Posted on 03/03/2009 2:12:57 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The Obama presidency has started off in a whirlwind. It has been a headlong rush. This is not small-bite politics. This is not school uniforms.
With hardly a pause to take a deep breath, Barack Obama has presented an economic recovery plan, a bailout plan, a budget and a major foreign policy address.
All have been bold. But people who were surprised by that boldness have not been paying attention.
It was just a little more than two years ago, on a very cold day in Springfield, Ill., that Obama announced for the presidency by saying he was running “not just to hold an office but to gather with you to transform a nation.”
And in his first few weeks in office, he has been practicing transformative politics. Without apology. Some of this has been forced upon him. Faced with the collapse of the economy, he could hardly afford to be timid in his response.
But making far-reaching changes in health care, education and energy policy in this nation is something he promised from the very beginning.
In his radio address last Saturday, Obama said: “I didn’t come here to do the same thing we’ve been doing or to take small steps forward.” He said he came to Washington “to provide the sweeping change that this country demanded when it went to the polls in November.”
Nobody can say they were sold a pig in a poke. The differences between Obama and his agenda and John McCain and his agenda were very clear.
Obama never promised small government. He never promised tax breaks for the wealthy.
He promised to do big, sweeping, transformative things — and if it is going to take big, sweeping, transformative government to do that, well, that was part of the deal.
And there is no reason for him to wait. His popularity is high and his opposition is in disarray.
In fact, “disarray” may be too kind a word. When Rush Limbaugh is the best-known face of the opposition, disarray may not fully describe the predicament the Republican Party now finds itself in.
Michael Steele, who holds the title of chairman of the Republican National Committee, is understandably miffed at Limbaugh these days. Everybody knows Rush, but who knows Steele? “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer; Rush Limbaugh’s whole thing is entertainment,” Steele sniffed to CNN over the weekend.
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel thinks it is more than that. As Emanuel said Sunday on “Face the Nation With Bob Schieffer,” Limbaugh “is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party.”
Limbaugh would not disagree. He has a clear vision of America. And in his one-hour-and-15-minute speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, he outlined it.
“So here we have two systems,” Limbaugh said. “We have socialism, collectivism, Stalin, whatever you want to call it, versus capitalism.”
And that’s it. Obama and the Democrats represent Stalin, and Limbaugh and the Republicans represent capitalism. Take your pick.
But doesn’t it make you kind of wonder why the American people picked Obama and the Democrats last November?
How did that happen, exactly? Was it mass hypnosis? Were we bewitched?
Or were we just tired of the endless hyperpartisanship, the endless name calling, the endless demonizing of the opposition to “energize the base” and the endless refusal to develop real solutions to real problems?
Yeah, that could be it.
Obama identified it in his inaugural address. “What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply,” he said.
The Republicans can try to fashion a future by going back to the past. But that effort may be doomed to have no value except entertainment value.
Funny, then why didn't he tackle those problems "from the very beginning"? Seems to me all he has done is introduce the New Deal on steroids. He hasn't even got to comprehensive healthcare reform or cap-and-trade taxation yet, and the only education reform I've seen is a willingness to shut down a DC charter school program that seems to be having positive results.
yup Obama transformed everyone’s 401k’s into “3 nickels and it’s not OK”
Wull heck no!!! This is the politics of radical socialism and commonism that really-bites!!!
The Dow Jones down from $14,K to less than half that since the Demicrats swarmed the house and nearly the Senate and now the White House, Lordy P. Dordy!!!
The Demicrats done this to us and it stinks to high heaven!!!
(Apostrophe cop)
Unless people get involved now at the state level and pressure their politicians, Iraq will be more free than the US in four years.
Where the hell is the opposition to Obama?
(Imitating author):
I write in short sentences. Easily understandable. For you dumb, er, loyal democrats. Obama is great. Don’t pay any attention. To the man behind the curtain.
Obama wants the country to fail so government can take over.
People will be more dependent upon government, making Obama more powerful.
i certainly am...
and the bOzo has only been in for two months!!
But Obama is the Urkelish guy who voted "present" all those times in Springfield, and Simon doesn't really explain where all this "boldness" is coming from.
I know somebody's going to say that it's because his whole family were communists or because he's Billy Ayers's mole in the White House, but those explanations don't work that well either.
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