MAN OR MYTH? - In the pantheon of presidents, Barack Obama will probably end up in the middle of the pack. Why? Because he's a middle of the roader.
This time last year the nation and much of the world was walking on clouds generated by the oratory of an Illinois Messiah. People thought they’d turned one of St. George of Mushmouth’s famous corners and discovered…Dub was gone.
Let fly the fireworks! Sing joy unto the heavens! Or not.
A year later many people who voted for President Care Bear are having buyer’s remorse or hating him simply because he isn’t dickier than The Big Dick.
For the liberals, he’s too conservative. For the conservatives he too liberal. Businesses hate him, except for the insurance industry, which owes their next 17 colossal quarterly bonuses to his malformed and poorly executed healthcare reform package.
The Buck Stops on the Resolute Desk
Anti-war supporters think he’s as big a war and fear merchant as the last crew, Nobel Peace Prize not withstanding. The “bomb ‘em till they glow” crowd thinks he’s a pantywaist, despite mostly following the same war-making plans his predecessor left stuffed in the top drawer of the Resolute desk.
And the Great American Middle says he’s OK on polling paper, but aren’t sure why. They’re just a bit dismayed that after a year the man hasn’t cleaned up the lifetime supply of turds left for him in the White House portico. They want it all to go away so they can brandish their remote controls in the privacy of their own soon-to-be foreclosed homes.
There was a faction of voters who punched the chad for him while holding their nose. The high-falutin’ oratory was a welcome respite from the cud-chewing Presidential Cowboy Hat , but they knew that trying to solve huge problems was going to take more than high-minded talk – especially with Mitch McConnell draped around his neck like a dead 8-year old albatross that’s been lying in the sun.
If you’re in this nose-holding posse, you knew enough to take “hope” and change” with a grain of salt. Kudos to you for your pragmatic foresight. If you bought into the whole new Renaissance era where there was free healthcare, jobs for all, and peace on Earth, you should check your closets for unicorns and Kenyan birth certificates.
Party of Nope, Get a Clue
If you’re a devotee of the Party of Nope, get a clue. The man isn’t a socialist. Hell, he’s not even a liberal. You can tell this because more often than not he follows the precedents the Patron Saint of Village Idiots set. Stop complaining about your own policies and be happy you’re probably getting someone more conservative than Admiral McThusela would ever have been (and fess up, even you know in your heart that Sarah Palin is a goob).
It turns out Obama is a man – perhaps smarter than some, but definitely not as bright as others. He has, and will, do some good while he’s in office. He’ll screw the pooch too. Such is the way of politics and politicians. Despite Republican claims to the contrary, he’s not making sweeping changes to much of anything. In fact, he may be a bit too timid for his own good. And liberals, stop whining. You won’t always get what you want, but you’re better off than if George had over-stayed for a third turn.
Whether you have buyer’s remorse or feel fully vindicated in calling him a liberal, socialist, communist, fascist, Nazi (which are totally different concepts you knobs), he’s imperfect, not unlike those who abstained or voted for or against him.
Like him or not, he’s the card we’ve dealt ourselves and he’ll succeed or fail based on the limits of what a human can do.
And that’s all anyone can ask.
- New book explores Clinton, Palin candidacies (msnbc.msn.com)
- GOP chief: Republicans ‘screwed up’ after Reagan (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- David Latt: Republicans In League With Lobbists to Weaken Health Care Reform (huffingtonpost.com)
- GOP chief: Republicans ‘screwed up’ after Reagan (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
- Bipartisanship’s Willing Executioners (crooksandliars.com)
- Mitch McConnell: Republicans Aren’t Responsible for Record Deficit (firedoglake.com)
Reports like this won’t help in keeping the Democrats out of the “not to be trusted to protect us from terrorists” pit. Many more of these kinds of reports and the Democrats may find themselves out of power for as long as there’s a terrorist threat…or until people decide that neither party can be trusted. Once that happens, things may be ripe for the rise of a third party. Perhaps a President Palin from the Tea Party Party in 2012!
