The president campaigned on “change” and “hope,” buzzwords that we have come to learn means “same old … ” and “status quo.” I think you know where I am going. The president has failed to make any real progress on the promises he made. I applaud the end to the war in Iraq. However, I question his motives for ending it. Did he end the war because the United States should not have been involved in the affairs of another country and instead needs to focus on our direct interests, or did he end the war because he needed to stimulate his base of radical anti-war supporters? Some might say I am splitting hairs and we should be glad it is over, but I doubt he would have the restraint to keep us out of the affairs of other countries. If a nation who may not have had an “evil dictator” were to require our intervention and aid but instead had a weak government that was exposed by a natural disaster — Haiti, perhaps — Obama would go out of his way to ensure they were cared for. Some might think that is a good thing, and that is not what I am arguing here. Simply put, we should take care of ourselves before anybody else, and we still are hurting.

The president has a way of capturing people with his oratory, and that is a very valuable skill to have. However, to those of us who are educated and look beyond the change in tone and the historic references that mesmerize the common person like a baby watching a sock puppet, we can see his empty rhetoric. He has betrayed the American people. The president promised in his campaign that the discussion of the health care bill would be televised on C-SPAN so Americans would know what the bill was about. Instead, the Senate and House have pushed the bill through behind closed doors and under the table, attempting to hide it from the people. However, when that was stopped, they tried to break rules that have existed for hundreds of years to push the bill through before anything was found out about it.

Then, the American people stood up and put it to a stop. The landslide win by Republican Bob McDonnell for governor of Virginia and the substantial win by Republican Chris Christie as governor of the reliably Democrat-controlled New Jersey showed not just a chink in the president’s armor but a massive gap. It all cumulated with the upset win for the Senate seat of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy by Republican Scott Brown. The president has lost the anti-Bush independents and has only fed the changing Republican base. Although I am not going to claim the Republicans suddenly have the answers, because I believe they are too caught up in the fact that they are the underdogs rising back to the top, it shows the president no longer has this “mandate” to do what he wishes.

In the State of the Union address, the president attempted to make excuses for Democratic failures and seem centrist with his “spending freeze.” He also tried to bridge divides with House Republicans by answering questions at a GOP gathering. These efforts, some might say, are a step in the right direction.

However, far left liberals are very upset with these efforts. The final question becomes how does being “bipartisan” help make our economy better, or create jobs? The president’s new budget proposal totals more than $3.5 trillion and will be more than the previous year’s budget, all while promising spending freezes. This simply will not work and the people know it. This attempt to get back on good terms with the American people and away from appearing like the partisan pusher of socialized health care already has failed and he has lost his majority.

Eric Thieleman is a State News guest columnist and political science and history senior. Reach him at thielem4@msu.edu.