I believed. Yes, I did. I believed Mr. Obama would bring change to Washington. But other than turning the White House black, he didn’t. He made a lot of promises. He didn’t keep them. He said no more business as usual. Then he stacked his administration with the same old Washington entrenched – Emanuel, Gates, Geithner, Holder, Panetta, Summers. . .the list is endless.
Then there was the bought-and-paid-for Congress, heralding the “landmark” health care reform bill – except there wasn’t any reform in it. And now we have the “landmark” financial reform bill – except, again, there isn’t any reform in it. And I can’t wait for the “landmark” energy reform bill – can you? Health insurance companies are still raking in the dough. Banks are still screwing the people. And the oil companies, well, they’ll just keep on destroying the planet in the name of greed.
Does all this mean the president is weak? Of course it does. Does it mean he’s scared? Probably. Does it mean he’s naïve? Undoubtedly. It also means he will not be elected to a second term. Certainly not by me, and millions of others just like me. You know the old saying — fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Word to the wise — Republicans, find a moderate. None of your teabag extremists will do, so get smart, find a moderate for 2012.
Categories: Change, Congress, Greed, Obama, The Presidency, The White House Tags: Change, Congress, Greed, Obama, The Presidency, The White House
Okay, I admit it. I donated to, campaigned in favor of, and voted for Barack Obama, and I’m not exactly thrilled about it so far.
He promised transparency. I guess that meant he was going to have the windows at the White House washed on a regular basis. He promised an end to lobbyists in the White House. I guess he meant that lovely white house you can see when you’re heading down I-95 past Emporia, Virginia. He promised the dog he would get for his kids would be a shelter mutt. I guess he meant some other kids. He promised to close Guantanamo. I guess he meant after he found another galaxy that would take all the detainees. He promised to reverse Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. I guess he meant in the Irish military. He promised to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act. I guess he must have been talking about some other defense project. He promised to end the war in Iraq. I guess he meant just before he comes up for reelection. He promised a whole new focus on clean energy. I guess he meant after drilling the remaining life out of the planet. He promised there would be no place for torture in America. I guess he meant after he exonerated everyone who had anything to do with it. He promised health care reform. I guess he meant health care revision, where the people get screwed and the insurance companies get richer. And most of all, he promised change – change in the way Washington works. Oops! I just blinked. Did I miss it? Granted, there are limitations to what one person can do, but I don’t know whether I’d want to vote for him again.
The problem is, I look across at the republicans, and I see. . .nothing. No ideas, no solutions, no leadership. I see the token black head of the RNC, who is only marginally less than incompetent. I see the House leader and his runner-up (John Boner and Eric Can’t-er) who are so devoid of character and substance that I wonder how they keep getting elected. I see the Senate leader and his sidekick (Mitch McCon-ell and John Kil) whose only mission in life seems to be putting an uppity president in his place by just saying no. And I see intellectual midgets like Palin and Bachmann urging a group of undereducated, under-informed, unintelligent teabags into the kind of hatred and violence I thought had died with the Sixties.
Show me a leader who cares more about the people of this country than lining his own pockets. Show me a leader who speaks for all Americans, not just Wall Street or Main Street or Rich Street or White Street. Show me a leader who can take us from the brink of disaster to redemption – because that’s exactly where we are. Show me a leader who understands that. I’ll vote for him.
The truism that the qualities one needs to become President are not the same as the qualities one needs to be President has never been so dramatically illustrated as it has been in the case of Barack Obama this week. . .well, at least not since it was so dramatically illustrated in the case of George W. Bush for eight years.
It’s easy to promise, it’s hard to deliver, and the list of undelivered promises made by Mr. Obama grows daily — from transparency, to changing Washington, to the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, to closing Guantanamo, to. . .well, you know what I mean.
Barney Frank, chairman of the senate banking committee, and his bank reform legislation are a joke. Much as I appreciate a good joke, this one’s on the American taxpayer . . . again. Let’s see, Frank not only wants to legalize Too Big to Fail, and maintain the kind of secrecy surrounding the shenanigans that got us into the economic mess we’re in, in the first place, he wants to create loopholes so big that up to 80 percent of the gambling that caused the financial collapse last year will be exempt from public view! This means the banks can go right on taking massive risks, in secret, with taxpayer money. If they win, they reap the benefits. If they lose, the taxpayer picks up the tab. If he really thinks this is in the best interests of the American people, Barney Frank ought to retire, and Massachusetts should help him do so.
CIT Group filed for Chapter 11 protection. Cost to taxpayers? Oh, only the 2.3 billion dollars that was handed over to them last year right out of our pockets. But all is not lost — Goldman Sachs gets 1 billion dollars on the deal. And what is our hen-guarding-the-fox-house treasury secretary worried about? He’s worried that banks aren’t taking enough risks! You know, like the kind they took for the past decade that ended up in our being mostly owned by China now. It’s way past time for Mr. Geithner to retire, along with whoever was responsible for giving him the job to begin with. We don’t need a Wall Street protector in charge of our money — we need a taxpayer protector.
