Why the Bush Hatred?

As a retired guy, I am hit just about as hard as anyone by the economic downturn; I do not have years to go to see my savings and 401k go back up.  Thus I should be among the crowd screaming for 1/20/09 to come sooner than later.  I could cheerfully join the MSM and the masses that voted for Obama to cure the ills caused by the “imperial” Presidency and his neo-con war loving minions.  But I don’t see it that way.

As a conservative, I am appalled at the lack of conservatism displayed by the W administration, despite the campaign he ran as a “compassionate conservative.”  The size of the government expanded under his watch and the budget deficit bloated out of control; neither of these are results of conservative practices.  On the other hand, his administration was dogged by a number of events outside of his control.  Among them were the closeness of the 2000 election and the resulting democrat refusal to accept a legal, duly constituted, result.  This was followed by the 9/11 attack while the US was trying to claw out of a recession that had been handed to the new administration. 

Thus before the administration could really get on track, a number of things were conspiring against it; some were man-made in the US by democrat and MSM activity, but some were due to external forces as well as the natural ebb and flow of a capitalistic society. 

In the face of this, W kept his basic decency and sense of humor.  How he could put up with the abject lunacy being spewed by the left and MSM (but I am doubly redundent) is a mystery to me.  He extended the hand of friendship to, of all people, Ted Kennedy, by not only inviting him to co-sponsor and help write the “No Child Left Behind” law but also inviting him to the White House.  The typical response of Kennedy was to hammer W unmercifully in the press at any chance he got.  This was to be expected of someone who cheated in college and should have been convicted of manslaughter at Chappaquiddick; some “Lion of the Left.”  What is often not remembered is that W did try to “reach across the aisle” as the pundits like to say; his attempts were met by the left as a sign of weakness.

Following the 9/11 attack, the country was basically totally unified that “something had to be done” in response to the immoral, cowardly, depraved killing of thousands of civilians by al Qaeda.  The democrats and republicans both approved the use of force in Iraq as did the United Nations.  Of course when the aftermath of the war went poorly, the democrats did what they typically do, forget that they were culpable in the invasion of Iraq and blame W for all of the problems.  The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, gave a ringing endorsement of the W policies by saying “the war is lost” while the issue was very much in doubt.  The number of people that now say they were always against the Iraq war is absurd; the votes were taken and the majority opinion was followed.  W’s policies have kept the US from being attacked for the last 7 ½ years despite the foolish caterwauling about the Patriot Act and the NSA wireless surveillance.

The economy is a mess, no question about it.  I don’t think W, Paulson, Obama, Reid, Pelosi or anyone in a political leadership position has a clue what to do about it.  If they leave it alone, the US will pull out of it; there will be a great deal of hardship in some areas, but we will survive.  If they try to spend their way out of it, or worse raise taxes, it is likely to rot more before it gets better.  The left’s knee jerk reaction was that the economic downturn was all W’s fault, ignoring the Dodd and Frank rabid support for the corrupt Fanny and Freddie.

Would McCain have made a better President than Obama?  I doubt it.  But I do think the bias of the MSM made the election much more lopsided than it would have been otherwise.  Falsely, despite the 90% voting agreement, tying McCain to W with his low public opinion polls did a lot of damage.  It was interesting that Congress had about a 10% approval rating while W was in the high 20s; abysmal numbers both.

Then we had the shoe throwing incident in Iraq where a “journalist” who would have been put to death under Saddam’s regime insulted our President and our country with his unacceptable behavior.  Throwing a shoe at the man who allowed him the freedom to do so was the height of hypocrisy.  The MSM immediately took the side of the journalist and made a joke about it as though W deserved that sort of treatment.  It was inexcusable.

W is a good, decent man who reacted to the shoe thrower with grace and class.  As far as I can tell, he has tried to be truthful with the American people at all times, despite the MSM protestations that he cooked the books on the WMD intelligence.  He has shown courage and dignity befitting the Presidency in the face of obscene treatment.

