When Obama announced that he stood for “change,” he apparently meant his own. It has only taken Obama five weeks to morph from Candidate Hope and Change to President Doom and Gloom.

Obama’s negative rhetoric on the state of the economy has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Dow is at its lowest point in 11 years. Every single time Obama announces a policy, passes a plan, or even makes a short statement, the market seems to take a hit. Obama and the Democrats will be able to blame the recession on George W. Bush for a little while, but pretty soon, this will be the Obama economy, not the Bush economy. The Democrats just passed their “bipartisan” stimulus package last week. Apparently in Obama’s Washington, getting the support of three spineless and soulless Republicans makes a bill “bipartisan.” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal spoke bluntly about the stimulus bill, calling the Democrats out for irresponsibly spending money they don’t have. Jindal, a true fiscal conservative, knows the Democrats’ spending bill will grow the government, not the economy. Republicans are not sitting on the sidelines complaining; they are offering sensible alternatives and refusing to write Democrats a blank check.

Only a man with Obama’s ego could expect the American public to be fooled by the circus of Monday’s Fiscal Responsibility summit. Obama, with no hint of irony, announced that he would cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term in office. It’s no wonder that Larry Summers, his top economic advisor, fell asleep in the middle of the summit. Summers knew that if they were talking about fiscal responsibility, he wouldn’t have to pay attention. Even after the Democrats let the Bush tax cuts expire and increase taxes on corporations, there is no way to raise enough money to pay for the unbelievable increase in federal spending that we’ve just witnessed. During his address to Congress, Obama insisted that he wouldn’t pass on debt to the subsequent generations, but he also promised billions of dollars for healthcare reform, education reform, troubled banks and the failing automobile industry. It is unclear just where Obama thinks this money is going to come from. He plans to end the Iraq war, but most of that money will simply go to Afghanistan, where the war is winding up as Iraq winds down. The Democrats’ surge in spending cannot be solved by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. His numbers simply do not add up and at the rate his economy is going, there won’t be any rich people left to tax.

Before Obama’s first address to Congress, political analysts seemed to agree that the president would present a more hopeful face to America. Even Bill Clinton was telling Obama to ease up on the harsh language. Yet Obama only got two lines into Tuesday’s speech before painting a gloomy picture of America. He then said that we will rebuild and “emerge stronger than before.” But the initial bleak picture that Obama paints is much more vivid and powerful than the general positive platitudes with which he surrounds it.

The morning after Obama’s speech, the markets dropped even lower, further indicating that investors and consumers were hardly inspired by Tuesday night’s address to the nation Wednesday morning’s Drudge Report showed a graph of the sinking Dow with the teasing headline, “Was it Something He Said?” It would seem that Obama, the brilliant campaigner and orator, is becoming a communications failure. But Obama and his advisors are public relations masterminds. They are perfectly aware that by using such negative rhetoric, they are raising the fear and anxiety levels in Americans. The success of Obama’s radical social agenda is riding on this fear. Obama is purposely comparing this economic situation to the Civil War, the Great Depression and other crises so that he will be able to get his ambitiously radical spending programs passed and expand the power and role of government. Obama can be taken at his word when he says he is eager to get this country moving again, but the direction he has in mind does not match the ideals of those who voted for him. Obama has come a long way from Candidate Hope and Change. On Tuesday, Obama said he has learned that “hope is found in unlikely places.” The candidate of hope is letting Americans know that we now need to look elsewhere for hope, because clearly, we won’t be getting it from him.