Some people who base their views of the Obama administration on skits from Saturday Night Live are under the impression that Obama has not accomplished very much during his first year in office. Nathan Newman has made a lengthy list of Obama’s achievements. If he can add the passage of health care reform his record will have probably wind up achieving more than any president other than FDR.
This is not to say he has made the right decision every time or that his record is perfect but it does show that he has done far more than to give speeches about hope and change as some of his detractors claim.
At this point in GWB’s presidency, he had enriched the wealthiest Americans with borrowed money in order to a: give back the surplus b: stimulate the economy c: Reward his base. He enjoyed a 90% approval rating because al Qaeda had successfully attacked America.
I would remind Republicans who make claims about Bush Derangement Syndrome that Americans, including Democrats, including liberals, gave GWB a chance. Contrast this with folks who have been on full on total rhetorical assault on Obama since the moment the votes were counted.
I consider America’s swings from right to left necessary and healthy because it can keep us close to the middle, but the rightwing powers that be in this country are dead set on upsetting that balance and moving headlong to oligarchy.
I wish these people understood what the Founding Fathers did, that the best way to protect the standing of the elite is to empower the common. Concentrating wealth indefinitely always has the same endgame, and it’s not pretty.
I was a stockbroker for a while when after college and I worked with an 88 year old, semi-retired investment banker who once told me the most thing he learned in his entire career was this, “Take a little, leave a little, but don’t break up the game”.
This constant, relentless, vicious push to the right, has the potential to break up the game. If our government shifts in 2010, and/or Obama loses in 2012, it will signal the final end of the middle class in this country, and with doublespeak brilliance, half of the country will be positive that it was brought on by liberals (who had not been in power for a quarter of the last 20 years).