He keeps revealing his true self in blatant ways. It’s almost as if he can’t help himself. The real heart of a man cannot be hidden; what’s on the inside will have to show up on the outside no matter how one may try to hide it. To what am I referring? President Obama’s comment in a teleprompter-less speech the other day to a campaign crowd. I’m sure most of you know which comment I mean—the one that demeaned individual effort and entrepreneurship—the one where he said “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

His supporters will cry that the line was taken out of context. I’ve read the context. While it’s certainly true that no one gets where he’s going alone, that there are others who come alongside to help anyone who has a dream and who works hard, the statement still stands on its demerits. And there is a greater context his followers ignore: his lifelong enmity toward the private sector and his overweening confidence in the power of government to be the source of all prosperity.

I believe government does have a role to play in our successes, but not in the way the president does. Government should set up a market-friendly atmosphere, one that rewards innovation and doesn’t stifle initiative, one that gets out of the way by lowering taxes and easing burdensome regulations. If government does that, it is a great help to entrepreneurs. If it does the opposite, it kills business.

This administration is the most business-hostile administration in the nation’s history, except of course for its devotion to crony capitalism—General Electric, Solyndra, and numerous other “green” companies that have gone bankrupt after receiving taxpayer dollars. The list of failures gets longer with each passing month. This is hardly a showcase for the Obama vision of omnicompetent government:

It boggles the mind how this man can stand before any audience without shame and continue to plug his failed philosophy and policies. But shame has become an old-fashioned concept. Hubris is the new order.

The only thing more mind-boggling than Obama’s hubris is that he could possibly win reelection. If that happens, the American voter has sealed the fate of this country. Every four years some will always say that that particular election is the most significant in our lifetime. This year far more people are saying it—for good reason. It is the most consequential of our lifetime; it will either point us back to solid principles based on Biblical truths or lead us into a darkness from which we may never extricate ourselves. This may sound like hyperbole to some, but I believe it with all my heart.

The Obama administration has become adept at something other administrations have done, but this administration has taken it from amateur status to expert: waiting until Friday evening, when few are paying attention, to dump all the bad news of the week—bad, that is, for the administration. Under Obama, this has evolved almost into an art form. What am I talking about? Well, here’s what transpired late last Friday:

1. The long-term care insurance portion of Obamacare was quietly dropped. Forced to face reality about the financial unsustainability of the plan, HHS will now pretend it never existed. All along, we were told this plan would save money; it was an illusion from the start. The illusion finally was shattered.
2. The Treasury Department reported the second-highest annual deficit in U.S. history. The budget year ended in September. The sad truth? We ran a $1.3 trillion-dollar deficit for the last year. That’s second only to 2009. Let’s see, who was president way back then? Oh, yeah. For the record, that makes three years in a row with a deficit more than $1 trillion.
3. George Kaiser, a billionaire who was one of Obama’s staunchest contributors and a major Solyndra investor, paid practically zero taxes over the last decade. Now, tell me again about those evil Republican who make too much money and don’t pay enough taxes? Obama may talk class warfare for political gain, but he relies heavily on millionaires and billionaires like Kaiser and Warren Buffet to raise money for him personally. And all that anti-Wall Street talk going around through the Occupy “movement”? Are those protesters really aware of how dependent on Wall Street the Democrat party is, and how avidly Wall Streeters have contributed to the Democrat coffers?
4. More on Solyndra. The House Oversight Committee seeking more information on the foolish loan to the bankrupt solar power company is being stonewalled by the White House. No information that can be gathered from the president’s e-mail will be sent to Congress. While I understand the separation of powers argument, Congress does have oversight responsibility for how money from that ill-advised stimulus bill was spent.

Some of this is politics as usual, but this administration said it would be the most transparent, most ethical administration in American history. When you try your best to hide bad news and refuse to cooperate with a legitimate congressional investigation, that doesn’t pass the laugh test.

And I haven’t even mentioned the continuing saga of Fast and Furious. I think I’ll say more about that one tomorrow.

All last week, the “green” scandals grew. The one getting the most press had to do with a solar energy company, Solyndra, that obtained a government-backed loan of more than half a billion dollars. The company was such a bad risk that the Bush administration refused the loan. Yet when Obama took over, it suddenly was on the table once more.

To the credit of the government officials who investigated Solyndra, they steadfastly warned the White House not to go ahead with the loan. They predicted the company would probably fail, and the taxpayers would have to eat the failed loan. Stubbornly, Obama and his inner circle dismissed the warnings.

The company went belly-up. The taxpayers are out more than half a billion dollars.

The story isn’t over. Investigations are just now ramping up. The latest accusation is that the administration reworked the loan so that one of Solyndra’s principal investors—also a big donor to Obama—would get reimbursed before any of the ordinary taxpayers. Politics, Chicago style. Corruption, Chicago style. That’s where the president cut his political teeth.

It’s not just Solyndra, however, and it’s not “merely” a half billion that has gone down the “green hole.” Ideological blindness has led this administration to spend $17 billion [so far---another $17 billion promised] for green energy programs. This stimulus was touted as a job creator. Let’s look at the results. That $17 billion created exactly 3,545 jobs, which comes to a princely sum of $4,853,000 per job. Spending nearly $5 million for each job? It’s beyond ridiculous. It truly is scandalous.

Everything President Obama has touched has turned to ashes. I don’t see how any fair observer of events can perceive anything but failure for all his programs. This is a failed presidency. What can he do to redeem himself? Well, if past actions are any indication, he will use this line of reasoning:

The only real question remaining is whether the American voter will allow this pitiful excuse for a presidency to continue.