In Bill Maher's final New Rule for this week, he ripped into Barack Obama, claiming he's not delivering on the change he promised.
Likening him to Lindsay Lohan was a big over the top, but comedians will be comedians. Salman Rushdie, about a month or so ago, on Maher's show no less, rightly said that his big fear regarding Obama was that he's be a "wuss" -- that he'd be "too moderate, too cautious, too Republican."
There's some truth to this concern. He's done some noble things (restoring the rule of law, pursuing diplomacy abroad, reversing many hideous Bush policies) and his ideas are for the most part great, but he's been too hesitant in pursuing them.
It's wildly contrary to Bush, who had no hesitation in ramming his terrible ideas through, never letting little things like human rights or the rule of law stand in the way. And save for the weeks after 9/11 (which was completely undeserved), Bush was never that popular. With all of Obama's popularity, I'll never understand why he isn't charging ahead on the issues.
On climate change, Obama's proposal is merely "nibbling" -- it's a step in the right direction but not nearly the leap we need. His handling of the banks has been utterly disappointing. He hasn't even touched some other issues that he, in a perfect world, should be all over -- gun control, same-sex marriage and legalization of marijuana. On education -- another one of his hot button issues -- he's also just nibbling against teachers unions, and not making the necessary investments that'll pay off in the future.
On health care, as someone who has studied this issue quite a bit, I think he's doing the right thing. Theoretically, it would be nice to demolish the whole rotten system and rebuild it, but that's never going to gain political clout. I know it sounds cynical but just look at history -- all such attempts ended in failure (most prominently Clinton and Truman), while the only successes took the incrementalist approach (Medicare and Medicaid), which Obama is adopting.
Health care is far and away the biggest issue on his plate; not only is it an enormous matter for the country, it'll be the first milestone in his presidency -- the first major historical test of whether his presidency was a successful one.
And it's only a few months away from D-day. If I were him, I'd be putting everything I've got into this. If he does that I can hardly see him failing.