Credit where credit is due
I came across this (click photo to see) post on Facebook. Darrell Garrett, whom I don’t know, is apparently a friend of a friend, and that’s how I saw this. (Anyone with more than 750 friends is bound to cross that six-degrees-of-separation line somewhere.) I wanted to respond to Mr. Garrett’s challenge, since he says that no one has been able to. But I don’t know how to write in the “response” block. I don’t hang out on FB a lot. Perhaps FB allows responses only from Friends. And I think Mr. Garrett and I would agree on one thing at least – that we would not be companionable Friends.
I’ve been disappointed with President Obama. He has moved much further to the right than I expected, and he seems to have been very late in discovering that what he called negotiating we called betraying his supporters. He has referred to liberals as “sanctimonious”. And like everyone else in American politics he has become beholden to big money. Some of his largest contributions come from Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Citigroup, JPMorgan, Time Warner, IBM. But in this era of he-with-the-most-money gets the most “free” speech, I don’t know what he can do about that.
But he does deserve some credit, so here goes: my late-night effort to look for reasons to support President Obama.
1. President Obama has proposed a Jobs Bill that will reduce unemployment, and will not increase the deficit. Republicans have blocked it, but he has done what he can do get around the blockade.
2. He has created a Consumer Protection Agency, which you will benefit from. The Republicans have tried to gut it of all it’s authority and have refused to accept as its leader the woman who has done the most work on it, but at least it now exists.
3. He has appointed two moderates to the Supreme Court, moderates who actually have legal credentials and high scores from the bar.
4. He has cut taxes for the middle class and for small business, and has tried valiantly to reduce the loopholes that allow the rich to take more and more from the poor. (Yes, hard-earned money from the working poor IS being re-distributed to the rich. And no corporations actually pay the tax rate that Republicans are fond of quoting.)
5. He captured Osama bin Laden
6. He has made some effort to address the very real and serious environmental problems.
7. He has put a stop to the policy of allowing politicians to re-write scientific reports.
8. He has instituted a more humane policy on Cuba, allowing Cuban families to travel to visit their parents and children.
9. He has removed restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research.
10.He can put a sentence together, even a compound or complex sentence, complete with subject and verb. This may not be important to you, but it is important to our standing in the larger world.
Would anyone care to add to my list? Or challenge my list?
What more can one say? Helen of Marlowe has taken it to the top with TEN pertinent, puissant remarks. Her remarks invite comparison with Moses — the last one I remember who gave us ten things to attend to!
Rovorz
Moses, huh … yeah …I like that.
How about adding that the President is proceeding to keep his promise to bring our troops home from two unproductive (and one unnecessary) wars?
Good point Jim. I’m sure I left out some of his most important achievements. Thanks for adding this.
#5 should be killed or captured in a body bag. Which I think was far more cost effective than a live capture.
marx, true. Killing is certainly more cost effective than bringing to trial. I’m just not entirely
comfortable with it.
Did someone already mention the repealing of “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” and I missed it? Thanks to a long overdue change in military policy, gays can now serve and die openly in the military.
I was quite disappointed with Obama’s watered down health care bill which barely passed, but I also believe that it brought the health care debate “back from the dead.”
Thank you hl — I’m glad to see that one added. That brings us up to twelve now.
Obama didn’t capture Osama bin Laden. He authorized a flagrant violation of Pakistani sovereignty and what amounted to a judicial murder. Under the circumstances, this may have been a lesser evil than allowing bin Laden to continue orchestrating terrorists and letting a gold mine of intelligence go untapped, but I’m not sure it’s something to celebrate. President Obama’s heavy reliance on extrajudicial murder (drone attacks) as an instrument of US foreign policy and national defense would shock us if he were a Republican.
Fitz, I can’t disagree with you. I wish I could. See my response to marx, above. I’m not entirely comfortable
with the way that was carried out.
Maybe Helen can’t disagree with you, Fitz, but I can. If Pakistan were a nation with a government firmly in control of its business like most First World governments are, then I could accept your criticism, but it is not. Pakistan has a weak government with a weak leader and a track record of inconsistent and often anti-American behavior. They have virtually no control over vicious factions like the Haqqani Network. What President Obama did was pragmatic and, in my opinion, a gutsy success. He showed real leadership and not only eliminated OBL but at the same time sent a powerful message to all would-be financiers of terrorism that we are not afraid to deal decisively with them. Is this not a much better way to wage the so-called “War on Terror” than trying to take a nation of illiterate, misogynistic religious fanatics, a.k.a. Afghanistan, and attempt to rebuild them kicking and screaming into our own democratic image? I sure think so.
Thanks Jim. Well said.
[...] http://helenofmarlowe.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/483/ I’ve [...]
I will add now Pres. Obama’s decision to block the XL Keystone pipeline – the transnational pipeline that would pump toxic tar sands oil from Canada down to Texas.
Unfortunately, he has “blamed” the republicans (they passed a 60-day time limit on his decision) instead of taking the credit. Still, he stood up for what is right, and gets credit for that.