With the MSM demeaning the leader of the free world at every turn, it is not surprising, wrong but not surprising, that the public also turned on him.  W’s decision to support the surge in Iraq, his firing of Rumsfeld, and many other actions showed he was in firm control of the administration and not a “puppet” of the “evil” Cheney.  He has done his best in the face of the “just say no” opposition of the democrats and press to do what he believed was best for the country.  I hope, and believe, history will treat him far more kindly than the current crop of democrats and press.  He is a better man, perhaps not a better President, than the country deserved during these troubling times.  Remember, had not W won, either Gore or Kerry would have been President; that thought alone keeps me sane when I question some of the policies of the W administration.

Comments

[Bob Kelley]

What a crock. Handed a recession? The bursting of the dot com bubble is a mere pothole compared to the vast hole that Bush has put us into. The 9/11 attack that Bush used as the excuse to launch his massive Iraq misadventure could have well been prevented had Bush been awake at the switch. The US knew that al Qaeda was going to strike and that the plan involved airplanes. Bush told the CIA agent dispatched to warn him and stress the seriousness of the threat "you've covered your , now leave" and went back to fishing. A sensible chimpanzee would have enhanced aviation security and started to look at who was taking flight lessons. Timo apparently is taking his cues from the Bush playbook- mention 9/11, then in the next sentence attempt to justify the war in Iraq. That little trick play has been completely discredited.

Speaking of discredited, the Hoover response to a severe recession/depression, doing nothing at all, is still being pushed by the right wingnuts and their delusional followers. No, this crisis, created by Bush and the Republican gutting of regulations and oversight, can only be addressed by massive government intervention.

Bush a good, decent man? Don't make me puke. Good and decent men don't mock a condemned woman pleading for her life while governor. Good and decent men don't out a covert CIA agent, endangering her life and the lives of her fellow agents, as an act of political retribution. Good and decent men don't drag the reputation of the United States into the mud by approving the use of torture. History will judge Bush, history will condemn him. Buchanan, Harding, and Nixon now have serious competition for worst ever.

[Timo Kokko]

Bob,
I recognize you are a far left liberal, but again I'm doubly redundant; Jim Jones has nothing on you in the kool-aid category.

By any measure of merit W was handed a recession. Was it worse than the situation we are in now? Of course not, but it was a recession nonetheless. To follow your logic, it would have been a democrat caused recession, but I prefer to think of it as a normal business cycle one.

You are beyond trying to debate with if you stick to the shibboleth that W could have stopped the 9/11 attack. There are intelligence reports of all types saying all sorts of things; they must all be vetted.

Then the economic crisis we are in now. With W and McCain trying in 2005, not very hard admittedly, to rein in Freddie and Fanny only to be blocked by Dodd and Frank it takes real chutzpah to say it was totally a republican caused problem. It was primarily democrat, with passive inaction by the republicans, that caused our problem. The fix of giving car and insurance companies money that our grandchildren will be paying off is immoral and wrong; it will likely worsen the recession. If Obama has his way and raises taxes, it will become a depression. I trust he is smart enough to know better, despite his rhetoric during the campaign.

The war in Iraq was to stop Hussein's threat of WMD. There is no proof or even serious allegations that Hussein was involved in 9/11. I believe you are the one that linked the two in this thread.

I would never want to make you puke, even if you are totally wrong. This good and decent man is unfairly taking a beating from the left wing kool-aid drinkers and it should stop. Arguments over the quality of his Presidency are good and appropriate, but the abject disrespect is disgraceful.

[cyclezealot]

How very liberal of Timo. Too bad his issues had nothing to do with his 401 K being sacked. I'd look to the derogatory actions of the likes of McCain's good buddy- Mr Gramm. Who opened the floodgates to thievery after the passage of Gramm, Bliely, Leach. Fully supported by Bush. Prompting the merger of our banks with Wall Street and their scams. Enjoy your deregulatory world Timmo. Someone else is enjoying your savings, far far away . Meanwhile, tell the 4000 US war dead, when they see Mr Bush looking under his west wing sofa for WMD's that we all knew never existed...

[Willi the Pimp]

Really Timo where have you been?

[Kerri Tang]

Bob Kelley, your ignorance makes me puke.
In 1999, if you were a small business owner (and my husband was), you knew for sure that we had 2 yrs of a more than mild recession. In fact, most of our customers quit ordering 100%.
My husband didn't even draw a regular paycheck for 2 yrs.

