Unrealistic expectations
A year ago, if we had read in the paper that employers were hiring again, that health care legislation was proceeding without a bump, that Afghanistan suddenly became a nice place to take your kids, we wouldve known we were being lied to. Back then, we recognized that the problems Barack Obama inherited as president wouldnt go away overnight.
During his campaign, Obama clearly said that an economy that took eight years to break couldnt be fixed in a year, that Afghanistan was a graveyard of empires and would not be an easy venture for us. Candidate Obama didnt feed us happy-talk, which is why we elected him. He never said America could solve our health care, economic and security problems without raising the deficit. Instead, he talked of hard choices, of government taking painful and contentious first steps toward fixing problems that cant be left for another day.
Right after Obamas election, we seemed to grasp this. We understood that companies would be happy to squeeze more work out of frightened employees and would be slow to hire more. We understood that the banks that had extorted us of billions of dollars were lying when they said they would share their recovery. We understood that a national consensus on health care would not come easily. Candidate Obama never claimed that his proposed solutions would work flawlessly right out of the box, and we respected him for that.
But today the president is attacked as if he were a salesman who promised us that our problems would wash off come morning. He never made such promises.
Its time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president cant just wave a magic wand and fix everything.
Ellie Light
Waco
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