The liberal media and the Obama administration would love to portray President Obama as a modern-day Robin Hood. However, that would be a complete misnomer. It might be more accurate to compare the president to the sheriff of Nottingham.

The sheriff took the wealth from the people, in the form of heavy taxation. In the various versions of this tale, Robin Hood returned the money to the people after stealing their money back from the sheriff. Robin Hood’s enemies were not the wealthy but the heavy-handed government.  

I remember during the 1988 election year Sen. Lloyd Benson in response to Dan Quayle said, “You are no Jack Kennedy.” Well, after listening to Obama’s sixth State of the Union speech earlier this year, I can, without a doubt, declare that Obama is no Bill Clinton either. 

President Clinton, after just going through a very similar election year where he inherited a Republican majority, acknowledged that the American people had spoken and recognized that they wanted something different from his previous two years. He didn’t say, as Obama did, that he heard those who didn’t vote, too — whatever that might mean.

Unlike Obama, Clinton was smart enough to realize that if he wanted to get anything done he had to create a solid working relationship with the newly elected congress. 

Some would like us to believe that Bill Clinton’s tax increases in 1993 were responsible for the robust economy during his presidency.  However, it was the tax cuts (1997) that finally resulted in the vigorous economy that followed. He later conceded, “I raised them (taxes) too much.” In fact President Clinton in his 1996 State of the Union speech made an unbelievable announcement for any modern-day Democrat. He said, “The era of big government is over.” Does any of this sound at all like what we have heard from President Obama?

It is very clear that we cannot expect President Obama to work with the Repiublican Congress in the same manner that President Clinton finally did. How can we when he still threatens to use his pen and veto bills without any negotiation at all? However, what can we expect when Obama makes statements like: “I swore an oath on the steps of this Capitol — to do what I believe is best for America”? Nowhere in that oath he took on the steps of the Capitol do we find the words “what I believe is best.” 

The president has dug in his heels and refuses to listen to discussion about any form of lower taxes, which is quite the opposite of what Clinton or Kennedy did. He also has refused to budge on the Keystone pipeline, which has bipartisan support and that of the majority of the American people as well. 

President Obama told us what he would do in his State of the Union: more gridlock, even less negotiating in good faith, more vetoes, more working around Congress, and he has set a very negative political tone for the remaining months of his presidency. 

I am convinced that unless he changes as President Clinton did and works with Congress, his legacy will not come anywhere near that of President Clinton’s.

Still is a resident of Kalispell.