One year ago, Mr. Obama was elected by a substantial majority of us, unequivocally demonstrating with our votes that we wanted change. Now, on the basis of yesterday's election results, everyone is claiming that the Republicans are on a roll and the Democrats deservedly discredited. Oh, pul-eeeeeaaaze!
Mr. Obama, I truly believe, has tried valiantly to provide that change: beginning serious withdrawal from Iraq; serious reconsideration of exactly how to address Afghanistan and Pakistan; directly addressing climate change and healthcare, and sincerely trying to engage Republican dialogue and collaboration - the latter effort which has been bluntly, and I feel, rudely, met with obstinate refusal to genuinely engage in any true bipartisanship.
So, now, while Obama's poll favorability remains high, his handling of a few issues - the economy, healthcare, and Afghanistan, notably - is viewed less favorably.
Well, folks...do you get it that we do not, repeat, not, live in a dictatorship??? The president simply does not enjoy the power to transform specific issues on his own. This is, last I checked, a representative Democracy - which requires the input of Congress, which remains an intentionally unwieldy and cumbersome mechanism for change - in order to prevent wholesale changes of political direction.
If we, the voters, want transformative and systemic change, the place we need to focus is Congress. Obama would have enacted climate change legislation, and healthcare reform by now if we had given him more Congressional support in the form of more Democrats (especially more left-wing Democrats).
To now, out of frustration and ignorance, lay the blame for the current stagnation on Mr. Obama, or on the Democrats currently in office, is utterly misplaced and counterproductive.The unfortunate result of this perspective will be to reward the Republicans in the next election cycle, which will only lead us back to where we were when GWB was in office.
The true evildoers in this instance are... the Republicans (still, as they have been for the past 13 years) and the 'Blue-Dog' Democrats, who are intransigently blocking the change and transformation for which Mr. Obama is striving, and for which (remember?) we voted a year ago.
So I ask: 'Why are American voters so obviously naive and ignorant regarding the basic, manifest mechanisms of their own government?'
My answer - we need universal Civics education in grade school and high school, with an additional mandatory instruction in statistics and sampling, so that people won't be utterly misled by bogus polls.
To blithely dismiss polls and statistics by saying that 'Oh, you can say anything you want with statistics,' is simply to utterly and clearly demonstrate one's ignorance of proper and scientific sampling and statistical methodology and reporting. Go take a class.
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Comments: 5
I think that today, and for the past 40 years or so we have had to recover from dictatorial, or Imperial Presidencies over and over again, and the recovery this time is particularly painful because GW Bush managed to take the power of the presidency to new levels. He had, and took advantage of, the terrorist threat to keep the Congress in line, and marching in lock step. It was not till the last two years of his second term that the Constitution came back into play in our government.
Obama is not, and will never be, likely to say the Constitution and all its protections and checks and balances for the government is nothing but a "G-D DA---D Piece of paper." GW might never have said those exact words either. BUT IT WAS EASY TO BELIEVE HE DID.
Recovering from that is going to take a while. But if we are wise it will happen. If there is no other change, Obama's style of governing by allowing the process to work is a GREAT THING.
Your blind hatred of GWB has morphed into blind love of Obama.
It can't be done.