Maybe I'm naive, but I don't understand either politically or intellectually why prominent politicians and intellectuals are saying and behaving as they are. First,
President Obama
Let me explain. I think what Obama said he would do is both good and extremely important. But trying to achieve everything he said he would--fix the economy, improve health care, ameliorate the education system, slow climate change, stabilize Afghanistan, and so on--is incredibly ambitious. And promising accomplishments in all of these fields is politically dangerous. Despite the difficulties, a failure (and I will be pleasantly surprised if he succeeds on all fronts) could be held against him and could cause his being voted out of office in 2012.
Obama must walk a fine line between hope and realism, and it just seems that his non-State of the Union address fell too far away from the realistic side.
Republicans
Lately, Republicans' and conservatives' statements have seemed incredibly vacuous. Take, for example, this editorial by Charles Krauthammer about Obama's non-SOTU. You would think, it being an opinion piece, that Krauthammer would explain what he thinks and why he thinks it. Not so. He merely describes Obama's plans in a negative fashion:
Conservatives take a dim view of the regulation-bound, economically sclerotic, socially stagnant, nanny state that is the European Union. Nonetheless, Obama is ascendant and has the personal mandate to take the country where he wishes. He has laid out boldly the Brussels-bound path he wants to take.
Let the debate begin.
"Let the debate begin." That's funny. One would think that Krauthammer would want to take part in that debate, but evidently not. 'Because it makes us look like Belgium' is not a good reason to oppose universal health care, limiting greenhouse-gas emissions, and providing college educations.
And claims that Obama is a socialist because he's raising taxes to Clinton-era levels are ridiculous. Ditto on claims of class warfare. No, what we've had, where "each family in the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution was effectively sending a $10,000 check, every year, to the top 1 percent of earners," was class warfare.
The sad thing is that there are legitimate arguments to be made. But Republicans seem to be unable to make them. You cannot say that we should not do everything Obama wants because you're concerned about the national debt: you presided over its near doubling over the past five years. And you need to provide an alternative plan. Besides tax cuts. Because they obviously have not worked.
Lewis Black used to joke that the Republican Party was the party of bad ideas and the Democrats were the party of no ideas. For now, at least, the tables seem to have turned.
1 comment:
1) i agree with the part on the GOP
2) I disagree with the first part on Obama. This is the problem that I see with the USA: people do not hold their leaders accountable to enough. The President is currently viewed as the highest office in the USA. Therefore, he or she has the largest amount of responsibilities and also the greatest accountability. There are many problems that the country currently faces. They many not have been caused by the Obama administration but now that Obama is President, it is his duty to the American people to fix them, not one, not two, but all of them. To some, this may be unrealistic or overly ambitious but his job is to fix these problems nevertheless. All of the issues that you mentioned are pressing issues where time is most certainly of the essence. To wait could (and most certainly would) make matters far worse in the future. I am glad that Obama is fully realizing his responsibilities as President and to the American people by doing his best to fix these issues. While human beings or the world may never be perfect, that is no reason not to try.
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