Posted on 01/06/2010 6:18:40 PM PST by seanmerc
WASHINGTON -- The chorus of loud criticism of President Barack Obama is a reminder that every new occupant of the White House has a presidential learning curve. There is no such thing as an instant president. They all have to learn the hard way.
Fans and foes alike seem to be ganging up on the newcomer as he approaches his first anniversary in office.
Hopeful Republican antagonists are wondering whether he can win a second term -- premature as that speculation may be.
Some one-time Obama supporters are disillusioned because of the great expectations fostered by Obama’s soaring rhetoric during the long presidential campaign. Democratic "progressives" now feel let down because they had assumed the new president was a "liberal" who believed that the government should initiate New Deal-style programs to get the country back on its feet.
Instead, he has conducted his first year in office as a cautious centrist, guided by a more moderate social philosophy than had been generally assumed.
I keep seeing his legislative experience -- both in the Illinois state legislature and the U.S. Senate -- coming to the fore in his quickness to compromise and to let deal-making chug along.
It seems that the president is operating on the theory that something is better than nothing, a questionable concept when you look at the forthcoming compromise health reform bill. The emerging legislation will force some 30 million people to buy insurance or be penalized, creating a bonanza for the fat cat insurance companies that shelled out millions to encourage Congress to drop any government-provided health plan.
Proponents of a government-run health insurance plan -- the "public option" -- that would compete with the bloated private insurers never had a chance.
Obama told the Washington Post in an interview: "I didn’t campaign on the public option."
As a result, there was no place at the White House table to argue for the need for a government-sponsored health plan. The disillusioned now complain that Obama is "just another politician."
In foreign policy, Obama made it clear in his presidential campaign that he considered Afghanistan a big problem in the struggle against global terrorism.
But his questionable decision to dispatch 30,000 more troops to what is known as the "graveyard of empires" has widely evoked comparisons with the Vietnam quagmire.
On the home front, former President George W. Bush left his successor the painful legacy of the Great Recession, a calamity that strangely inspired Obama and Bush to rush to the rescue of some of the major Wall Street firms.
The big banks have shown their gratitude by brushing off loan applicants, while Wall Street -- which was hugely responsible for the economic bust -- is trying to block any new government regulations aimed at controlling the way they do business.
Obama has been faulted for making too many compromises and failing to take a firm stand against his Republican opponents in Congress. He mistakenly thought that Congress would want to do the right thing to tackle the nation’s needs in a bipartisan way. Think again.
Instead, the president soon discovered that it took political bribes and shameful concessions to win the support of greedy senators who were playing hard to get for their votes on the health bill.
The national security critics -- led by the insatiable former Vice President Dick Cheney -- seem to forget that the Sept. 11 catastrophe and the torture and detention horrors happened on the Bush administration watch.
Like all presidents, Obama is finding the honeymoon is over.
That, my FRiend, is Rhona Mitra...
“It’s all fun and games until someone gets an eye put out with one of those .”
Do I get to choose which one?
The boy - either he’s a great actor or he’s having a heart attack!?
Hey, I resemble that remark!
“Tilt” LOL
Of course, I try hard to keep up. See post 70.
(You sick bastard)
Spork Weasel abuse!
Not by a long shot! Now, post 45 is sick! Definitely sick! LOL
The mother of all sickness!
LOL!
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