Add New York Times columnist Bob Herbert to the growing list of liberal media members realizing that Barack Obama's campaign slogan "Hope and Change" was nothing but a great sales pitch.
"Mr. Obama and the Democrats have wasted the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity handed to them in the 2008 election," wrote Herbert Tuesday.
"They did not focus on jobs, jobs, jobs as their primary mission."
No, they sure didn't. Instead, they worked on a stimulus package that has done nothing but add to the debt, a healthcare bill that WILL do nothing but add to the debt, and a cap and trade bill that if ever passed will cost jobs in virtually every industry.
As Herbert continued, he surprisingly noted how disappointed Americans are in the failure of this administration to do what the country needed most:
Mr. Obama had campaigned on the mantra of change, and that would have been the kind of change that working people could have gotten behind. But it never happened. Job creation was the trump card in the hand held by Mr. Obama and the Democrats, but they never played it. And now we're paying a fearful price. [...]
The Obama administration feels it should get a great deal of credit for its economic stimulus efforts, its health care initiative, its financial reform legislation, its vastly increased aid to education and so forth. And maybe if we were grading papers, there would be a fair number of decent marks to be handed out. [...]
By nearly 2 to 1, respondents to the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll believed the United States is on the wrong track...Fifty-four percent of respondents believed he does not have a clear plan for creating jobs. Only 45 percent approved of his overall handling of the economy, compared with 48 percent who disapproved.
It's not too late for the president to turn things around, but there is no indication that he has any plan or strategy for doing it.
Truth be told, he never did.
"Hope and Change" wasn't a plan for anything. It was a dream spun by a very well-spoken, charismatic man that liberal media members like Herbert fell in love with and married on Election Day 2008.
Conservatives across the fruited plain tried to convince folks before the wedding that they were being sold a magic elixir by an astonishingly unqualified person that had never created a job for another human being in his entire life and didn't have the slightest idea how.
But love is blind, so much so that Herbert and his ilk assisted this man in selling the dream to others.
Now that the fantasy has turned into a nightmare, we can only hope that folks like Herbert who are beginning to realize they were taken will be more concerned for their nation and their fellow citizens than the Party they support.
After all, the Democrats have controlled Congress for three and half years, and the White House for seventeen months.
Is the country better off today than it was in January 2007? Or January 2009? Are we any closer to a path that leads us to both answers being "Yes?"
If not, and folks like Herbert are starting to realize it albeit kicking and screaming, then maybe they should consider a divorce.
This shouldn't be tough for liberals - they do it all the time.
