For those who voted for Obama the surprise was winding up with Jimmy Carter. Only one Democratic President lost a second term in recent memory and that was Carter. Obama seems intent upon picking up his marbles and returning to Chicago.
Obama’s infusion of hope has turned many believers into asking, “Where’s the beef?” Few can recall a president who has failed time and again to stand firm for what he claims to believe in. Reviewing even the alleged achievements of the Obama Administration there is a continuous record of bailing out on what the President held as lines in the sand such as ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy or a one payer system for healthcare.
Bush was the father of the Tea Party movement by giving away the treasury of the US to the wealthy and by forcing future generations to pay for two wars and a prescription package worth billions. Obama came to the White House facing a catastrophe not of his making.
Yet Obama came to power with lopsided majorities in both Houses of Congress and dillydallied. Unlike FDR who confronted far greater threats to the nation than Obama, Roosevelt acted in the first hundred days passing legislation needed to bring the country back from economic ruin. Obama abandoned the consensus awarded him by the voters allowing a disjointed Democratic Party to figure out what to do. The end results angered everyone.
Obama failed to lead. The price for that is not only a strident right wing opposed to reinvigorating the economy but a passive electorate who wonders whether a right wing fanatic would not be better for the country.
Edward Horn
Baldwin
