Guest Opinion: Daily Barometer

To my own dismay, I saw the saddest attempt at political conversion as I walked back to my dormitory last week. A few right-winged students had set up a small booth and were asking students who passed, such as myself, “Are you ready to impeach Obama?”

This comment was less of my concern than the posters they had displayed around their booth. They had taken a smiling image of President Barack Obama and added the characteristic Hitler-style moustache to his face.

As a young individual who has always been politically moderate, the best comparison of Democratic and Republican presidencies I can think of are the most recent—former President George W. Bush and Obama. Despite Bush’s initial high approval ratings, they dropped 65 percent by the time he left office, leaving him at a 25 percent approval rating. Of the last dozen American administrations, only former Presidents Richard Nixon and Harry Truman received lower approval ratings. At 71 percent, Bush had the highest disapproval of any of the last 12 presidents.

Obama has at least maintained a steady 50-something percent approval through the last year in office. Disapproval rose slightly, but I am willing to possibly attribute this to setting too high of an expectation for him. With over 80 percent of people supporting his election, we set a very high standard for him to meet.

On a more personal level, all of us have felt the contrast between the Bush presidency and Obama’s presidency. In the time between 2000 and 2008, our country went from being debt-free to having trillions of dollars worth of loans to other countries who are now becoming the forerunners in producing and exporting goods. In eight years, we watched our friends and families lose jobs. In eight years, we became involved in a “War on Terror” which cost us the lives of our brothers, sisters and fathers for a purpose that we do not currently support.

After this last year, the debt still exists, we still search desperately for jobs and troops still occupy Iraq, but it is getting better. The housing market, which supposedly correlates to the condition of our economy, has improved, jobs are gradually becoming more readily available, and there is a plan to pull out the troops as Iraq becomes more stable.

I believe few of us can truly understand what Obama goes through on a daily basis with the political mess he inherited. We expected a health care plan, a promotion and a new house all at once with his promises of “change.”

Understandably, many do—and should—question why Obama has made the choices that he has as president. But if you have to resort to making a falsified image that stoops so low as to compare Obama to Adolf Hitler, I would be more eager to question your beliefs than to “impeach Obama.”

An image like that is a low blow. Just as a review, Adolf Hitler killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews, gypsies and people considered “unworthy” for racist and personal issues.

I think we have become so desensitized to what Hitler really stands for that we do not realize what we are saying by creating an image such as this.

Clearly the American people were no longer in support of the last Republican in office. When Obama was elected, people across the U.S. and around the world were cheering.

To have to stoop so low as to compare someone who is trying so hard to fix the disaster that Republicans have left us with to one of the worst people in history is nothing more than disgraceful and disrespectful.

Get real evidence next time.

Try to actually make a statement supported by facts and reasoning, not some silly pictures used to rile people up.

No, I am not ready to impeach Obama. Stop this juvenile extremism and deal with it just like the other parties do when you are in office.

* This article originally appeared in the Daily Barometer. It appears here in its original form.