded a regiment, ran a company, headed a Cabinet department, governed a state, or served as vice president. As far as I know, he hasn’t even coached a basketball team. (He does have some legislative experience, of course, but he was not a leader in either the Illinois senate or the United States senate. Though head of a Senate sub-committee, he never bothered to call a hearing.)
He has few significant accomplishments, other than writing two books about himself. His work as a community organizer did little to help his community, though it did provide a foundation for his political career. He was not a particularly successful lawyer, though he received significant help from political allies. He was chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge while it passed out fifty million dollars to improve Chicago schools — and made no improvements in those schools. (The CAC did provide jobs for some of Obama’s political allies.) He published no academic papers while working as a part-time lecturer at the University of Chicago law school. He did little in the Illinois senate, other than funneling money to his political allies. (He did claim credit for the work others did before him.) He had almost no accomplishments as a United States senator.
He has the fewest accomplishments of any person elected president in at least the last hundred years, perhaps the fewest ever.
He has been wrong on the great issues of our time. He opposed the Reagan build-up that helped bring down the Soviet Union. He opposed welfare reform. He favors affirmative action, in spite of its many failures. He opposed the surge in Iraq and predicted that it would fail.
He is either a poor judge of character, or he does not care about the moral failings of his associates. We still do not know the whole story of his association with terrorist William Ayers, but we do know that Obama saw nothing wrong with the man. He did not know or care that his long-time supporter, Tony Rezko, was a crook. For two decades, he belonged a church where doctrines some call racist were preached — and was not bothered by Reverend Wright, until Wright became a political liability. He backed many of the corrupt politicians from the Chicago political machine, including Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

I quoted a lot, and was tempted to quote it all, but that didn’t seem sporting.
Just before the election, I wrote a short series of political posts, while trying unsuccessfully to keep this from being a regularly political blog. I also wanted to write a post that encapsulated the totality of my opposition to Obama, and failed. In his post, Jim Miller nails it, and does it succinctly.