ALEX's BLOG:
NOTE TO WHITE HOUSE: BIPARTISANSHIP DIDN'T WORK: you held out your hand and the GOP spit on it...and then they complained that you tried to touch them with a spitty hand!
Okay, just last night, as I watched John Boenher slur his way through a victory speech, I looked for some silver linings...and I found one: now that the GOP holds the purse-strings in the House, they will actually have to DO something, rather than carp, complain, and pretend that this is not their mess in the first place.
I am very confident that, by 2012, the seeds planted in 2009 will begin to pay off for Democrats, while Republican efforts will bring absolutely no relief to a nervous American people. Making 2012 a pretty good year for Democrats...and allowing them to finish the work they started. We need to get this country BACK ON THE RIGHT TRACK...we need to re-build our neglected infrastructure, incubate the industries and energy sources of the future and set ourselves up to compete with China and India...so that we do not wind up as a second rate power within the next three decades.
The only thing that really needs to be in place to make this happen is a White House Communications Team who understands that we are fighting for the future of our country...and that we are in a fight against a party who is completely wrong, and so completely bullheaded that they will never realize it, they will never compromise, they will never surrender. We must, therefore, do the same. Draw the Sword and toss the scabbard. The White House needs to cast itself as the underdog, show the country how arrogant and ignorant these republicans are and...FIGHT! (Have I said that before?)
But this morning...I have to admit, I'm a lot less optimistic than I was last night.
The first thing I read was this headline:
"White House aide: President Obama will heed election message"
The text doesn't get any better:
A top aide to President Barack Obama said not to look for a change in his “fundamental principles, but certainly there were messages that have to be heeded, and we will.”
“If you believe in democracy, we were swept in by a big wave, so you have to pay attention to these results and what people are saying,” the aide said. “They want us to work together, to focus on the economy – for jobs and growth — and we’re going to do that.”
The tone was more humble than is customary for this White House, and the aide promised a period of introspection.The aide also mentioned deficits as an area that the parties can do a better job of working together.
JEESOM H FREEKING CROW!!! A better job of working together? What freaking planet is the "aide" living on?
And where have they freaking been for the last 20 years? When Republicans get their asses handed to them, they don't go talking about "working together"....HELL'S NO!
Republicans get Whooped, and immediately they go put their big boots on and start stomping around like they OWN the place! They start talking trash, throwing rocks, and pretending like they actually won...and nine times out of ten, it works. My god, by February of 2009, a mere month after Mr. Obama took office, you'd think the freaking GOP had actually WON the election of 2008!
But our Team Of Leaders in the White House is "Humbled" and talking about "working together"...
Look, kids: That's what you said when you WON in 2008. And I have to admit, that whole Bi-partisan reaching across the aisle thing...it was a nice try, it showed class...really, it did. But it didn't work. Again, in case you missed it: IT DIDN'T WORK: you held out your hand and the GOP spit on it...and then they complained that you tried to touch them with a spit covered hand!
If it didn't work then, what the hell makes you think it's gonna work NOW?
Look, Democrats...the policies are GOOD. They are working and will continue to work. But you are going to have to FIGHT.
Because that is what the other side is doing:
Boehner and many Republicans floated some conciliatory messages toward Democrats on Tuesday night, but many factions of the party, including those closely aligned with the tea party, remained defiant. Two leading tea party leaders -- Sarah Palin and South Carolina GOP Sen. Jim DeMint -- insisted that the election results were more an argument against compromise than a case for working with Democrats. "The GOP has to understand, that machine has to understand, we are not sending Republicans … to D.C. to sing Kumbaya with Obama," Palin told conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham. "We're sending them to stop Obama!"
That's a clear a declaration of war as you could possibly want... so stop showing up dressed for tennis, Mr. Obama, and come dressed for all out combat...
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3 comments:
Alex, as always I enjoy your blog but I think that you have some points wrong.
For one, as he demonstrated so clearly in the long election campaign, Obama has always played the long game. Yes he may have made a few mistakes in the White Hou...se but I cannot agree that what he has achieved in the last two years is mediocre. For one thing, extensions to the young people in America so that they can afford College tuition and enabling more people greater access to healthcare is planting seeds for the future of the country to move from solely a financial (funded by China in reality) economy to one in which more people have access to education and healthcare. For a country as vast as the US this is no mean feat. Yes he may not be making wonderful speeches all of the time, but even when he does he was often accused of being little more than hot air. The man just can't seem to win. Additionally, Republican gains were nowhere near as strong as they were expected to be. I remember our own election and was laughing that Tory government couldn't get a majority over an unpopular Labour government after 13 years in opposition! In the end they had to ally with a Liberal centre party and concede on many policies that have got the right wing section of the Tory party fuming, we see them complain on a daily basis.
I am not saying that the politics are strictly the same, I am saying that Obama certainly needs to be given more credit. Rahter than make numerous speeches, (gifted as he is) he should have focused on (pardon the phrase) ramming it down American throats just what it is that he has achieved in power in two short years. People forget that Bill Clinton and even Reagan (though I concede that it was more of a two man show with Reagan) had to deal with a Republican majority who threw out healthcare reform for Clinton many, many times. Yes Clinton may have come out fighting and been able to win over many Americans (even Republican moderates) but Obama is many ways smarter than that. If he look over the history of his campaign, he has always played the long game and even when the campaign got dirty, he knew what to do and in the end won against worse odds than he (arguably) is up against now as President. In my opinion people have jumped onto a bandwagon and focused on the negativity surrounding Obama rather than remember what it is that he is actually capable of doing and has achieved during his time in Office. Bipartisanship may have been a long shot, but in actual fact if you look at the votes cast, the Republicans are not exactly very popular
either. Apathy has set in the US about politics in general, to lay the blame at Obama's feet alone doesn't make any sense.
-R
-Cont'd-
I saw that someone had commented yesterday that Obama was a lot like Carter, you may disagree but Carter had one thing right; he was attempted to tell Americans time and again to understand their limits. Reagan had other ideas, but in reality with issues such as climate change for one, obstinacy set in long before Obama and was rigorously pushed through by many politicians before he had the chance to change it. That is part of the problem with the US now, to compete with new emerging powers China and India is becoming almost impossible, even Europe is struggling. We hear on the news about the US car industry going under, Obama has to appease those whose jobs depend on the industry with the knowledge that the industry is going under and that climate change policy would lead to a compromise on money allocated to this industry. This mess has been coming for a long time. Obama can't keep on making speeches to counteract the problems in his own country, he needs to act and I would argue that he has. He singled out the most vulnerable groups in the US at a time of great economic uncertainty and made them his priority for healthcare and for education, a brave move and even FDR came up against opposition for spending during economic difficulties but got people back into work with a series of programmes (yes I would also argue that manufacturing for the war effort would help) but don't write Obama off just yet. He's smarter than people give him credit for, that has always been his greatest strength and what Conservative newscasters and Republicans have always feared.
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