Speaking yesterday to the graduating class of Michigan's Kalamazoo Central High School, President Barack Obama advised the students to "Take responsibility not just for your successes, but for your failures as well." Yes, the man who has made a career out of blaming others for his failures and his incompetence is telling America's youth to do as he says, not as he has done virtually every day of his presidency.

Continued...

Over his first 18 months in office, we have seen Mr. Obama blame a Congressional Republican minority that has virtually no power to interfere with his legislative agenda, the American people who he claims just doesn't get it, and his predecessor who he has somehow felt justified in blaming for everything that has gone wrong on his own watch.

But worse than each specific instance of immature finger pointing is the collective effect of it all. Despite his rhetoric at occasions like the Kalamazoo Central commencement, he is teaching by example that when the going gets tough, the powerful get petulant. Empty platitudes about taking responsibility for failures aside, this president has risen to the height of power by promising one irresponsible government policy or program after another. And each time his ideas have crumbled under the slightest scrutiny or real world application, he blames his critics, not himself, for his failures.

Do the math that proves the unsustainable cost of his latest entitlement program? You're told you simply support the status quo.

Demonstrate that his foreign policy based on appeasement and apologies has emboldened our enemies and alienated our allies? You're called a racist.

Assert that his promises of transparency in government were broken in favor of Chicago-style backroom political dealing? You should just shut up and trust that nothing "inappropriate" happened.

Question why the unemployment rate is hovering near 10% even though the administration promised the stimulus bill would prevent it from reaching 8% and the president claimed jobs were his number one priority? You get yet another finger point at the previous administration despite the job killing legislation and regulation (and threats of more of the same) that has come from the Obama White House.

Of course all this blaming comes with a generous dose of sarcastic insults which are the hallmark of Mr. Obama's sense of "humor" and the mainstream media continues to laugh along with him.

After advising those students at Kalamazoo Central to take responsibility when they fail, Mr. Obama then said, "When that happens, it's the easiest thing in the world to start looking around for someone to blame." (source) On this point, he certainly knows what he's talking about.