What have we learned in the 19 months since President Obama took office and in the three plus years since the Democrats assumed control of Congress? Let's look at a few examples.

On May 15, the Obama Justice Department, under the leadership of Eric Holder, ordered that a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther party be dismissed, even though an affidavit from a prominent civil rights activist from the 1960s called it the most blatant form of voter intimidation that he had seen. The attorney in charge of the case, under orders to dismiss the case, resigned in protest.

On the other hand, notwithstanding overwhelming public support for the Arizona Immigration bill, in Arizona and nationwide, on July 6, the same Justice Department filed suit in U.S. District Court seeking to prevent the bill, passed by the Arizona legislature out of a growing frustration with the feds' inability, or unwillingness, to stem the flood of illegal immigrants into Arizona, from taking effect at the end of July. The Justice Department proudly announced the Arizona suit with a press release. The dismissal of the Black Panther case did not even merit a footnote on the department's website

Last September, Obama told an interviewer that the mandate in the health care reform bill for persons to purchase health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. On July 16, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration is defending the health care reform bill against legal challenges by contending that the mandate is an exercise of the federal government's power to lay and collect taxes. Did the president lie in September or are his lawyers lying now?

On the July 18 edition of ABC's "This Week," Vice President Joe Biden did not appear to be as concerned as White House spokesman Robert Gibbs about Democratic prospects in November. Biden said all the Democrats need is time to change voter attitudes. He said "the skepticism exists - over legislation like the stimulus package, the health care bill and the financial overhaul package - because the public just doesn't understand the 'details' of what's in those laws." I'll wager that not even Mr. Biden and his colleagues in Congress fully understand the details of "what's in those laws."

In fact, in the days leading up to the passage of the health care monstrosity, even House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi said that Congress "had to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it."

Of course we are skeptical, Mr. Biden. Polls indicated that a clear majority of the American people disapproved of the health care reform bill. We do not need to change our attitude. We have grown weary of you and your colleagues' arrogance, Mr. Biden. We have grown weary of your elitist paternalism.

This administration is rotten from the top down and from the inside out. The Democrat leadership in Congress believes that we are fools, not sufficiently intelligent to adequately make our own choices, much less "understand the 'details'" of whatever the Congress has conjured up for the imagined good of the republic, not because we asked for it, but rather because they have determined it is all for our own good.

A majority of the voters entrusted the government to the Democrats in November 2008. In two short years, the Obama administration and a willing Congress have managed to trash the Constitution and the financial hopes and dreams of millions of Americans.

The president has acknowledged that the upcoming midterm elections will be a referendum on his administration. So be it. If the Congress and the president's approval numbers are any indication, it appears that most Americans do not like what they have done with our government and our financial future.

We want it back now, please.

Jerry Landers Jr. is an attorney in Marietta.