During the 2008 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton diligently attempted to expose and articulate the many legitimate reasons why Barack Obama was not the best candidate to serve as President of the United States. This dated article from CNN News covers Mrs. Clinton's story about how her opponent was using misinformation and selective distortions to help further his campaign in Ohio.
"Obama is continuing to send false and discredited mailings with information that is not true to the voters of Ohio," Clinton said.
The Clinton complaint of using discredited information to support various policy positions and other concerns are now being echoed by thoughtful Americans from all walks of life. The latest finding by Harris Interactive, Inc. reports: "Three in five Americans believe country going off on wrong track" with over half of Americans (55%) giving Obama negative job approval ratings. To Mrs. Clinton's credit, the criticisms she leveled at Obama during the campaign years are proving themselves to be far more right than wrong.
10 months into his administration, Obama is facing a ballooning lack of public confidence in his capabilities to adequately lead the nation through these critical times as detailed in this 2009: October 19 Headline Story: "Majorities of Americans Give President Obama Negative Ratings on his Handling of 12 Major Issues".
Alarm bells like this cannot be ignored by government leaders, President Obama or his team of White House spokespeople. If those who are responsible for designing and pushing policy agendas are genuinely sincere about fulfilling their solemn pledge to serve the nation as a whole and can be true to their campaign promises, the chasm that has forming between the public and leadership can be bridged.
In his farewell address, George Washington spoke of several avenues of tyranny, including selfish ambition (with pretended patriotism,) collusion of powers, usurpation and precedence of usurpation, debt, foreign influence, and rank party politics.
The following excerpts illustrate the timeless dangers posed to the nation by unrestrained partisan strategies and tactics such as Mrs. Clinton repeatedly encountered during her campaign. May those who now serve in high office be ever reminded that their duty is first and foremost to serve and preserve the Union, not a political faction.
1. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart burnings which spring from these misrepresentations. They tend to render alien to each other those who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection.
2. They (referring to political parties) serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.
However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
3. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.
The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ruins of public liberty.
4. It (referring to partisan politics) serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
5. As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.
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