This nearly-successful Christmas Day attack can not help the downward slide. It was not successful but it’s failure had nothing to do with anything this or any other administration has done. It failed due to the vigilance and quick action of a civilian passenger and a perhaps faulty detonator. That and the seeming failure of intelligence that could and probably should have kept the bomber off that or any other plane could go a long way toward returning the Democrats to “not to be trusted when it comes to protecting the country from terrorists” status.
For my part, I think this would be somewhat unfair if it plays out this way. After all, 9/11 occurred on Bush II’s watch, the worst act of terrorism in this country’s history, and he largely got a pass from those not in to trutherism but perception is not always fair and it is popular perception that I’m talking about above. As has been said, we have to be successful in stopping terrorists 100% of the time while the terrorists only have to be successful once. The odds are always on their side.
Obviously, I am not hoping for a successful attack just because it might put the Democrats out of power for a very long time. I think the Democrats are incompetent enough to overplay their hand sufficiently to return the Republicans to power without terrorist intervention. The polls linked above seem to suggest that that’s the case, anyway.
Apparently, lots and lots of people have got remorse. Heh! It didn’t take long for Obama and the congressional Democrats to commit seppuku, did it?
Remorse? Not as such. Never liked the choices I had in the first place. I do still wonder if he was the best of the available choices. I am quite a bit disappointed that his style of leadership is to sit back and let others do the hard work. Somehow I expected Rombo to keep a little more control of things. I remember Clinton’s first term, and how, once in office, they just coasted that first year, and how they lost control of everything as a result. I expected Obama’s team to have learned from that. Clearly they didn’t.
Which is to say, one ought not confuse disagreement over policy decisions with Obama’s position on the leftright continuum.
Of course, I have no buyer’s remorse since I didn’t buy/vote for Obama. It has been kind of fun watching the heads explode on the left, though. It’s also been kind of fun watching Obama break one promise after another and throw one person after another under the proverbial bus whenever a staunch supporter became a political liability to the man. I’ve also had to support Obama in any number of his policy decisions: continuing and even stepping up targeted attacks upon Taliban/al Qaida fighters in one country or another; sending more troops into Afghanistan; rejecting prosecution of CIA operatives for waterboarding AQ captives; and a number of others. I don’t see these as either liberal or conservative but merely good common sense.
Bush II wasn’t much of a conservative, at least in the fiscal sense of growing government and debt and deficit. I guess one could say that Obama is George W. Bush on steroids. There he was as liberal as any liberal Democrat. That he follows Bush’s play-book in many respects in the wars does not make him conservative or even centrist since very liberal Democrats in the past have fought wars in a robust manner (think FDR and Wilson). That is to say, being a war-president is not incompatible with being very liberal. Which is all to say that none of those things make Obama anything other than as liberal a president as has ever held the office. Being anti-war is neither conservative nor liberal since Amish, perhaps among the most conservative folk as ever walked the earth, are pacifists. In these matters, that he is pissing off liberals who voted for him doesn’t mean he’s anything other than a liberal. Obama is a liberal.
He is also an American equivalent of European style Social Democrats, offspring of the socialists of the past generation. Socialism, in the sense of government ownership of the means of production is dead except in the lunatic fringe (heck, even the Russians and Chinese have abandoned socialism). Social Democracy is what is left of socialism in the sane world. For this reason, I don’t think it is altogether off the mark to call Obama a socialist as long as one understands that it is the current version of socialism that one is speaking of.
No buyer’s remorse for me. I agree with Dave, it’s Congress that’s the bigger problem. And I always knew Obama was not the liberal progressive that some thought he was – he has always seemed to me to be a pragmatic idealist – he may want to be a liberal but he knows it isn’t that easy and that getting things done in increments is the only way to go about it. I just wish he’d do a few more things he promised before the Dems lose the majority this fall.
Oh, great image, by the way. I’ll have to steal it.
I’d say I’m more disappointed in Congress than I am in Obama. President or not, he’s still just one man. And no, I dont expect Democrats to overcome their various factions and sweep America into a New Era. It would have been nice if they at least acted like they had the majority, though.
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