How did President Barack Obama go from a sixty-nine percent approval rating in January of 2009, to being declared “Mr. Unpopular” in Time Magazine last week?
Well, in the context of a succinct, roughly 3000 word editorial, Time Magazine’s Michael Scherer successfully ignored a couple of key words that can help explain the President’s downfall - “wolves,” and “coyotes.”
And if wolves and coyotes are in the mix, then the problem must be somewhere far outside the beltway, likely among the rural Western states, in a place that is either ignored or regarded with contempt by liberal media and Washington bureaucrats – some we can ignore -right?
Indeed the problems are in the West – in the states of Idaho, Montana, and Arizona – and while the problems are region-specific, they point to a broader crisis for the Obama Administration, and illustrate why President Obama continues to offend the moral sensibilities of the American people.
First, let’s look at Arizona.
The Grand Canyon state’s struggle with illegal immigration, and Barack Obama’s lawsuit to punish Arizona for declaring illegal immigration to be “illegal,” are fairly well known (although you may not have heard about the Obama Administration’s second lawsuit in Arizona that was filed just last week – thou shall not disagree with Barack, or thou shall be litigated against).
Over-run public schools, bankrupt hospitals, murder and smuggling have tragically become commonplace in Arizona. So last April Arizona’s two U.S. Senators, Jon Kyl and John McCain, asked the Obama Administration for 3,000 additional border patrol agents to be placed on the Arizona/Mexico border.
The smugglers are especially worrisome. Illegally transporting drugs, human beings, and God only knows what kinds of explosives and weaponry, in Arizona these thugs are referred to in the slang vernacular as “coyotes” (pronounced “Keye-yo-tays”). They’re sophisticated, well organized, and dangerous, with radio communications, night vision technology, and just about every other strategic and tactical capability that law enforcement has. And they are gradually winning the turf battle, as they move further north towards America’s fifth largest city, Phoenix.
So in the midst of this crisis, and in response to the Senators’ request, the Federal Government assigned an additional 30 border patrol agents to Arizona (a small fraction of what Kyl and McCain requested), and installed some new road signs.
Yes, “road signs” have been installed to “help” with the assault on Arizona. Some 15 new signs have been put up by the Bureau Of Land Management, warning travelers that they are in an "active drug and human smuggling area" and to beware of "armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed." Oh, and the signs also suggest that you call 911 if you see “suspicious activity.”
Both President Obama and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano have insisted that the U.S./ Mexico Border is “big,” and cannot be fully secured. Yet our government is spending our money posting signs in Arizona, warning American citizens that they are not safe in their own country.
In Idaho and Montana, coyotes are not so much a problem (at least not smuggler “coyotes”) as are wolves. In fact, the Western Grey Wolf has been especially menacing to ranchers in these states because the wolves exist in huge numbers, and they like to attack, kill, and eat cattle.
In response to this problem, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game put in place a statewide “wolf management” program, to allow for the legal hunting of wolves. This worked pretty well until a federal judge declared the Grey Wolf to be, once again, an “endangered species” back during the first week of August, and ordered the wolf hunting to be halted in both the states of Idaho and Montana.
This in turn prompted Idaho Senators Mike Crapo and Jim Risch to request help from the Department of the Interior. Yet, to date, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar (an Obama appointee) has yet to respond to the Idaho wolf crisis (one could imagine the feds installing some new “Beware of the Wolves” road signs in Idaho – but thus far, there’s been no response at all).
The regional problems with wolves and “coyotes” in Idaho and Arizona speak to a broader nationwide problem with our U.S government. With Barack Obama in the White House, our government has insisted on intruding into the most private and personal affairs of our lives, while it cannot (or will not) provide the most basic and essential services that we need.
Worse yet, the Obama government is one that is upholding the needs and interests of illegal aliens over and above those of citizens, and the needs and interests of animals over and above those of human beings. This ideologically driven Administration may seem to be a dream come true for some liberals, but a majority of Americans are seeing it as more of a nightmare.
Nightmarish Presidents are destined to become “Mr. Unpopular.” But it requires some moral reasoning capabilities to understand how horrifying our nightmarish President has become.
Don’t expect Washington – or the liberal media – to understand.