By Bill O'Reilly
Monday marks the anniversary of President Obama's first 1,000 days in office, so let's do a no-spin assessment of his tenure thus far.
The two most important issues are the economy and fighting terrorism. On the latter, Mr. Obama has done well. Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda big-shots are dead, and bad guys all over the world are on the run. Gitmo remains open, and a number of terror plots have been foiled. Both the CIA and the FBI are doing an excellent job. High marks for the president here.
But on the economic side, things remain dismal. Just the facts, Jack. Since the president has been in office, the national debt has increased $4.2 trillion. The country is now spending $4.2 billion a day more than it takes in. If that doesn't take your breath away, nothing will.
So far 2.2 million jobs have been lost on Mr. Obama's watch even though he added 140,000 jobs to the government payroll. Nearly three million more Americans live in poverty than they did before the president took office. Four million bankruptcies. 2.4 million homes foreclosed. Gas prices have risen more than 80 percent. Health insurance premiums up nearly 13 percent.
Are we all getting the picture here? The situation is urgent.
President Obama's strategy is twofold. First, try to stimulate the economy by spending even more on infrastructure jobs. But the Republicans will not OK the spending. And second, the president will try to convince the folks that things could be a heck of a lot worse had he not spent all that money, that his economic policies saved the banks and some car companies. Democrats will also say they saved the country from another great depression because the Bush administration was so bad. Some Americans will buy that, even though none of it can be proven.
The president continues to raise an astounding amount of money for his campaign, even though his job approval ratings continue to fall. His personal approval, however, is still around 50 percent.
So after 1,000 days on the job, the president is much weaker than when he started but still has a fighting chance to be re-elected. The Republican challenger will have a lot of economic ammunition, but he or she should be ready for political war.
And that's "The Memo."
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