What will be Obama's Presidential Legacy?
So today on Martin Luther King’s Birthday, begins the final four years of the Obama Presidency. After all the inaugural day hoopla dies, down, the poetry readings, celebration and the buzz regarding the Michelle Obama’s videotaped disdain of John Boehner and theCorporate Money being used for the Inauguration the reality will become official tomorrow, it is back to work. A president which Republicans had vowed to eliminate since day one. A president who was “destined” to follow Jimmy Carter into thew list of ineffectual and hapless leaders, January 21, 2012 there he still stands. What path will Obama take this final four years? The final term of a two term president is the legacy builder. In a country were its people have an odd tendency to get what happened yesterday, and declare five years ago to be “history” these four year will be ultimately what Obama will be remembered for. This is the moment. This is the moment where the legacy writes itself into history books, how will this president become known in the eyes of history?
Obama’s final term is here and now reality sets in. Already things are bound to heat with a battle over the meme of the deficit. The battle lines continued to be drawn in the sand regarding debt. Ultimately this President will have to ultimately have to stand. This president will have to decided where his priorities will be and with who will he side over the fight to preserve our Nation’s safety net. Now that the fiscal cliff has been somewhat resolved when it comes to taxes the next war will feature the debt ceiling as well as the so called entitlement (Medicare and Social Security). Medicare and Social Security regardless of Conservative clarion calls to “privatize” and give the future security of the American people over to Wall St. and those parasitic “money managers”; countinues to be successful program which every day provide not only for those who are sick and retired, but also provide compensation or care to those with disabilities who have been paying into the system but have fallen upon some unfortunate incident (ie Social Security Disability). Privatization of Medicare and Social Security will only serve to enrich a small interest group who wishes to increase the financial bottom line by also serving older and sick individuals and throwing them from the world of safe and guaranteed health care and pensions into the wild west world of private health care and the Stock Market. It is in this “War of Entitlements” that the president has the chance to write for himself a positive legacy as a man who stood for the poor and middle class of our Nation.
However there is a certain darkness that potentially clouds President Obama’s legacy. In several important issues the president has unfortunately proven to be a paradox......
Read more here