Newsweek on Obama: 'Give up the field, Barack'

Less than 80 days from the presidential election, Newsweek (trendy liberal when he was part of the Washington Post) in the current issue today, bowl without appeal Barack Obama, accusing him of failing to keep its promises made in 2008 and explicitly urges Americans to vote for Mitt Romney.

On the cover the title is explicit, "Give up the field, Barack. Why do we need a new president," and in the background , the President with lies resting on his shoulder.

The article is entrusted to criticism - and part - Scotsman Niall Ferguson, an economic historian at Harvard, recalls that - in the same article-not only that he was a councilor in 2008 by Republican John McCain, but " see "the present vice-presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, and Romney does not consider the" ideal candidate ", but the best available to Republicans and America.

Ferguson believes that Obama has "retained none of the big promises he made four years ago." "In his inaugural address (January 20, 2009)," says Ferguson, "Obama promised 'not only create new jobs but to lay the foundations for new growth." But things did not go well: "Unemployment in 2012 was supposed to be (according to the plans of the president) to 6% but was an average of 8, 2%," said the scholar, adding that the growth expected in the 'financial' Use of 2010, "the first by Obama, was estimated at 3.2%, 4% in 2011 and 4.6% in 2012. Actually, the real percentages were 2.4% in 2010 and 1, 8% in 2011 and for the year few expect that we go beyond 2.3%. "

All this continues the merciless analysis, with the explosion of debt: "In 2010 it was provided that was 67% before declining to 66% in 2011, while in reality the Congressional Budget Office (a sort Use of the Court of Auditors) touch '70% of the GDP. "

Ferguson acknowledges that Obama has faced difficult years and manage crises triggered by others, but remember, as well as on the reform of the financial system (the excesses of 'Wall Street' that have crippled 'Main Street', one of his favorite slogan), this was not done anything concrete.

"It's been five years since the crisis, but the central problems, excessive financial concentration (the banks 'too big too fail', too big to let fail) and their over-leveraged (mechanisms multipliers to be positive but even negative investment) financial, have not been addressed. "

Turning to foreign policy - the land on which the whole world, horrified by the crisis opened by George W. Bush had relied blindly to Obama, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace ("premature" defines Ferguson) on October 9, 2009 after just 10 months in the White House - the historic Scottish accuses Obama of betraying the expectations . In particular, believes that Obama has "missed the appointment with the revolutionary wave (the Arab Spring and not only) in the Middle East ... in the case of Iran (2009) did nothing and gangsters of the Islamic republic brutally crushed the demonstrators . Ditto for Syria.

In Libya was 'persuaded' (from French President Nicolas Sarkozy in the first place) to intervene. Egypt urged Mubarak to step down, then back down and ask 'an orderly transition'. The result - for Ferguson - was a diplomatic defeat. Not only the elite (liberal) Egyptian feel betrayed but the winners of the Muslim Brotherhood, have nothing to be grateful for, "the U.S.. The whole" forbidden leaving the main allies in the area, Israel and Saudi Arabia ".

Ferguson closes the relentless analysis by stating that "voters", 6 November next, "must choose" whether to allow Obama to go ahead "to find himself in a sort of European version of America, with low growth, high unemployment, even higher debt and a decline (of the weight of the United States) at a geopolitical level ... Or they can opt for a real change ('change' the mantra of the Obama campaign in 2008) that will place 'an end to four years of disappointing economic and stop the terrible accumulation of debt. "