I don't diary often, and they usually scroll quietly off the "recent" list. But I'm moved to ask these questions.
You’re prez of the US.
You’ve accomplished great things in some areas.
You’ve finally got at least a semblance of health insurance for everyone, ‘though the opposition is trying to strangle it in its crib.
You’ve taken down the greatest mass killer of US citizens in our history.
You’ve nearly ended one awful war and are trying somehow to end the other.
You were a bit late to the party, but once here, have been happy to help rights be extended to non-hetero citizens.
You’re the first African American prez, a distinction that almost guarantees a place of greatness in history. A tremendous uphill battle to win – not once – but TWICE in our racist country, half of which seems to still be fighting the civil war.
You’ve become a millionaire after starting with nothing, an American dream self-made success story.
You have a brilliant mind, a wonderful and loving family, and you never have to run for political office again.
What could anyone on earth possibly offer you to create a budget which is now to the right of rightwing nutcase, your opponent for national office, Paul Ryan? What could it possibly be?
It can’t be to be remembered well. It will remove you from the automatically-greatest prez list in the minds of the majority of your own party. You will now be far behind FDR, JFK, and LBJ. Your own base will turn on you and rue the day they bought your campaign rhetoric about protecting our fragile safety nets.
What could anyone offer you to let massive fiscal crime go unpunished, laws unenforced?
What could anyone offer you to ignore the most tried and true economic policies so desperately needed to right the economic ship and the lives of our citizens?
While we’re at it, what could they possibly offer you to continue to attack, and have your home-town pal, Rahm attack, our public education system?
It boggles my mind that it could come to this. Anyone who has any clue as to how such attacks could be induced on the few remaining decent parts of our national structures, please jump in. I cannot fathom how this particular prez, at this crucial time in history, could be so willing, time and again, to turn his back on those who have placed such trust and hope in him.
Is it money? How much money would be enough?
Is it that you simply believe you are right, despite all that you have said so many times when electrifying your enthusiastic base with dazzling flights of oratory?
Perhaps the greatness of his rhetoric far outstrips the greatness of him who expresses it? I’m at a loss.
What could anyone offer him to bring us to this?