He tackled that, 9/11, which Clinton wouldn't get his hands dirty over (not to mention ignorning the 3 offers, by the Saudis, to take Bin Laden off their hands), and has made tough decisions to fight terrorists.
We've had attacks against Americans since 1970, and he's the first president, besides his father, to do anything about it.
Do nothing Clinton didn't have the guts.
As far as the economy, it's been protrayed in everything from the daily evening news, to the weather channel, but Michiganders and most liberals forget one thing~~until this summer (08), the unemployment rate, and economic woes, sat at anywhere from (as low as) 3.2 in his first four yrs, to 4.5, and this summer, 5.1, then 5.4 (which by the way, was the average for each yr that Clinton was in).
Not every state has gone through what Michigan has. We've been in a single state recession for 7+ yrs. Only Louisiana, after Katrina, joined us, for 2 yrs. Now New Jersey is the only other state, that, like us, is losing population.
THE RECESSION WE ARE IN, HAS NOT BEEN THE SAME FOR THE REST OF THE COUNTRY. IT JUST ARRIVED.
And, if Mr. Kelley wants more accurate information, check on the legislature produced under Carter, and the following 25 yrs after that, by the dems, that supported the likes of ACORN.
You are now seeing the results in that, in the housing.
For 8 yrs we've heard nothing but bad mouth from the left.
All the while, this president has kept us safe from another attack.
How soon we, as a nation, forgot about 9/11, and it's aftermath, of how we all came together.
That IS the kind of person this president is, that's the kind of character he has.
Enjoy the new president, when he cuts our military, downgrades all the protectionisms that we have in place, and leaves Russia the only ones with nukes (removing ours), because he thinks they won't do anything.
He's a Chicago hood type and his friends prove that. Why the left can't see what this mans character references are not reliable, is beyond the rest of us.
Good Luck. Meanwhile, we had a decent man for 8 yrs, who actually wasn't afraid to make hard choices, not bases on the poles.
Clinton was well loved, because he didn't do any of that. His hardest decision was what kind of jelly to put on his wife's sandwiches, when she went into her office to work. He sailed through on what was put in place by Reagan, and the surplus?
The 3 yrs of balanced budgets, by him and the gop (1997-99), and the two tax raises you liberals supported! That's your surplus, your own tax dollars.
W was more than most liberals will ever know. I worked on both of his campaigns, and he cares more about this country than most will ever know.
God Bless "W".
Hold on to your wallet, with "O".

[Kerri Tang]

Oh, Bob Kelley, one more point~~if you want to find out what happened in Michigan, take a long, hard look at Granholm's policies.
Our company suffered a loss in her first 6 motnhs, due to a 10 yr road/bridge program she cancelled. It was lobbyed for and won in 1999, by Road Builders Assoc., which was a "customer" of my husbands business. In one sweep of the pen, she put 10,000 people (independents) out of 10 yrs of work.
that was only the start for her.
And, all the tax exemptions, tax breaks, baiilouts, and propping up, of all union businesses, is what has brought Michigan to where it's at.
Your finger of blame is pointed in the wrong direction. The governors mansion on Moores River Drive, would be the responsible one. She is the worst governor this state has ever seen, and we will be feeling her repercussions for many yrs to come (i.e. the legislature she signed in July 08, to EXEMPT Dow Chem. from 12 yrs of taxes. That's about $38 million dollars of revenue Mich. won't see). That's the kind of devastation she has brought this state.
Read up, Bob, Bush didn't do this economy in Mich. any harm.
You've blamed the wrong person, but then, you're a liberal, and can't help it. It's second nature.

[Timo Kokko]

cyclezealot,
You are spot on that the Gramm, Bliley, Leach Act was one of the worst pieces of legislation ever to come out of Congress; and that is saying a lot with this bunch. Clearly it was republican sponsored and supported by W; unfortunately it passed the Senate 90 to 8, so it turned into a bipartisan mistake. It was and is bad legislation and bad public policy and should be repealed; both of Michigan's finest in the Senate supported the measure. Incidentally, Clinton signed this hideous piece of legislation into law; it was not W.

As Hussein used WMD on his own people, it is impossible to say they never existed.

[Mr. Tang (The Socialist)]

There you go again, Kerri Tang, blaming others for your incompetent husband's failures. His business was failing long before Granholm became the governor. You two need to accept responsibility for your failures and quit placing the blame on Granholm, unions, and/or liberals.

