I do some blogging for a UK site on US politics. This one if you're interested, a small community where l am one of the few liberals. While l hold part of the minority view l do try to hold my own, expecially on our last debates over torture and Ted Kennedy.
We do our best to be civil even though we disagree so l was asked for some input on the state of things.
I have been asked for my views on the Obama administration so far, and as you can see from the title it's not as l had hoped. I did see it a bit like a scene from Charlie Brown. Not the brilliant Frank Miller inspired piece from Timothy Lim and Jean Luc Pham or my all time favourite "She's a good Skate, Charlie Brown" where Woodstock Whistles "O Mio Babbino Caro", one of my favourite pieces of classical music.
No. the scene l am thinking of is the one synonymous with Charlie Brown. The one that everybody thinks of. Charlie Brown , Lucy and the football. This scene is so iconic that you don't even have to link to it, you know what happens. Charlie Brown the eternal optimist yet again believes Lucy when she says she will allow him to kick that football, and yet again his hopes are dashed as she pulls it away for him to do a gigantic air kick and land painfully on his back.
Now why would l think that? The Obama administration has done a lot in it's first term so far, in terms of trying to move the economy and trying to pass healthcare reform, but the frustrating thing to me and some others is the president's slavish adherence to keep reaching out to republicans even though he keeps getting that football swiped away.
There have been other decisions too that have failed to keep me and others fully behind him:
Don't Ask, Don't Tell; the channeling of the Bush administration on DOMA; the failure to close Guantanamo; the support in keeping secret those involved in the Warrentless Wiretapping scandal; the continuation of the Rendition programme and worst of all the failure to prosecute those in the Bush White House involved in torture.
But nothing has seen his support from me and others begin to waiver as much as with healthcare reform.
There have been calls by some, notably Bill Maher for the current president to act more like the previous one, something that you see the linked pieces author disagrees with and makes a pretty good point but the problem is this:
It only works when both sides are willing to come together
Look at the Stimulus Bill. The Obama administration agreed to a lot of the demands of the republicans and watered down the bill to the extent that even economists like Paul Krugman began to doubt it's effectiveness. But they did it anyway and what was the result? Not a single Republican vote in the House.
After that we had Bobby "Kenneth the Page" Jindal attempting to mock the bill and it's inclusion of things like Volcano Monitoring before retreating into the netherworld again with egg on his face after Alaska's Mt. Redoubt erupted and still remaining silent as $500,000 is used by Louisiana for the purposes of upgrading flood-monitoring technology. Of course this hasn't stopped the shameless oppotunist from going around the state handing out big cheques for restart and work programmes using the money he spent time criticizing.
The worst thing is that Jindal isn't the only Republican berating the president over the stimulus yet going back to their state to brag about all the work being done while conveniently forgetting where it came from and still we have seen from the administration so vilified by the right more examples of hope over expectation, expecially on healthcare.
Chuck Grassley is supposed to be the man who democrats are working with on healthcare reform, but what have we heard from him in the last few weeks?
Agreement with "Deathers" that the president is going to kill granny, refusal to name an amount that he would be happy to commit to for healthcare reform, and a statement that if he cannot get a bill passed without broader Republican support HE WOULD VOTE AGAINST IT EVEN THOUGH IT'S HIS BILL leading the Quad City Times to produce a scathing editorial denouncing him.
Grassley is important because he is supposed to be the man the Obama administration is negotiaing with but it just seems to me that the racist, mysoginistic, obese, half-deaf, thrice divorced, drug addict behind the curtain is the one who Grassley and other Republicans are listening to, hoping for a failure of the country.
There is Republican Healthcare Plan out there (thanks cabbie) but who can say the last time you heard about it? Yet still we have this outreach programme to people who have no qualms in sitting back as the president is called a Nazi or one of the main hosts on their media channel defames him by saying that he is a "racist" with a "deep seated hatred of white people".
The Research 200 tracking poll for Daily Kos has the president at 55/40 fav/unfav, something that amazingly Republicans crow about, as if people are flocking to them. The Republican numbers (14/73 for Congressional Republicans, 14/64 John Boehner and 18/64 Mitch McConnell) makes me wonder why a group called "a bunch of Chicago Thugs" by their opponents would waste time doing their best to bring them into the process of lawmaking when there has been no real sign of that so far.
My personal view is that more and more people are coming around to the Bill Maher point of view, demanding to know why the president is so intent on trying to reach out to people who have no intention of working with him and not slapping down the "blue dogs" his chief of staff helped bring to the Democratic side.
Will things improve for President Obama? Well we know how much the Republicans fear healthcare reform, because just like the election of Obama and the finanicial downturn it is an indictment on their political worldview as well as a rejection of their core political and economic priciples. It's been stated that the vast majority of US citizens class themselves as conservatives but 77% of the country all see the value of the Public Option when it comes to healthcare, a message that has been lost so far with the astroturf rent-a-mobs screaming down reform advocates.
How will the president get the message through on any of his plans if he continues to try to work with the party of no and it's media arm which this weekend grew to include The Washington Post and the disgusting decision by Fred Haitt to allow the piece torture to be printed in the once great paper?
The president has to do something and soon, because his bipartizan approach isn't getting the results he wants. I'm afraid that by the end of September, AT THE LATEST, he will have to ditch the Republicans and go it alone, stepping on the necks of the "blue dogs" in the process to get it done or the progressive community who got him elected will do it for him. Not a popular viewpoint amongst those on the right but remember the reaction to the three Republicans who voted for the simulus before you act in high dudgeon.
It's customary to give a grade on what you think on a lot of these things, but l don't really like that. All l hope is that the president, while remembering he is there for ALL the people in the US thinks a bit more about the parts that got him to where he is now.
The others don't want your help Mr President. Stop trying so hard and wasting your time doing stuff for them, they don't seem to be worth it.