posted
Aug 24, 2010 by News Gatherer
He restored America’s image in the world. He nominated two estimable women to the Supreme Court. I can go on. Take a The guy passed health care, a stimulus bill that helped avoid a Depression, a groundbreaking financial reform bill that is too complicated to be popularly described, a bailout that enabled General Motors and Chrysler to survive. The lead item on Politico–titled “Dems Urge Obama to Take a Stand”–is almost surrealistic.
He confronted the Soviet Union, but he also would have agreed to massive reductions in nuclear arsenals if the Soviets had allowed him to pursue his Star Wars fantasy. He was for lowering taxes and he did, but then he raised taxes–two of the laegest percentage increases in American history–when his supply-side “philosophy” proved a phony. But Dems are distressed? He’s not populist or ideological enough? Oh please. Ronald Reagan chose one way: he said one thing and did another. He was for cutting back the size of government, but didn’t. There are several ways to go about the presidency.
Another President might have hyped this “achievement” relentlessly. He has pretty much done what he said he’d do. He delivered a tax cut to 95% of the American people; I’ve never seen a politician cut taxes and not take sufficient credit for it before. He ended major combat operations in Iraq, on time and without much fuss–without using the word “victory” or denying the continuing problems involved in cobbling together a coherent government there. His achievements are historic. He made it impossible for Americans to be denied health care coverage because of pre-existing conditions or chronic problems; somehow this has gotten lost in the “socialist” shuffle as well. That is a real political problem. But he hasn’t wrapped them up in an ideological bumper sticker–or provided some neat way for the public to understand it, or pretended to be a yeoman simpleton, noshing on pork rinds, clearing brush and excoriating the business community.
The country’s economic problems–the depth and devastation of this recession; the possibility that we’re in a different sort of trough than we’ve ever been in before; the confusion and anxiety wrought in certain sections of the country by changing social mores and an influx of non-white immigrants–trump and undermine abstract reports of successful government activism. So long as the Great Recession continues, it’s easy–indeed, it’s natural–to question any bailout, any stimulus project, that might protect and create jobs for some, but leaves the vast majority of Americans unaffected. I find this diffidence sort of admirable and extremely incompetent. But even if Obama, and his communications shop, had been more focused on touting his achievements, and even if he delivered his major speeches on financial reform brandishing a pitchfork and a torch, I suspect the Democrats would be in pretty much the same dismal electoral shape as they are now. It’s easy to credit the paranoid prejudices of Glenn Beck. So long as white middle-class Christian Americans live in the fear that their children won’t live as well as they have, it’s easy to blame Latinos, Muslims, gays, mixed-race couples (who produce ethnically confusing amalgams like Barack Hussein Obama) and elitists for attempting to steal the “real” America.
I think Democrats saw Barrack Obama as the answer to the Reagan era. Climate bill axed. Economic bill a year later. DADT delayed (though I expected that one). Health care was a blood bath that resulted in nothing short of an attrocity compared to what Liberals hoped for. Immigration axed. The list goes on and on..No wonder Dems are feeling miserable right now. And to boot, we had someone with both the intelligence and charisma to sell it to people, control of both houses and a super majority to boot.What’d we get? A unified Republican opposition, the tea party, Fox News more than doubling it’s competitors combined, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck – all of these things that stand as the antithesis to what we hoped for and to our combined horror, they were ALLOWED to get away with their garbage by both the media and the Democrats. Stimulus was a struggle. The end result, the only things able to get through without an insane amount of fight were TARP and the auto bailouts (read: bailouts for corporations). They saw the Great Recession as a chance to redefine America and bring it back to Liberal views – a chance to clearly demonstrate that Reaganism small government (not to be confused with reasonably small government) is bad, that a social blanket is a good thing and with it we had a hope that the Liberal fantasies of a truly better society would come about.
Who can forget “my administration will be completely transparent” or “I will listen to and be guided by the will of the American people”? No, Mr. The performance of Mr. Obama has be abysmal and his continued deceit will get many of them thrown out of office in November. Yes, indeed, “change you can believe in” still resonates with the American people, only this time, it is repeated with sarcasm and derision. The democrats have every reason to be disheartened and depressed. Meanwhile, why don’t you take off on yet another vacation, while the nation suffers 10% unemployment and the economy founders. Obama, we have NOT forgotten and will take these broken promises to the ballot box, come November. You will NOT be missed.
Sounds like a tea ceremony that the corporate news media loves to review. Wal-mart to Exxon to Microsoft. If there is any national ideology, it is informality, which is neither left nor right.”-Distrusts big business??? We pray to it. Joe Six Pack will continue to boost the politicians that believe in corporate welfare even as his job is packed off to China. The American middleclass asks business to shoot them in the foot and hands them the gun to do it.-Informality? The requirement of being Christian and wearing a flag pin? Sounds formal to me. “It has a distinct libertarian streak; it distrusts “big”–government or business–even as it prospers from the carefully applied benefits of both.
FNC sez that Real Americans@trade; are conservatives, never mind that said Real Americans@trade; take farm subsidies, Social Security, eat food made (safer) by Big Gubbamint, etc..Joe’s just seeing it from his own ‘moderate’ perspective, in that most of the folks he considers reasonable are his fellow moderates. We all do that, to some extent. Dang it Grape!.Nah.
Look at the stimulus. “Silly stuff” included aid to state gov’ts and, my personal favorite, eliminating a program to spend $300 million on hybrid vehicles for gov’t use. Cause god knows paying American automakers to make autos, autos that use less oil, is truly silly stuff.The public option was abandoned in to small part because great moderate brains like Max Baucus, Jim Webb and the Senators from WalMart couldn’t understand how paying less for health insurance would cost less money.Olly Snowe, Susan Collin (and very soon Mike Castle) get elected to the Senate by promising to be “moderates”, then vote in lockstep with Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, and moderate voters don’t seem to notice.David Broder, David Brooks, and other “moderate” media voices call on Obama and Democrats to reach out to “moderate” Republicans like Lindsey Graham (torture, repealing 14th Amendment), Chuck “pull the plug on Grandma!” Grassley and John McPalin, then blame Obama when the insanity of the Republican Party is so appalling that even they have to acknowledge it.Professional Moderates, to coin a phrase, are the circle-jerkers who allow the Tea Baggers and bigots and nutjobs (as amply represented in Congress as in these threads) to do the damage they do. Claire McCaskill, whom I used to think had a serious shot at the big chair in ‘16, tweeted (ugh) at the time that she and Ben Nelson had gotten rid of the “silly stuff”. well, as a moderate, I do blame “moderates”. But why was it shrunk even further: “moderates”. I agree that it should have been bigger than even the one Obama proposed, and more directly focused on infrastructure.
Imagine the hell Jackie Robinson went through when travelling with his team.Then we have the Rand Pauls on the right that think it would just be wonderful if we did away with those pesky accomodation laws for private businesses. And of course, we now know Sharon Angle thinks black is an evil color. It informed black people where they could find accepting and safe accomodations. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/books/23green.htm.Something I learned yesterday. There was a “Green Book” for African American motorists maintained until the 60s.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_kUlmb8Gk8&feature=youtube_gdata
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