Timo~~ Considering Jones was a religious nut that killed a bunch of his religious nut followers, drinking the Kool-Aid references should only rightfully be used to describe weak minded fools of the religious right.

[Timo Kokko]

Mr Tang,
The reference to Jones applies equally to left wing or right wing nuts that accept the dogma of their political leaders without the filter of sanity. Weak minded fools can be found on the right and the left, although they seem to be more prevalent on the left.

[Bob Kelley]

What an honor to be dissed by the tightest and rightest of the tightie-righties. Kerri and Timo, this is indeed a double pleasure.

Kerri, you really need to broaden your sources of information. There is nothing to what you describe as the Saudi (it was really Sudanese) "offer" to "hand over" bin Laden. See Walter Annenberg's (hardly a liberal voice) site factcheck.org for the straight dope: http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_bill_clinton_pass_up_a_chance_1.html. The Sudanese claim that they offered to turn bin Laden over has been rejected by the 9/11 Commission. You can either believe a nation that practices genocide and sponsors terrorism or you can believe the distinguished Americans that made up the 9/11 Commission (which Bush fought tooth and nail not to establish and has rejected many of their recommendations).

Kerri, go to this site: http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000 and look at data from 1993 (the first year of Bill Clinton's first term) until the present. Key data points: January 1993, 7.3%. January 2001, 4.2%. Today, 6.7%. The unemployment rate DROPPED 3.1% in the Clinton years and ROSE 2.5% (so far) in the Bush years. On what planet does the data make Bush look better than Clinton? NOWHERE was the rate as low as 3.2% as you claim. The lowest for any single month under Bush was 4.2%, when Clinton left office. You are certainly entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.

[Bob Kelley]

Kerri, you never tire of ACORN-bashing, do you? The only trouble with your argument is that it has no merit. A pretty good analysis is here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/v-print/story/53802.html. Fannie and Freddie didn't cause the meltdown as they made less than 20% of the subprime loans and 84.3% of mortgages were made by financial institutions not governed by the much-vilified Community Reinvestment Act.

Kerri, just because we proud liberals oppose Bush, it doesn't mean that we "forgot about 9/11". Obama is not going to gut the military and he is not going to unilaterally disarm. This is known as a strawman, concocting a position your opponent does not hold and then hammering him for it.

Kerri, like other mindless conservatives, you harp on how the Clinton surplus "belongs to us"? Who then owns the current deficit? Why are surpluses to be destroyed and divided while deficits are ignored?

Kerri, make up your mind what side of the fence you're on. Either unfairly attack Granholm for raising taxes (an unpleasant necessity because of the Engler mismanagment of the state's finances) or unfairly attack her for lowering taxes to keep an employer in the state. You can't have it both ways.

Timo, the threat of an al Qaeda attack was serious enough that the CIA sent an agent specifically to brief Bush while on vacation (actually that's a majority of the time). What evidence is there that this threat was vetted?

Timo, YOU linked Iraq and 9/11 in the original post. I quote: Following the 9/11 attack, the country was basically totally unified that “something had to be done” in response to the immoral, cowardly, depraved killing of thousands of civilians by al Qaeda. The democrats and republicans both approved the use of force in Iraq as did the United Nations. This is the same thing Bush did, mention 9/11 and then immediately follow it with a statement about Iraq. Never saying outright the two are related, but enough to confuse an inferior intellect.

Timo, even if Iraq HAD WMD, it had no means to deliver them to the US and there were UN inspectors on the ground looking for them. The war was sold on a false sense of urgency, the "mushroom cloud" smoking gun that Kindasleezy Rice warned about.

[Mr. Tang (The Socialist)]

Another reason for the Bush hatred is that he has many comparisons to Hitler.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e363/kfriendly69/Hitler_vs_Bush_Checklist.jpg?t=1223951474

[Timo Kokko]

Mr Tang,
Your link and implication is beneath contempt.

Bob,
I assume you are confident the ports are totally secure and Hussein was incapable of hiring someone, say bin Laden, to schlep it to the US?

