This is not an Obama bashing diary, although I am frustrated to be sure.
But I am also dismayed by the growing number of diaries and comments that focus on what the President and the Dems "are up against."
I read the MSM and shudder at the lies that are repeated and at the the shallow investigation that passes as journalism.
I watch the video clips of Beck, Limbaugh and Palin and cringe--sometimes with an anxious knot in my stomach.
But this is not what we are up against. Really.
I do a lot of consulting with businesses and non-profits. I have noticed that the organizations and companies that thrive are rarely focused on the negative pressure pushing against their success.
Social service agencies that focus on the dysfunctions and troubles of their clients typically become paralyzed and dysfunctional themselves. Businesses that focus on their competitor's market share or price structure rarely pull ahead.
This is how the administration and the Dems have been behaving.
We have (now it may be had) enormous assets. A resounding electoral win. Real disgust at the excesses and lies of Wall Street and the previous administration. A movement of volunteers that dwarfs the Tea-Party. An economy that made real and concrete the need to reform American capitalism to create more balance and restore opportunity to more people.
The President and the party has never really worked to unleash that power. When health care came up our leaders focused almost exclusively on what compromises needed to be made, rather than on rallying the American people to speak out against excessive profiteering from disease and death that is rampant in our current, and reformed, system.
On financial reform, we focused on back room compromises rather than tapping the real frustration and focus present in the electorate regarding the abuses and excesses of high stakes Wall Street gambling.
On the deficit, we don't reach out to Middle class Americans whose Social Security payments made possible the borrowing needed to create the Bush Tax cuts, we worry about seeking balance and political neutrality with characters like Simpson.
It's how organizations and businesses suffering from decline and malaise operate. Focus on the hurdle while ignoring your strengths.
So, let's not bash the President. But let's push him, and the congressional leadership, to stop focusing on the hurdles and start capturing our strengths.
We can make this happen--but our leaders need to call on our vision, energy and passion.
Let me add: I don't believe the nonsense that the problem is that our leadership secretly supports right wing ideas or opposes progressive ideas. I think/hope Obama probably wanted to get a little more out of the Health Care Reform process. My point is that the focus on the obstacles has caused us to rush to compromise and to potentially lose more battles than were necessary if we had spent more time gathering and reinforcing our strengths. A great athlete doesn't get better by fretting over their inability to draw, which is what seems to happen to Dem leaders once we vote them in.