How will Obama's campaign promises measure up to reality?  Do you really need to ask?

Well, the day has finally come.  Barack Obama is/will be, depending upon when you read this article, the new President of the United States of America.  There is no more need to hand-draw a President-Elect seal and put it on the podium at which Obama is speaking, in case someone wandering by looks up and says, "I wonder who that guy is?"  There's no more need to punt on answering tough questions because "we only have one president at a time."  Now Obama can punt on tough questions by invoking Executive Privilege or saying "it's a national security matter" and he can't discuss it publicly.

But most of all, the tingle-driven media will no longer have to spit on the floor and cross themselves three times every time they say the phrase "Mr. President," because eight years of illegitimacy and tyranny will have finally ended, and all is now right with the world.  Of course, we can still expect to hear the phrase "President Bush" and "the actions/policies of the Bush Administration" invoked frequently through 2012 and beyond, as in "our present problems and my inability to solve them are the result of [insert phrase here]."  But, for the most part, America's standing in the "world" that counts (that is, the mainstream press, Communist/Islamic dictatorships, and socialist democracies everywhere) will have been restored, simply with the raising of Obama's right hand as he takes the oath of office.

As perfect as the world will now be, just for the heck of it let's de-tingle our senses and sensibilities for a moment and ask ourselves a question.  What exactly will Barack Obama do once he's in office?

Now, for those of you expecting a rant and rave against the new Leader of the Free World and Commander-in-Chief of the World's Most Powerful Military, I'm sorry to disappoint you.  I suspect that I have as much of a concrete idea about what Obama will actually do with the power he's gained as, well, Obama has.  Your guess as to what our detailed policies will be a year from now are as good as mine, so I'll avoid making any predictions here. 

What I will do is look at what Obama himself said he was going to do as President while running for office, and measure reality against that.  In short, let's all have a collective look back at some of the O-man's campaign highlights when he told us what an Obamatopia would be like, and see how close to or far off the mark he gets.

The first challenge, of course, is to pick a fair representation of campaign promises to measure.  In doing this I won't fall back on any Iowa or New Hampshire pandering about lowering parking meter fees in Oskaloosa, or personally laying concrete for a new overpass in Concord, or whatever other early primary insanity any candidate promises to win the vote of some sixty-year-old curmudgeon sitting in the third booth from the left in some out-of-the-way diner.  Nor will I hold Obama to the equally ridiculous (that is, to people who actually think) rhetoric about "lowering the oceans" which, by the way, haven't really risen since the first predictions 30 years ago.  I mean, even if I was to make it to the Jersey Shore with a ruler and a notepad, would you really take my word for it that the ocean rose or receded by .001cm since Obama's inauguration.

No, I'm going to be more fair to Obama than his supporters were to the twice-illegitimately elected lying war monger civil liberties destroyer and the man who is single-handedly responsible for all economic chaos, George W. Bush.  No less authoritative source than CNN chronicled the promises Obama made in his Denver acceptance speech that would accompany his election as the 44^th President of the United States, and it is to this I will primarily refer.  Added will be other statements by the O-man to CBS' 60 Minutes.  When taken together, we have the makings of a rudamentary scorecard with which to judge his performance.

So let's start the countdown with these five Obama promises.

PROMISE #1:  Cut taxes "for 95 percent of all working families." [CNN]

As a guide to help in this evaluation, here are some questions that have been left out of the Obama calculation.  Cut by "how much"?  Which taxes exactly?  And, "how do people who don't pay income taxes still get a tax cut?"

"How much" is easy.  Even one penny is a cut.  Which taxes?  This also answers the third question.  Cut a federal excise tax by a fraction, but raise personal income taxes through the roof, and you still have a "cut" in some previously undefined "taxes." 

So, to fulfill this promise, all Obama has to do is make a small cut somewhere, which can be more than offset by a raise in other tax or taxes elsewhere, and make sure at least 95% of all working families are somehow involved in this scheme, and we have instant, total, campaign promise fulfillment.

PROMISE #2:   Set a goal that "in 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East." [CNN]

Okay, this is another slam dunk.  The goal can be set on day one.  Nothing is required that the goal be met; just that it be set.  If someone wants to get hyper-technical and look at results as well, remember even a two-term president gets only 8 years in office.  It could take all of those 8 years to set the stage for achieving that goal in years 9 and 10, but along comes some evil Republican Administration or incompetent Democrat President and, well, all that hard work goes down the drain.

