Thursday, September 10, 2009

The Obama "Takeover"

An aura of hysteria has followed President Barack Obama since he stepped into the national limelight. It started with his campaign when throngs of voters rallied to his side for “Change” and sang the hallelujah chorus of “Yes, we can!” It continues today with detractors who descend upon townhall meetings to claim he’s a Nazi or a socialist.

The only thing I get hysterical about when it comes to President Barack Obama, though, is that he hasn’t shown much leadership. Why, for example, are we suggesting that it’s going to take at least 80 percent of the Senate to approve a national healthcare bill?

The Democrats, pussies all, own the Senate. They have a majority.

If Republicans can’t come up with a better plan, let’s put it to a vote. Forget the Republicans who, lacking their own leadership, or plan, appear more like spoiled children, making up stories about death panels and the demise of the poor insurance companies. Democrats, meanwhile, indulge and pamper, flip-flopping over their own plan like beached fish.

Meanwhile, the throngs of Obama supporters who put him into office seem to have vanished. Where are they? Why have they allowed right-wing alarmists to disrupt townhall meetings with their scurrilous claims of a secret Obama agenda to Nazi-fy our government? How have his supporters been so easily silenced? Why accept the lame leadership he’s offered so far?

It was the demand for change that got him elected. What happened? What’s changed?

• Diplomatic belligerence has been reduced a little and returned a step closer to what appears like statesmanship; if only Hillary could stay out of the limelight and let the State Department do its job of bringing in more people like her husband Bill Clinton.
• We’ve decided that torture’s not a good way to make friends with the enemy.
• Obama put a Latina on the nation’s Highest Bench, a woman whose legal verve, we hope, isn’t anything like her persona.
• And, we’re twisting our britches because we can’t get enough Republicans to vote on his healthcare plan. I want a president who kicks ass, someone like Lyndon Johnson, who knows how to muscle his way through loads of bureaucratic bullshit and accomplish his goals.

So far, we’ve got a president who’s not tough enough, who wants a bipartisan bill with partisans who claim he’s trying to ram his “socialist” agenda down our throats. I haven’t seen the president ram anything down anyone’s throat. Not yet, but I hope it happens soon.

Consider the charged hope for change that earned him prominence, the throngs of young voters who turned out to elect him president: It grew with a dynamism that felt real. But was it? What happened to the electricity of 2008? Was voter enthusiasm for Obama just another type of American mass hysteria?

As Obama learns how to govern his own party, another wing of hysterics claims that he’s hired 30 czars (as opposed to the usual 12)—some of whom are communist—in his diabolical plan to take over the government.

I’m still waiting for the takeover; I wish he’d hurry up.

I’d love to see the dynamism for change we sought in electing Obama president turn into something real. Policies with substance and clout; action not rhetoric on behalf of the millions of Americans without health insurance; protections against bankers, dinosaur automakers and businesses that should go out of business instead of receiving government bailouts.

Critics who fear a communist takeover need not fear: Just as Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 911, so the communists have nothing to do with Obama’s czars. It’s more likely to be your next-door neighbor, someone like me, who wants to see a takeover, who wants his president to start kicking some ass.

Until then, I’ll wish upon Obama the ghost of Lyndon Johnson to harass and pester him until he can no longer sleep at night, until finally he’s forced to take hold of the reins of government and put some real muscle into his declaration for change. §

1 comment:

  1. A look in Obama's past history would help clear up some of your disappointment. When nuclear power plants in Illinois started reporting tritium leaks Obama jumped on the bandwagon and placed a bill into the legislature requiring reporting etc. Then Exelon, the owner of the nukes, gave the Obama campaign $300,000 and WA-LA - no more bill. I have been, from the beginning, wary of what this man can and will do. Bears watching.

    ReplyDelete