Obama: an Extraordinary Apprising

By Olivia Pierson
[First published on Incite Politics]


​This Thursday March 22nd, the NZ US Council will be genuflecting...I mean hosting former president Barrack Obama to speak to an exclusive invite-only crowd at the Viaduct Event Centre in Auckland.

The NZ US Council describes itself as “a non partisan organisation, funded by business and the Government, and committed to fostering and developing a strong and mutually beneficial relationship between New Zealand and the United States.”
Council chairman Leon Grice, says:

    President Obama’s presidency had an extraordinary impact on the world and during his service, New Zealand’s deep friendship with the United States was strengthened politically, culturally, in trade and investment, innovation and security.  

I hope someone in the audience records how many anti-Trump quips Obama will drop during his forthcoming engagement. I also hope someone will record how many times he’ll use the terms “diversity” and “racism” as if the two concepts are not inextricably bound now. Yes, Obama had an extraordinary impact on the world for sure – extraordinarily divisive – especially in terms of the extraordinarily weak position he left his country in after his party stunningly lost the election. The only thing NZ should be learning from this extraordinarily anti-American ex-president is how not to govern a country if the goal is to have an extraordinarily successful one.

One could sit here all day and count the ways in which Obama misgoverned the United States, but since I don’t care too much for indulging in sadism I’ll be brief:

The Obama economy was an absolute disgrace. Even though he took up the reins of government during a financial crisis and deep recession, sometime over the following two to eight years he should’ve presided over a dramatic bounce back, but it never happened. Instead the US averaged a measly 2.1% GDP growth. To crystallise Obama’s lack of wherewithal in the economic matters of his country, for those who may be tempted to think that perhaps the said bounce back is happening now but under Trump, remember that back in 2016, after hearing then-candidate Trump on the campaign trail promising to get the economy at least back up to 3.5%, if not 4%, Obama and the Dems said, “3% would be impossible in the current global climate.” Extraordinarily incompetent.

Another thing that should be recorded in his upcoming address to NZ’s future leaders is whether or not Obama will tell young entrepreneurs:

   “If you’re successful you didn’t get there on your own… If you have a business, you didn’t build that!  Somebody else made that happen.”

As one responder once quipped, “If I didn’t build it, how come I have to pay the tax on it?”

Because of our strong agricultural heritage, New Zealanders well understand what a sheep worrier is. Social justice worriers are very similar. Neither renegade dogs nor SJWs understand the value of bringing a product to the market; they only want to take and destroy. This is what happens when a two-bit lawyer and community organiser wins the presidency – business building remains a total mystery to him. 
Extraordinarily inexperienced.

If the NZ US Council is “committed to fostering and developing a strong and mutually beneficial relationship between New Zealand and the United States”, perhaps they could take a long moment to pause on what President Obama’s FBI, NSA, CIA, Justice Department and FISA Court did to the campaign of current president Donald J Trump during and after the 2016 election, ie used government apparatus and deceit tactics to spy on an opposition candidate – and leak the alleged findings to the press. Those egregious deeds are felonies. Extraordinarily corrupt. 

Nobody with any sense could possibly offer up the pathetic denial that Obama may not have known what was going on. Not only would he have been fully briefed about the swampy wiles in play he also knew, going back to his election in 2008, that Russia tries to meddle in the affairs of the United States all the time, but he never made a big deal out of it when he was the president for eight years: barely a squeak – until Trump was elected. Extraordinarily remiss.

The NZ US Council may also like to consider putting some serious effort into befriending President Trump, that is if Trump is even interested. (Who wouldn’t forgive him if he weren’t?) Unlike his fustian predecessor, Trump actually does matter because he is the greatest antidote to Washington’s incompetence and reptilian corruption, to say nothing of his efficacy on the world stage – hell!  Even Kim Jong-Un is reaching out to America for sit-downs now. Trump’s making him wait.
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I know NZ politics is now run by those who lost our last election, but they don’t have to completely abide in Loser-ville by falling over themselves to extend the Social Justice Worrying hand of friendship to America’s internal enemies. Instead, the NZ US Council could embrace the current President of the United States, who is well on track to restoring competent leadership, not only in Washington, but the whole of the US after an eight year dearth of anything that even remotely resembled it. Now that, truly, could be the promise of something extraordinary.