So again, this campaign promise can be rather easily and quickly fulfilled, and will remain so even if events 10 years out demonstrate the contrary.

PROMISE #3:   Have the federal government "invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy — wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels." [CNN]

Hell, Obama isn't even in office and he's already talking about trillion dollar deficits of his own making!  Chalk this one up as already "fulfilled." 

A note of explanation, though, to those who may not actually see a decrease in the consumer's cost of energy despite these investments.  While Obama will presumably drive the cost of energy down by inventing new sources that are not even remotely practical today to replace fossil fuels, the Federal and State governments will tax the living hell out of these commodities to replace the falling revenue they receive from lower fuel costs.  So, while a gallon of gas may cost you upwards of $5.00 in an Obamatopia, understand that because of Obama's policies the actual cost of fuel is indeed "affordable."  It's just all the other taxes and regulatory baggage that's driving up the final cost.

PROMISE #4:   "Finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education." [CNN]

Hey, another promise easily met.  Most of the world consists of illiterate, impoverished Chinese and third world nationals who can barely spell their names, let alone calculate Pi to the fifth decimal point.   With a new emphasis in American education on Diversity, Gay/Lesbian/Transgender studies, and saving the world from man-made global warming and non-union employers like Wal-Mart, just how hard will it be to achieve this goal?

PROMISE #5:   Obama will get Osama.  "It is a top priority for us to stamp out al Qaeda once and for all," Obama told CBS's 60 Minutes. "And I think capturing or killing bin Laden is a critical aspect of stamping out al Qaeda." [CBS]

On the surface, this looks like a tough job.  Bring-'em-back-dead-or-alive Bush hasn't been able to do it in seven years, and he was actually serious about fighting international terrorism.  What is an Obama Administration that is looking for an "exit strategy" in the Middle East going to do that a Bush Administration couldn't, short of nuking Pakistan?

The answer, of course, is obvious.  You can't kill a dead man, and capturing a corpse is a non-sequitur.  So, like all good Democrat apologists who have been claiming for years that Osama is dead and the Bush Administration won't admit it because they need a justification to continue their illegal, immoral war, all Obama has to do is demand proof-positive that Obama is still alive.  Not some third-rate videotape mind you, but a habeas corpus withouta doubtus.

In the absence of a living, breathing alleged mastermind of a terrorist attack on the United States that was actually perpetrated by a Bush-Jewish conspiracy, we can safely presume that the original O-man is dead.  If Osama is pushing up daisies, or more accurately, fertilizing some poppy field with his rotting corpse, then the issue is settled.  We can bring the boys home tomorrow, close Gitmo, release the poor unfortunate Arab and Afghani peasants we illegally kidnapped for no apparent reason, and put an end to one of the most shameful periods in US history.

That is, of course, until the insanity of pretending that world terrorism is a figment of the Bush Administration comes home in the form of another brutal attack on American soil, at which point Obama can claim that he wasn't properly briefed on the matter, and it's all Bush's fault.

So, in conclusion, while Obama's campaign promises are too numerous to chronicle, we can look at the way at least five of them play out over the next four years — understanding that, in the end, it will be like scoring a ballgame where the 1927 Yankees are playing your favorite Little League team.  Because of the way Obama phrases his promises, the outcome is never in doubt.  Even if reality appears to contradict the rhetoric, the press and their Democrat fellow travelers will never hold Obama accountable for failing to achieve his goals, which in the words of Richard Nixon became "non-operative" once economic and geo-political realities hit Obama squarely in his face.

Still, his intentions were good, and to the press and the Left it's intentions that matter most.  Beside, with Bush honoring the tradition of the office and not spending the next 4 to 8 years backsniping Obama like Bill Clinton did to him, all Obama and his legion of tinglers need to do is utter the magic phrase "it's all Bush's fault," and no one is going to contradict him publicly and therefore hold him accountable for the sorry state of affairs he gives us.

That is, no one but the voters, who can only hope that the next election is run with fewer newly discovered absentee ballots in the back of some Democrat operative's car than were found in the Minnesota Senate race.