From the Wall Street Journal today: " ... President Obama's problem now isn't what Wisconsin did, it's how he looks each day—careening around, always in flight, a superfluous figure. No one even looks to him for leadership now. He doesn't go to Wisconsin, where the fight is. He goes to Sarah Jessica Parker's place, where the money is ... "
No one even looks to him for leadership now. The President of the United States. That is possibly the harshest condemnation of a President that I have ever heard, and it has the painful ring of if not truth, exactly, then applicability.
In 2007, people I knew voted for Obama and the issues he campaigned on. He was going to end the wars. He was going to close Guantanamo. He was going to have a "transparent" presidency. He was going to reduce the influence of the lobbyists. He was going to work hard to create "green" jobs. Quality health care would become a right for all Americans, not a priviledge for the wealthiest. He was going to reach across the aisle, old "no-drama Obama", to work with the opposition. Hope and Change. For all of 2008 and 2009, his democrat party had the Presidency, the House, and the Senate, and the sort of national support that William Jefferson Clinton only dreamed of.
Blame who you want; even if Obama wins in November of 2012 - and right now, in June, that looks doubtful - there can be little doubt that this President squandered an opportunity to make a real difference.
No comments:
Post a Comment