History will be the final judge on our first black president
Many people voted for Obama because they were tired of the two wars with the human tolls and the exhaustion of nation’s resource. The wars left GOP unpopular. In this light, their choice was more a rejection of the then ruling party and its war policy than an acceptance of Obama.
To be sure, as a politician, President Obama was inexperienced. American political culture is a brutal one. I don’t think Obama is tough enough to stand the heat of the political bullying. His repeated compromises and reconciliation are perceived as weakness.
Since he was inexperienced as a politician, it came as no surprise when we see him make mistakes, many of them. The first one is he failed to explain to the nation why we had to spend bailout money and failed to hold responsible those who are the root of the financial trouble. The nation wants to know why we couldn’t use the bailout money to build highway and bridge or information highway, which would certainly create jobs?
Second, healthcare reform — universal health care, the 30-plus-year dream of the Democratic party, could still wait. All efforts should be directed at economic recovery and at creating jobs at the time when the nation is deeply in red and in urgent need of revenue to reduce deficit.
By rushing through the health reform against highly concentrated oppositions from one party, he actually succeeded in attracting the most ferocious and unnecessary political attack upon himself, which made it difficult for him to push through other agendas, thus nearly handicapped his presidency.
His opponents even pushed the issue to the supreme court. What’s the rush in passing this bill in the midst of the worst recession since 1930s? The reform is a miscalculation.
If Obama was so keen on health reform, why didn’t he try and place Mitt Romney or any republican as the Secretary of health department and ask Romney to introduce to the nation the health law he enforced in MA? The appointment of Kathleen Sebelius is another mistake.
History will be the final judge of Obama’s presidency. No matter what will happen, he will definitely go down the history as the first black president, which bears the strongest testimony to the greatness and the racial equality achieved by the nation, an achievement we should all be proud of. 4/7/2012
Hank Burns
1 year, 1 month agoThere are a lot of ‘firsts’ for Obama, he is the first black president to receive a Nobel Prize for doing nothing. Mr. Obama is the first black president to hide his school records and the first black president to have a 2-year ‘supermajority’ but has not submitted a budget for over one thousand days.
Quite a list for history to judge.