Going back to your screed on Clinton and bin Laden and your link. As I understand your view, Clinton lied (misspoke?) when he said "...I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him..." but he was telling the truth when he said "there had never been an offer to turn over bin Laden." I guess once he was attacked for not taking bin Laden, he remembered he had not actually been offered him? This piece of obvious mendacity was from an admittedly smart guy who couldn't remember the definition of "is."

Two things about your last response that are troubling.
1. It is endemic for the left to casual try to demean people such as Condoleezza Rice; it does not enhance your point, only makes you look small.
2. It seems OK to you that Hussein could kill his (and Iran's) citizens with WMD. I think WMD in his hands, as well as seeking more, was a threat we could not live with. I'm in fairly exhaustive company in that belief as the virtually the entire democrat leadership agreed to that position when it was popular--shortly after 9/11. Only after the war became unpopular did the chorus of dems try to change historical facts; it likely cost Hillary the nomination.

[Bob Kelley]

What color is the sky on your planet? Hussein hire bin Laden? About as likely as Joan Crawford and Bette Davis having a sleepover. The two had no use for each other. Any notion that the two would collaborate on anything is laughable.

I know it's hard to believe that anyone but Bush is capable of a misstatement but yes indeed Clinton did misspeak in that one instance and not the other. Imagine that. Now you can either believe a rogue nation or you can believe the 9/11 Commission. Your choice but don't expect me to follow it.

Kindasleezy Rice does not deserve any more respect than Chimpy does. When Colin Powell pulled a knife out of his back, Rice's prints were all over it. She and Cheney conspired to undermine Powell, a good and decent man, and force him to leave the administration, depriving it of the one thing it desperately needed- adult supervision.

You are disingenuous in your concern for the welfare of the Iraqi people. If the deaths of over 1 million Iraqis due to the invasion are of no concern to you, why would their potential deaths at the hands of Hussein concern you? There were avenues short of invasion that should have been pursued and war should have been the last resort. There were weapons inspectors on the ground and Hussein's military was a mere shadow of its pre-Gulf War I self. The imagined threat of WMDs was not a sufficient excuse to invade.

Once again you try to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11 to justify the Iraq war. It's pitiful that you continue to exploit the deaths of the innocent to pursue your own pathetic agenda.

[Timo Kokko]

Bob,
There are no where near 1 million Iraqs killed due to the invasion; that is pure poppycock put out by the left wing rags. There have even been less Iraqs killed starting from the invasion to today than were killed by Hussein himself. The Iraqs are far better off now than they were under Hussein; that is unless you are a member of the Baath Party.

Certainly I don't think Hussein hired bin Laden; bin Laden was a metaphor for one of the many terrorists that Hussein could have hired to get WMD to American shores.

Powell is indeed a good and decent man. As he is a republican, I wonder if you thought that before he came out in support of Obama?

I am curious what my pathetic agenda is though?

[Bob Kelley]

So you doubt the methodology used by the Johns Hopkins team to come up with the data? Exactly how many Iraqis would you accept as reasonable to get rid of Hussein? It seems to me that the Iraqis are the ones who should have decided whether the human toll of an invasion would be worth it.

Actually, I did think of Powell as a decent man before he endorsed Obama. He's one of the very few Republicans that I have any respect for. Against the right Democrat I might be tempted to vote for him. Rice and Cheney set Powell up to lie to the UN and lose all his credibility, that shouldn't happen to a true patriot like Powell. All this so Rice could seize more power and be closer to her "husband".

I think your pathetic agenda is to continue to market the Iraq war as a good idea. I can see how some people were fooled back in 2002 and 2003, but if anyone looks back at it now without regret they are one of the following: 1) very misinformed 2) brainwashed or 3) feeble-minded.

[Andrew Smith]

Bob, I assure you I will not engage in the kind of aggressively personal posting in which you and the others appear to enjoy involving yourselves, but the mortgage mess is severely misunderstood. While the CRA was not directly responsible for the actual loans, the precedent was set by it, and consequently followed by Fannie and Freddie, and the Federal Reserve banks. The CRA began the snowball rolling down the hill in the 1970s and the Fed continued to pack on the snow by reducing interest rates low enough that banks had the motivation and opportunity to lend to pretty much anyone. There was minimal risk then because they were going to make a boatload on the loans, and they were backed up by the GSEs and Fed, so it's only logical to conclude that they would engage in this risky behavior. Of course, that doesn't excuse any of the insanity in bundling these loans and selling off securities with them as collateral, but to say that the CRA had nothing to do with it is simply untrue. A new lending philosophy arose from the interference by the Fed (what they do best) and supported by interventionist administrations such as Carter's and Clinton's.

