Posted on 12/17/2009 12:08:51 PM PST by seanmerc
WASHINGTON -- After nearly a year in office, the defining political image of President Barack Obama has yet to emerge. Is he a hawk or dove, a liberal or a moderate?
His Nobel Peace prize speech exposed his ambivalence. He harkened back to the Roman Catholic theologians to defend his "just war" in Afghanistan -- but he also expressed his ideals for a better world.
Measuring Obama’s performance is truly in the eyes of the beholder. To those who were enthralled with Obama’s eloquence in the presidential campaign, reality is setting in. News flash: He doesn’t walk on water.
But then he has had to deal with more monumental problems than most freshmen presidents -- two wars and the biggest economic breakdown since the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Like all chief executives, Obama has had to learn the difference between campaigning and governing. He is a gifted politician who understands the art of compromise and the need to play the game to achieve those goals.
A half a loaf is better than none for the president, who nonetheless has been trumped on key issues by the obstructionist "just say no" Republicans -- and a smattering of so-called "moderates," including the unctuous Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.
As a result of his need to collect Senate votes for a health care reform bill -- if for no other reason than to show some "reform" this year -- Obama has abandoned a government insurance plan and given on up a proposal to permit Americans who reach the age of 55 to buy into Medicare.
The liberals in his party were the losers -- along with the millions of people with no insurance. Dr. Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and former governor of Vermont, said Wednesday that the bill pending in the Senate has been so diluted that it’s not worth passing. The only winners were the insurance companies that poured millions of dollars into the campaign to mold the legislation more to their liking. "This is the insurance companies’ dream," Dean said on ABC-TV.
Obama’s policy toward Afghanistan is another disappointment for the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. His decision to send 30,000 more American troops -- bringing the total in Afghanistan to about 100,000 -- showed that Obama was gambling on the side of the generals.
The war supporters include the ranks of all GOP lawmakers, who seem to care more about the cost of universal health care than the multi-billions spent for war.
It’s an Afghan war that has yet to be explained. Is it a geopolitical power play involving rivalry with China and Russia? Or is it to "defeat, destroy and demean" al-Qaida? Or is it to nation-build in Central Asia?
The administration’s standard public rationale has been that the U.S. cannot afford to have al Qaida regroup in Afghanistan, a scenario that could evolve if Afghanistan is a failed state.
Here’s a question that needs to be addressed: Are we going to run around the globe and prop up other failed states just to keep al-Qaida out?
Will we send troops to Somalia or Sudan to prop up weak central governments that seem unable to impose law and order in their own territories?
We are begging the reluctant Pakistani and Afghan governments to fight their internal opponents -- the Taliban and the motley nihilist al-Qaida network. Is it their cause or ours? Do they really want our help or not?
I sometimes think that Obama’s policies are morphing faithfully into those of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush.
The president has yet to take his gloves off against the greedy Wall Streeters and oligarchs in Congress who led the country down the garden path right into the Great Recession and its tragic landscape of job loss, home foreclosures, poverty and hunger.
I say to the president: The time has come for you to get tough. No more Mr. Nice Guy.
Brilliant work, paulycy. It’s the stuff of which nightmares are made, yet you’ve remarkably captured the melding of two untamed, sweaty, squealing beasts.
It's a gift. ;0)
She may be the only woman in America who hasn’t “dated” Tiger.Yet.
and I can re-use again and scare you :o)
boo
Even Hellen is sick of the wimpy goof. She, herself, is a gimpy woof.
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