The beer summit was the beginning of my Obama buzzkill. Well, it was a red flag on my radar anyway. Our president’s kneejerk reaction, accusing the Massachusetts police officers of “acting stupidly” immediately after the incident at the African American professor’s home and clearly before he had all the facts, set off my legal radar – and loudly. Obama had obviously put his foot in his mouth and his solution was to have a beer on TV to fix it? In my judgment, the right thing to do was quietly fix the situation – apologize for your error and move on. Instead, we had the United Nations patio furniture Budweiser meeting. This was a huge red flag for me. This is when I started to question the judgment of this “intelligent” man who claimed to be above race and politics.

Before Obama, I was a lifelong, proud card carrying member of the party of FDR, JFK, and LBJ. I identified myself with the capital ‘D’ of the Democratic Party and typically voted as such. And since others didn’t blink an eyelash at this association, why should I? After all, I am a Latina, daughter of immigrant parents, child of the blue state of California and even bluer city of L.A., an immigration advocate and I even have a bit of Hollywood on my resume. There was no reason for me to question my beliefs and identity as a Democrat.

Then, this guy named Barack Obama moved into the White House. Like most everyone else in America I was swept up in Obama fever – his charismatic communication skills, promise of change and unity and the historic significance. I was excited to cast my ‘D’ vote for him.

Like I said, the beer summit and my buzzkill. Then came the economic shot heard from coast to coast, the healthcare overhaul. It quickly evolved into such a multi-trillion dollar monstrosity and legislative behemoth that the only option was to call it “Obamacare” after its creator in chief. How could a piece of legislation like this possibly be labeled “humanitarian” when it could bankrupt our nation and our children’s financial future? How is that humane? What does it say that Obama’s “victory” today will be a tragedy tomorrow? As the daughter of a physician, I have been able to see firsthand how this could impact the quality of patient care and the control it will take away from physicians and give to the government. How am I supposed to trust the government with my healthcare when it took over 5 hours to renew my driver’s license at the DMV?

This is an example of the redistribution of wealth touted by Obama and the Democrats as progressive, positive change. As a business woman, why would I want the government in charge of redistributing my success? Most successful people DO give back and they do it without government supervision. This president is not taking that into account. He is underestimating our values as responsible, decent human beings who don’t need the government to make us that way.

Red flags in judgment like this continued to make me question Obama’s judgment. At this point, I finally started to question my own too. I watched the example that Obama continued to set, including his constant playing of the blame game. Did Bush really leave such a bad state of affairs that we can justifiably blame everything on him? If I am the judge in that courtroom where the defendant blames everyone else and takes responsibility for nothing, I’m going to call foul.

I like the man and what he stands for, but I hate his politics. A friend reminded me that it’s okay to respect the man’s achievements and honor what he stands for, while disagreeing with his politics. I don’t think he is as strong as many of us thought he was going to be. We were completely duped and let down because he portrayed himself above race and above politics, but he’s not (the beer summit was proof of that). By far, he has been more of a divider than the “uniter” he claimed to be.

I was well into questioning Obama and the Democrats, when I started questioning whether I was a Democrat at all, I asked myself, what do I have in common with these people – this party – anymore?

The bombshell really hit home recently when I was watching the news one evening with my daughter. Obama was discussing “blame” (as usual) for the tragic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and (jokingly, in his mind, I’m sure) asked whose “ass” he should kick. My daughter turned to me and said, “Mommy, why did the president just say ass?”

Wow! Now I was suddenly in a situation where I had to explain the actions of the President of the United States, to my kid. This was not my job!

Be sure and follow Value Judgments for next week’s conclusion of my “conversion” to conservative. Thanks for reading!