As for deregulation and Gramm's bill, normally this would be the right thing to do; let those who live by the sword die by the sword. The problem is that our fates were tied to those banks and with an already hardly-regulated Federal Reserve, that left our financial system extremely vulnerable to abuse and foolishness which resulted. You would think that these things would be a lesson to politicians and economists alike that the more the government and its agents mess with the market, the more problems they cause, yet here we have yourself and Keynesian nutjobs advocated more massive deficit-spending to solve problems that were in part caused by massive deficit-spending. This is insane.

Sane economists have consistently advocated responsible spending and lowering taxes as the most effective ways to end this recession in as little time as possible. A massive public works program which emphasizes spending above tax cuts will only serve to prolong the recession and ultimately harm our long-term prosperity. I know everyone is desperate for cash right now, but we are at a turning point. We can continue to repeat the same mistake of supporting a spending-based economy, or transition to a savings-based economy. The latter is far more secure and is more compatible with a laissez-faire economic approach that rewards success instead of being forced to subsidize failure.

9/11 has been done to death and no useful information can come from rehashing that discussion, but as far as Granholm goes, the tired mantra of inheriting Engler's problems is wearing very thin. Liberals can't use that excuse forever to explain her incompetence at doing ANYTHING to affect positive economic change, or any positive change at all. I wasn't in Michigan for most of Engler's tenure, so I am not informed to comment on that topic. However, even I can see that the Granholm administration has presided over huge tax increases, state spending programs, millage requests, supporting bloodsucking unions at all costs, and refusing to address serious budget concerns. Michigan has been in a single-state recession for over 7 years now; Kerri is right about that. Over-reliance on the auto industry and endless tax abatements and incentives to business without any corresponding reduction in spending has paralyzed the MI tax base. You can't pay to bring businesses to this state. All of these things could have been corrected but absolutely no serious attempt to address these fundamental problems has been made by the Granholm administration. Jenny job-killer's anti-business philosophy has driven employers, jobs, and citizens OUT of Michigan. The hemorrhaging continues. The only intelligent budget cuts she was able to make finally came this year, during the worst of the crisis, but then what is her grand plan for economic recovery? Defer to the feds and wait for money from the great teat of the US Treasury. No, we can no longer blame her ineptness on a mess inherited from a governor from 7 years ago. The time for passing the buck is long gone and Granholm has succeeded in helping to drive MI into the ground. I wish she had been chosen as a member of OBJ's cabinet; we would have been rid of her. As it stands now, we can only hope that OBJ will have an epiphany and embrace some sensible economic reforms, rather than just throwing more money at the problem.

I'm not holding my breath. As for W, I agree that he can't shoulder all the blame, and most of us have called our W on his mistakes, and there were several whoppers, but it's disingenuous to lay it all at his door because of convenience. Congress was far worse and allowed terrible economic policies to be enacted and supported. They clearly have failed to listen to the people and that must change if we have any hope of reversing this course.

[Bob Kelley]

Exactly how is Granholm killing jobs? The Tax Foundation, certainly not a liberal group, has some interesting rankings:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/bp581.pdf

FY 2006, Michigan was in 25th place for business tax climate.
FY 2007, down to 28th place
FY 2008, up to 25th place again
FY 2009, up to 20th place.

If there are 30 states worse than Michigan from the point of view of the Tax Foundation, then how did Granholm kill jobs?

By the way, who the heck is OBJ? Obama Baines Johnson?

[Andrew Smith]

I checked the report and found some interesting items. Thanks for citing this, by the way.

Michigan ranks 48th in Corporate Tax Index rank and 46th in Unemployment Insurance Tax Index for 2009. These alone are good reasons why businesses are being driven from the state and jobs are being lost. These taxes punish failing businesses worse than successful ones and cause them to fail sooner. Combine this with over-reliance on the auto industry and we have a recipe for disaster.

OBJ = Obama the Black Jesus