Hollywood campaign video promotes Obama's "tough decisions"
(CBS News) In 17 minutes, a documentary-like campaign film sums up President Obama's first term as a successful yet challenging time that saved the U.S. from deeper crisis.
The film, "The Road We've Traveled," narrated by Tom Hanks, is a rallying cry for the president's re-election campaign. It highlights five "tough decisions" the president made during his first term: the economic stimulus, the auto bailout, health care reform, Iraq troop withdrawal and Osama bin Laden's killing.
The film seeks to remind voters how dire the economic forecast during the height of the recession was, and it sought to promote the president's decisions as actions that saved the United States from deeper economic woes.
It notes Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney's opposition to the auto bailout with a picture of his 2008 op-ed in The New York Times titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt," where Romney opposed giving federal dollars to the American auto industry.
On the other hand, the film says the president's actions around the auto bailout are justified because of the recent profits made and jobs added by of the American car companies. Although he made several appearances in the movie, on the auto bailout, former President Bill Clinton said: "People have no earthly idea what would have happened" if the auto companies went out of business.
Another tough decision made by Obama: the killing of Osama bin Laden. On this issue, the president made his only appearance in the film, emphasizing his position as commander-in-chief.
The president said it was after "everyone was accounted for, including the dog, that I allowed for some satisfaction."
Vice President Joe Biden also discussed bin Laden's death and the difficult choice the president had to make as his national security team told him that sending in Americans was risky.
"He's all alone. This is his decision," Mr. Biden said. "If he's wrong, his presidency is done. It's over."
Mr. Clinton said in the film: "I said to myself, 'I hope that is a call I would have made.'"
Former Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emmanuel also appeared throughout the movie. He said he advised the president at the height of the health care debate to forgo large comprehensive health care reform, and instead accept a smaller, less expansive bill as opposition mounted.
"I regularly told him, 'Look, you don't have to spill this much political blood,'" Emmanuel said.
The 17-minute film was directed by Academy Award winner Davis Guggenheim, who also produced Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" and the education documentary "Waiting for 'Superman,'"
The movie premiered at 8 p.m. ET on YouTube, and to watch it at that time, a person had to submit its email address and zip code -- crucial information for campaigns that use it to solicit money and send messages -- for easy access to the webpage.
Obama for America, President Obama's re-election campaign, spent $345,000 on the film, according to the right-leaning news website the Daily Caller.
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No Ma'am -- I haven't seen you until just now
Everything OK???
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I'm hope sick with a fever and bronchitis today. Between the fever and the NuQuil I'm kinda zombified today! LOL
I think I will try that chicken soup!
If you support Obama watch it - if you don't, I dare you to watch it!
OBAMA 2012 : )
Let's look at the list of achievements during the first 3 years of President Obama and fellow progressives:
1) He lied 8 times in promises to televise the health care discussions openly on CSPAN.
2) He made deals giving one premium health care plan to union members (supporters) and another to the rest of the country.
3) He stood by and allowed the House and Senate to buy health care votes using taxpayer money.
4) He allowed the health care bills to be fashioned behind closed doors and be filled with political favors. This disaster of a health care law increases the cost of health care by imposing fees on medical devices (like pacemakers). He and they took over the nations health care by the federal government - most Americans did not want this extreme action - and still do not. This horrible law will cause the majority of Americans to have higher health care cost in rising premiums. We already can not afford the size federal government that we currently have, with a $16 trillion national debt. It imposes $billions of unfunded mandates on struggling states to provide greater Medicaid coverage. 27 states are suing the federal government over this nonsense, as they don't have the money to pay for this. Businesses are not hiring because of the additional cost PER EMPLOYEE that is caused by this law.
5) President Obama has continued at least a 8% unemployment rate for three years.
6) He irresponsibly overspent 100s of billions of dollars the US didn't have on bailouts (President Bush started it and President Obama accelerated it) and bogus stimulus packages. Progressives in Congress have refused to do their jobs to allow a national budget be established since 2009.
7) President Obama has behaved in the most partisan manner of any recent President, after promising bipartisanship. He has arrogantly trashed everyone who has not agreed with his socialist agenda - even the Supreme Court.
8) Instead of securing the border and enforcing federal immigration laws, the President has made war on Arizona Americans as they attempt to protect themselves from an invasion of illegal immigrants.
9) The President's man, AG Holder, dropped his case against the Black Panthers who blatantly intimidated voters at the polls. Now, Holder may finally be kicked out over "Fast and Furious" - the program that sold guns to Mexican cartels, guns used to kill a US border agent.
10) This President has focused on an extremist agenda of "fundamentally transforming" the US from a democratic republic into a socialist democracy, instead of the millions without jobs. We are all witnessing the collapse of European socialist democracies, yet this does nothing to stop this President from pushing us down that road to disaster.
11) President Obama imposed a moratorium on drilling in the gulf, throwing thousands more out of work. One foreign oil company screwed up, and the President decided to punish other oil companies that have drilled responsibly for decades.
12) President Obama wanted the President Bush tax cuts to expire, which would have resulted in redirecting money away from the economy and pushing it into Washington. The President held on to this until he was forced to change by the pounding the Democrats took in the 2010 election. Still, he promises to increase taxes next year.
13) The President and other progressives in Congress have imposed oppressive additional expenses and regulations on private sector businesses that are crippling the private sector jobs market, while expanding the federal government and public sector jobs. Anyone with any economic sense knows that you need tax revenues from a healthy private sector jobs market to fund public sector expansions, and the money is just not there.
14) With gas prices rising and projected to hit record levels by summer 2012, President Obama stops the Canadian pipeline deal that would reduce the US dependence on middle- eastern oil. His entire energy policy is idiotic, and leaves the US damaged. His impractical policies have included pumping public funds into "green energy" companies that have gone bankrupt, and even GM recently announced it will discontinue the manufacturing of the Volt electric car - they are unable to sell them.
15) In President Obama's 2012 budget, he never addressed serious issues threatening the future of the nation (like the fact that if Medicare and Social Security are not restructured, they both are projected to collapse by 2037). In fact, in the face of a staggering $16 trillion national debt - he proposed that we add another $trillion to it.
Just to name a few. The perfect word for President Obama is "irresponsible".
I do not deny he has had some small successes as president but the question you have to ask your self do those successes out way his failures.
Does the fact he gave the order to kill Osama out way the fact that his energy policies sacrifice the present in the hopes of having a better energy future?
Does the fact the economy is finally showing very small signs of improvement out way the fact he spent 9 trillion dollars trying to get to this very small improvement?
Does the fact he got Obamacare passed and created another entitlement program, out way the fact that every day working Americans like myself and millions of others are now saddled with the bill to pay for his free handouts.
Seriously every one of his so called successes are followed by even larger failures.