I sit watching TV where Joe Biden speaks at the Democrat political convention, and I cannot believe my ears. His revisionist presentation of recent history is alarming. Biden would have us believe that Barack Obama entered the White House four years ago completely intent on buttressing hope not only among Americans, but also across the world.
But I was there. I remember what President Obama did from the first day he got the keys to the Mansion. From January 20, 2009, every single day, day after day, Obama told the world that the economy of the most important country in the world was in shambles. He destroyed confidence in the world financial sectors every time he opened his mouth. And the stock markets responded to the dismal attitude coming out of the mouth of the American president.
Anyone can look at a chart of the Dow, it’s publicly available. In three weeks from the middle of September to early October, the Dow plummeted 3,000 points from around 11,000 to around 8,000. Fear had been rampant. But during the three months between October 2008 and January 20, 2009, the markets had stabilized around 8,000. There was a sense that there had been over-reaction to the bad news about the financial sector. But there was still uncertainty over the election, then over the ability of the new president.
Then Obama took over the White House and started bad-mouthing the economy, telling us every single day that we were on the brink of another Great Depression. The markets collapsed again. The big question on everyone’s mind? What did the President of the United States know that no one else knew? In a period of six weeks, until the first week of March, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost another 1500 points.
Then suddenly, as if someone told Obama that his daily barrage of negativity was having a devastating impact on the people’s hope for the future, Obama turned his rhetoric around. He started saying, “During the bubble, things were never as good as they seemed. Now things are not as bad as they seem.”
The markets responded again. In the next four weeks the Dow added back the 1500 points it had lost from the day Obama took office. The Dow chart shows a sharp V during Obama’s first three months in office, and all of the movement was due to Obama’s rhetoric.
I always thought that Obama’s sudden change in attitude was amazing. At the time it seemed to me that Obama was merely a buffoon, with absolutely no understanding of markets, no understanding how to lead, no understanding how to inspire confidence. I was afraid for the future of America with a man this incompetent at the helm.
But then I heard Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, say that the Democrats should never let a crisis go to waste. And it suddenly dawned on me. Barack Obama had manufactured a crisis to take advantage of the devastation his rhetoric would cause.
Obama knew his words would cause panic, and his change in words would cause revival. Anyone who has ever studied the tactics of sales knows this approach to convincing customers to buy a product. The product Obama wants us to buy is himself. Now every time Obama speaks he tells us that when he finally took office he found out the American economy was in worse shape than he had previously known. And he personally turned it around. It’s classic selling chicanery. But I’m not buying what he’s selling.
Mr. Obama, and his surrogates like Joe Biden, are very clever. But they cannot fool anyone who has been paying attention. I know what he did, and his current revision of history only reinforces my understanding of his tactics.
But now I am even more afraid for the future of America with a man this devious at the helm.