As Obama's re-election campaign heats up, it's time to analyze the hot air and broken promises from his 2008 campaign trail.
From Townhall Magazine's EXCLUSIVE January feature, "Top 10 Campaign Promises Broken by Obama":
President Obama was going to be different.
Many candidates make promises on the campaign trail that they fail to fulfill after getting elected. However, when Sen. Barack Obama announced his presidential campaign in early 2007, he pretended that he was different.
In his announcement speech, he referred to the broken promises of other politicians, saying, “Too many times after an election is
over and the confetti’s swept away, all those promises fade from memory.”
That wasn’t going to happen with Obama in the White House. He was the candidate of hope and change. His administration was going to be unique.
No more hyper-partisanship. No more politics as usual. No more broken promises.
Yet, three years into his term, many of his promises are just that: broken.
Now that he’s campaigning for reelection, it’s time to reflect on Obama’s earlier promises to see if his rhetoric matches up with his record. Before he starts making dozens of new campaign promises for a possible second term, let’s see if Obama has changed Washington—for better or worse—in the ways he promised he would.
#10 Promise: “As president, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists.”—Obama, August 2007 (U.S. News & World Report, 10/28/2011)
Perhaps no Obama campaign promise has been more scrutinized than his decision to close the military prison located at Guantanamo Bay. That’s probably because candidate Obama was so insistent on his ability to close it in a timely fashion. Despite many critics noting that this promise would be hard to keep, candidate Obama showed little hesitation about making this promise time and time again.
In a chronology of Obama’s broken promise, the LA Times noted that this “simple promise” was often repeated “to loud domestic—and foreign—applause during his $750 million presidential campaign.” Many liberals celebrated this bold pronouncement, thinking that Obama could get it done.
It’s no wonder that the Left is so disenchanted today with Obama. The prison at Guantanamo Bay remains open. Obama barely even mentions the issue anymore, and there are no clear signs that the prison will be closed anytime soon.
Get the rest of John P. Hanlon's top 10 list in the January issue of Townhall Magazine.
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