Exactly what is President Obama doing anyway? No matter how busy he seems someone is always calling him out on something he is not doing, or something he should have done yesterday.
Dick Cheney and John McCain seem to think he is "dithering" on his decision on what to do about Afghanistan. And Rush Limbaugh is convinced that he is just not up to the job at all. How he managed to get into office is a mystery to them, and no matter how many depressions he nips or industries he manages to pull from the clutches of collapse, he will still get trashed for participating in a reverential ceremony at Dover Air Force Base in the middle of the night.
If that is not enough, Newsweek's cover last week suggested that Progressives should just hold their fire because although he is not making them happy right now, he still has the potential to make them proud if he could just get his act together in the near future. I think everyone needs to lighten up a little and here's why...
I admit it. I fell for it. I had the "audacity to hope" and I knew, I did not think, I knew, that Barack Obama was going to save the world. Well, he's been at it now for a while and if you read the headlines from last week you would be convinced that he has been playing catch-up since his innaugaration. Well, actually that is exactly what he has been doing, poor guy. He jumped into the game with a running start having taken over for his lame duck predecessor even before he ever set foot in the Oval Office. He had to keep reminding people that the U.S. only has one President at a time. When it became his turn he hit the ground running, as we all know, and he hasn't slowed yet.
I still have the hope that he will change the world. He already has. He even got a prize for his efforts, and he got mocked for that as well. It is like he cannot do anything right even if absolutely everything he is doing is the right thing. Because nothing has substantially changed for us yet, we are collectively still feeling unfulfilled.
But I would argue that we, as a society, have just been coasting along, as if we are being propelled by his wonderfulness, and perhaps maybe he is getting a little tired from having to drag everyone around. Perhaps it is time for us to do some of our own heavy lifting now, to take some responsibility for our circumstances and quit looking for someone to save us. He is the President of the United States and he is a pretty good one, but he is not magical. He is human, although I would argue that he has a magical aura about him which makes people believe that he can do whatever he sets his mind to. It's all those negative thinkers and dream squashers in D.C. that are holding him back is all.
It is hard to face facts though when there is someone as prominent as he is to blame for our unemployment and our taxes and our general bad moods because we are at war and there is almost constant murmurings of new ones on the horizon even as we fight the ones we are currently in. I find myself depressed that "peace" has not happened yet, and everywhere I look I see negativity in the headlines, the mirrors of our lives. I wanted the ecstasy of his election to be able to carry me for years. I got a few months out of it.
But if things are going to turn around for the economy and for our collective mood it is going to be because people took matters into their own hands--turned things around for themselves--not because of anything Barack Obama did or didn't do. I think he has done his part. Now it is time for us to do ours. Shake off the depression. Spend. Save. Vote. And most importantly keep praying for peace.