Notes of Concern…
…Jack Blair
I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I must have been asleep for some time.
There was a campaign for President of the United States a while back in which Senator John McCain competed with Senator Barack Obama. While it is a bit hazy as I look at the administration’s current decisions, I really thought Obama had won that contest.
Obama said he would close Guantanamo Bay within twelve months of taking his oath of office. The majority of the people said “Hooray!”
He said some pretty awful things about the Patriot Act that had been put in place by President George Bush. The majority of the people said “Hooray!”
He said he would support the Defense of Marriage Act. The majority of the people said “Hooray!”
He said he would not engage in nation building around the world. The majority of the people said “Hooray!”
He said he would wind down the war in Iraq and get us out of the quagmire that was Afghanistan. The majority of the people said “Hooray!”
He announced that our enemies should be afforded the rights of American citizens and not be tried by military tribunals but rather in the regular court systems. The majority of the people said “Hooray!”
Conversely, McCain seemed to think holding terrorists in a prison off U.S. soil was a pretty good idea. The majority of the people said “Boo”!
McCain supported the Patriot Act. The majority of the people said “Boo”!
McCain felt we needed to do a thorough job in Iraq and it would be some time before we could plan to depart. The majority of the people said “Boo”!
He also felt we needed to take a stronger position in Afghanistan. The majority of the people said “Boo”!
This list of campaign statements could be much more lengthy but I trust I have set the stage for my thinking on the current situation.
The American people liked what they heard from Senator Obama and they elected him President of the United States.
And then…
A little more than two years into his four-year term Obama has kept Guantanamo Bay open as an American prison for terrorists.
He has said he changed his mind about the Defense of Marriage Act.
He reversed course and now will try terrorists in military tribunals rather than the regular courts.
He ordered a surge of troops into Afghanistan.
He increased our involvement in Iraq and vowed to extend our stay.
As for nation building, or nation meddling, we are all over the Middle East and have our fingers in many pies! We have involved ourselves militarily in Libya, abandoned our long time ally in Egypt, and run both hot and cold, first offering support and withdrawing it from other nations in turmoil.
While we have attempted to pretend either the UN or NATO or France were heading up all these activities, it is the good old U.S. Treasury that is footing the bill, which now is in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Clearly, I missed something during my long sleep.
Somehow, defying all odds, not to mention the popular vote and the Electoral College, it appears John McCain is in fact our president. Or at least Bush era policies are alive and healthy as they would have been under a President McCain.
Not since Lyndon Johnson told us in 1964 all the horrible things Senator Barry Goldwater would do if he were elected president and led us to hand him the largest electoral and popular victory recorded in history to that point have we experienced such a complete reversal in campaign promises as reflected in administrative actions.
You will recall that Johnson did, in fact, seriously step up American involvement in Vietnam and the American people made certain he served only one term, believing they had been bamboozled.
In their anger they completely discounted the tremendous policies Johnson was able to bring about with reference to the domestic agenda.
Some folks feel President Obama owes George Bush an apology.
Much of the Obama campaign against the Bush/Cheney administration focused on the subjects outlined earlier in this column. After entering The White House and being exposed to the daily security reports and the studies of situations throughout the world, actions taken by the previous administration seemed to look better to President Obama.
One can only surmise that he came to understand the importance Bush put on keeping the homeland safe from terrorist attack. By strengthening many of the Bush era policies Obama has extended America’s period free from terrorist attack from eight years to ten.
I am listening!
I do not hear the “cheers” or the “boos.”
One can extrapolate that Bush thought terrorists, essentially military combatants, should be tried by military tribunals, and that Obama came to appreciate the reasons.
If the American voters wanted the changes Barack Obama promised during his campaign for President, they must be experiencing a serious case of “buyer’s remorse” right now. The public opinion polls would indicate that is case. Just this week those polls showed the President losing ground with women and with blacks, two groups from which he received significant support in the election. Of course the voters who did not choose him before do not express any change of heart so the president is left to try to cobble together the old coalition that brought him to The White House. There are defections, in great numbers, from that coalition and it appears to be crumbling.
Even Oprah Winfrey was reported this week to have no plans to endorse the president for re-election. Earlier in March the actor Matt Damon expressed his dissatisfaction with the administration he helped win. I have never understood or appreciated why movie stars think they can impact any election but it would appear that a serious crack has developed in the “movie star support” category recently.
It would seem that Barack Obama is on the same popularity slide that smacked George Bush upside the head during his last term.
During the Lyndon Johnson times TV newsman Walter Cronkite abandoned the president on national television. Lyndon Johnson said that if he had lost Walter Cronkite he had lost the American people.
Maybe Barack Obama will feel if he has lost Oprah and Matt he, too, has lost the American people!
If the present trend continues, President Obama will join President Johnson, President Carter and a few others as a one-term occupant of the office. Of course, this prediction assumes the GOP can actually discover an attractive and capable candidate when, in many past contests, they have failed to do so.
The American people have a long memory.
It is not nice to fool the American people.
The American people do not appreciate presidents making U-Turns after the election.
The “hoorays” are beginning to be drowned out by the “boos.”
Someone told me the other day that George W. Bush emerged briefly from his secure hiding place in Texas, saw his shadow, and predicted only two more years of Obama.
The key for Barack Obama will be to use the remaining years in his presidency to successfully explain to those who did vote for him why he reversed himself on so many important policy issues, and to do so without seeming to saying the Bush administration may well have had it right on many of these controversial issues.
Welcome to the next Presidential Election cycle.
As you come out of your winter doldrums you will be confronted with the reality that the campaign begins in earnest very soon.
“Hooray?”
“Boo?”
