BRING BACK BUSH or ALL HAIL OBAMA?

There seems to be an increasing amount of anti-Obama sentiment as of late. This is surprising given that Obama remains a hugely popular president. Even Bill Maher was taken aback last week when he offered commentary critical of Obama and the audience actually applauded instead of booed. So, what do we make of all these criticisms? Should Obama be concerned?

Why all the criticism? As Bill Maher said, this is not what we voted for. He said at the end of his commentary that instead of the audacity of hope we could use just some audacity. It seems to many on the left, both progressives and liberals, that Obama is failing them. He is keeping his promises to work on many of the issues that we wanted – the economy, healthcare, energy reform, employee free choice, the wars – but, what we are seeing is not reform as much as it is dicking around the edges. At time when there is a strong Democratic majority in Congress and a new president with a clear mandate it seems rather unnecessary that we would be so concerned about bipartisanship and negotiation. The bottom line is that GOP are not needed and the GOP is so decimated at this point that there is little point in negotiating with them or trying to meet their demands. We wanted a president to go for the gold and we have a president who is content with the silver or bronze.

Here are issues Obama needs to address. In Minnesota the Senate race is still officially undecided. The election was seven months ago and the senator from this state has not been seated. If a couple of Democrats in New York could stage a coup in their state senate, then the Dems in the U.S. Senate should develop some balls and seat Franken regardless of the threats of the GOP. Obama should be seen with Franken and instead Obama remains silent on the issue. The economy is still in need of an overhaul yet all we seem to be doing is throwing billions and trillions of dollars to big corporations to keep them afloat. The Obama mantra is that big businesses are too big too fail while small businesses are too small to save. The trillions given to the financial and auto industries make little sense to even the least articulate folks. These businesses are on the brink of failure (or more correctly, HAVE FAILED) because of poor business judgment and should not be rewarded for these poor business practices. Further, as is the case on Wall Street, these officials acted fraudulently and not one has been indicted. Here, Obama needs to adopt the Nancy Reagan slogan of “just say no.” No more bailouts and no more big business. Healthcare is another issue where we are looking for reform but Obama seems to be settling for the most part with some minor adjustments to appease the medical industry with the general public left holding the bag and still uninsured. Obama was booed during a speech at the American Medical Association which means he will undoubtedly work harder to appease the AMA than he will the general public.

We demand justice! Put Bush and his bastard minions behind bars for war crimes. And, while Sotomayor is a popular choice for the Supreme Court due to her Latino heritage, she is lightweieght and surely there were other Latinas who would have more solid credentials. Gay rights now, gay rights forever. Here we are in PRIDE month and even now Obama is strangely silent about issues important to the queer community. Close Gitmo and get out of Iraq. There was a report last week that Obama has given up on transferring prisoners from Gitmo to US social. Give me a break.

Bill Maher stated that Obama needs to be more like GW. GW did not care about his popularity. He took a razor thin majority and operated like he did have a mandate. He was successful in pushing his unpopular ageneda through the Congress and did so without great comprise. Bush learned earlier on that bipartisanship is a nasty word that should only be uttered outside of DC. He got us into a war with a country that had done nothing to attack us. For as ineffective as he was later in his second term, GW was effective in the early stages of his presidency in getting his way.

Obama, contends Bill Maher, should take on this trait of Bush and be more aggressive. Further, Maher said that Obama needs to get off the front pages with the endless of photo ops. Honestly, I felt it a bit gross to see him touring the pyramids in Egypt, jetting to NYC for a night out, or taking his children on vacation in London. There are many, many people struggling here in the US where analysts finally admitted that the real unemployment is close to 20%. Stop the media blitz, says Maher, and get to doing the business of those that elected you.

For all of the criticisms I do not believe that Obama is that worried. I believe that he sees himself as a transformative figure. And so, what we are seeing is him working his magic. First, with the bailouts of the auto and finance industries he has shored up his support with the trillions of dollars. The Latino and women vote is more secure now with the nomination of Sotomayor. And with the defection of Arlen Specter to the Democrats Obama is working on the securing the moderate Republicans and pushing the GOP further and further to the right and making them more fanatical. Obama can ignore the liberals and progressives for now knowing that they will be there for him when the times comes as there is no other place for them to go. It is anew style of politics and it is the game he played to get to the White House and it is a game he will place to keep him in the White House.

But it is a dangerous game that could backfire. We will know a bit more come the fall when New Jersey and Virginia vote for governors. In New Jersey Jon Corzine could well lose to his GOP challenger. If Corzine loses it will not be because of the economy but because he was not bold enough. He came in as the financial genius from Wall Street who would transform the state’s finances. That really has not happened. He did sign the civil unions bill but that was under duress and he failed to. deliver marriage equality. Now, comes word that his leading candidate for Lieutenant Governor is a white widow woman from north Jersey when in fact it was believed that this number two position would be filled by an African American. I do not know much about the Virginia race other than this was a state won by the Dems last year after many, many defeats. For them to return to Republican rule would be evidence that people are, indeed dissatisfied.

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