I truly think that no one who was running for President in 2008 would be better than Obama. But that doesn't mean that I believe Obama has been the President he represented himself to be or been the leader he could have been. I truly knew that nothing significant would change, but he raised my hopes and those hopes are dashed. The biggest problem I have with this is that the field in 2012 is going to be worse than the field in 2008. My big fear is that Obama has been such a disappointment to so many that someone worse could beat him. That was my fear in 2000 and I was right. That is my fear in 2012 and I pray I'm wrong.
Why am I disappointed - let me count the ways. Are they all his fault - no. That's really why I don't blame him, I'm just disappointed in him and in the situation. We can start with the financial meltdown and the failure to end the too big to fail - just postponing for now the reckoning that will surely come. Then there is the budget fight - or lack thereof. Obama and the Democrats have ceded the battlefield to the GOP. They are just, at best playing not to lose too much more ground. The slash and burn of the GOP will damage the economy further and the agonies of this recession will just go on and on for many people. Obama bailed on the foreclosure and housing crisis. He again ceded the battleground to the GOP. They want to punish the people who were caught up in the crisis, many of which may have acted foolishly but almost none of which were responsible for the mess. Banks had no business making many of the bad mortgages in the first place, but we have allowed all the furor to be directed towards the irresponsible buyers. And the truth is that most of the irresponsible buyers lost their homes in the early days of the crisis. The foreclosure crisis has gone way beyond this to all those folks who lost their homes because of the financial crisis and the banks irresponsibility. But we don't seem to feel the need to make them pay for their mistakes like we were happy to do with the irresponsible borrowers. Our failure to address this crisis has hurt the entire economy, not just the people who are losing their homes. Eventually, this particular problem should go away, but it along with so many other policies of this GOP economy will live afterward. Our economy will never be as vibrant as it was or might be. Unfettered capitalism is like evolution - it rewards only the fittest with real survival. Unless it is tempered by mercy and compassion,, i.e. regulated, the people who can't compete at the top of the heap will just be left to wallow in the afterbirth. I don't think most people want this kind of system, but the people on the top seem to think it is their manifest destiny and do want it. The money is directed at ensuring this system survives no matter the evidence that it doesn't work for most people, no matter how hard they might work at it.
I'm disappointed at the little things as well as the big. DADT was passed in December. It's now almost April and not only is it not implemented, I read today they are still discharging people under the old policy. How stupid is that. For the eighth president, Obama has made a speech about our dependence on foreign oil and how we must stop it. But its just another speech in line with so many others. Foreign oil isn't really the problem, it is carbon based fuel. Oil is fungible and whether we drill it here or there we will still pay a very high price for it in the years to come, in both dollars and climate change. But there will be no action, just more talk. Clean energy could actually help both the economy and the climate, but the GOP doesn't want anything to do with it because it might give credit to Obama, and it would require some compromise on their ideological bedrock that all government is bad and all taxes are worse. Obama's speech didn't mark any new ground and it certainly wasn't a real call to action. It's like he's given up on the issue and just pays lip service like so many of his predecessors. Then there's transparency. We are a more secret society than we were under Bush and Cheney and it seems to only get worse. It's clear that Obama was also only paying lip service to the idea that the people need to know what is going on if they are to exercise any good judgement about the issues. He has opted for father knows best when it comes to national security. We haven't broken from our surveillance society in any way. We mistreat our dissidents, even though how we do it may no longer rise to torture, its mistreatment nevertheless. Obama has given up on doing anything to improve the economy - he seems to have accepted that the GOP has won and is just negotiating the terms of surrender. I know he doesn't believe the economics of this approach, but apparently, he believes the politics of it. No more - I'd rather be a one term good President than a mediocre two termer. He seems to have opted to try and figure out how to alienate the fewest people in order to win the 2d term rather than actually standing for something. No walking the picket line to protect union rights, no instead, just stay silent and hope your base survives to make its contribution to your campaign. The only reason the base will support him is the alternatives will be so bad. But that is what he is counting on to win that 2d term. Leadership is what I thought we were getting when I voted, but instead what I got was mediator in chief. And he gives away the store before he even begins the mediation sessions. He moves half way to the other side before the first meeting, so that the opposition ends up winning the bulk of their claims.
Finally, I'm disappointed in the foreign policy stuff. We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is little mention of getting out of Iraq - I do hope we are still planning on the end of the year, but no one's mentioned it in a long time so I'm not sure that is will actually happen. I fear there will be a change in mission so we can stay there in some other way. We are already waffling on even 2014 as a timetable for Afghanistan. Even though we are no closer to a solution in that country and the situation will be just as iffy in 3 more years as it was 3 years ago. We cannot prevent a medieval country from reverting to a medieval country when we leave, with all of its intended terrible consequences. Women will still be abused and denied rights, people will still be killed by guns and bombs, schools will still not be built or will be destroyed by those nihilists who want nothing but for people to do what they want them to do. And now we also have the rest of the middle east rising up, wanting to be free, but likely ending up in chaos that we can't control and they can't control. Suffering and misery will abound. I wish I could be more optimistic. I almost was when Mubarak left power, but I see that the regime didn't leave power, so even in Egypt where the possibilities exist, it will be a long and painful process before anything good comes from the Arab spring. And a lot of suffering will happen in the meantime in all those countries, where hopes were raised, before they are dashed. And then we have subsaharan Africa - a melting pot of mess for which I have no hope. This is where diplomacy is tried the hardest and shows how weak and ineffectual it really is. But it also shows that its probably no worse than in those other countries where we intervene with military aid. Neither work, both result in untold misery, so again there just doesn't seem to be a solution when men want to kill each other in the name of winning. Charlie Sheen must be proud. I really can't blame Obama on this foreign stuff either. I don't think anyone could do better, but I just really wish we could.
I would be an isolationist if I could. But that would only impact the world, not the country. I'm hung up on what's wrong at home as well. However, if I could only block out word of the rest of the world. I can't stand feeling helpless, but I need to accept the fact that we are helpless. I really need to stop listening and reading and being aware. It won't help anyone else, but it would make my life better. Again, so selfish, but then again, the sky is falling....
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