Shortly after Barack Obama's inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, I was invited to a dinner at the Lebanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. in honor of Ray LaHood. LaHood had just been named as Secretary of Transportation, and the Embassy was proud that the grandson of Lebanese immigrants had been named to serve in the new president's cabinet. It was, in many ways, a special night that captured the mood of Washington in early 2009.
The nation was in shock, facing the prospect of collapse of the financial sector. With the homes of millions of Americans threatened by foreclosure, with the stock market in a deep decline putting pension funds at risk, and with unemployment rising, Americans were reeling. Instead of giving way to despair or cynicism, the newly elected president was ushered into office by voters who responded to his promise to restore hope and change the political culture of Washington. Our night at the Embassy spoke to that hope and change.
Ray LaHood had been a prominent establishment Republican Congressman, who had presided over the session of Congress that voted to impeach then-President Bill Clinton. Before being elected to Congress he had served as Chief of Staff to then Republican Minority Leader, Bob Michel. In the House of Representatives, LaHood became known as a moderate and a bridge-builder. He had co-hosted dinners with Democratic colleagues in an effort to promote bi-partisan understanding and cooperation. And so his selection to serve in the new president's cabinet was not surprising. It was a recognition of both his and the new president's commitment to changing the way Washington worked.
In fact, that spirit was so contagious back then that even some of the more partisan Democrats and Republicans were singing off the same page. One incident at that Embassy dinner comes to mind. During the after-dinner remarks, a Lebanese-American GOP Congressman, Darrell Issa, rose to offer a toast not only to the new Secretary, but the new president, saying that he hoped that Barack Obama would have not "four, but eight years in the White House." He went on to explain that he deliberately intended "eight", since being reelected to a second term would mean that the President had been successful in turning the country around, and that his success was important for the country and was a goal that should unite us all. That was the mood in Washington that night.
As I have listened to the increasingly harsh political rhetoric coming from Republicans, I have thought back to that night and that spirit of cooperation, and wondered where it all went.
The turnabout came early on, with agitators like talk radio host Rush Limbaugh declaring that he hoped Obama would fail as president. This was followed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's pronouncement that his number one goal in the Congress was to ensure that the president was defeated. Then came the birth of the angry Tea Party with its wild suggestions of Obama's "foreign birth" and allegations that his health care reform program would include "death panels" that would condemn senior citizens to an early demise.
That sense that it was more important to defeat the president than to save the country has now borne fruit. After a few early successes that slowed the downturn and saved the jobs and homes of hundreds of thousands, partisan politics have sabotaged Obama's more recent efforts to move the country forward. And now that the country has moved full-tilt into its quadrennial election mode, the harshness of the political rhetoric has only increased, as Republicans in Congress and candidates for president display less concern with problem-solving than they do with scoring points with partisan attacks. Blocking the Administration's proposals to invest in job creation while complaining that "Obama hasn't created new jobs," has become a campaign mantra. Michele Bachmann has made a crowd pleasing chant of her "I will make Barack Obama a one term president" and her colleagues routinely use the taunt "where did the hope and change go?"
Quite simply, they were stomped on and thrown out the window. That initial spirit reflected by Congressman Issa of wanting "what's best for the country" quickly gave way to working toward "what's best for my narrow partisan advantage" -- and the effects are in evidence all around. The angry Tea Party has become a dominant player in the Republican party; the Occupy Wall Street movement has been born reflecting the anger and frustration among people on the left; Washington is hopelessly dysfunctional, with Congress unable (or unwilling) to "agree on lunch"; and meanwhile, the economy continues to stagger and the well-being of millions hangs in the balance.
I can't help but long for the spirit of that night at the Embassy almost three years ago, because I fear that the paralysis in Congress and the notion that "if the president succeeds, we have lost" will be with us for a long time to come.
Dr. James J. Zogby is the author of Arab Voices: What They Are Saying to Us, and Why it Matters (Palgrave Macmillan, October 2010) and the founder and president of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization which serves as the political and policy research arm of the Arab American-community.
Follow James Zogby on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AAIUSA
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Again, and again I am forced to deal with the "facts on the ground" of competing idelogies, not competing interests, so much. Progessive Socialists, such as yourself and President Obama, use ideology as the foundation for a vision of a society in which big government is the source of answers, while others feel it is the source of problems of increasing magnitude. What is for sure is that no country can double it's debt in just a few years with social programs primarily responsibile, fail to put war expenditures "on the books" for people to recognize and vote on, and expect the outcome to suddenly get better.
President Obama is no less a victim of his idelogy and that of his advisors, that others further to the Right are as equally encumbered.
As we have seen, we can't even agree on an acceptable definition of "change" so that we can arrive at a starting point.
I fear it will take the impetus of a Third party, the Independent Party, signed in blood to a Declaration of (Modern) Independence, to rescue our foundering "ship of state."
Barack Obama personally snuffed that out by his own duplicity, caving, cutting bad deals and staffing his "change" administration with every old school Wall St hack with a pulse.
Barack Obama is utterly full of it and sadly, I cannot bring myself to cast another vote for the biggest bait and switch artist in American political history.
Hope that President Obama is not re-elected, and Change, thorough Change, to a Congress and Senate majority-controlled by Independents who will accept nothing less than "personal choice, personal consequence, Individual opportunity, individual achievement."
How is it that you and the media can look back longingly and not speak to your share of the failure for where we are today. The socalled press has long ago given up on educating the American voter. I openly admit our guilt in allowing ourselves to be misled and manipulated.
Many Americans aren't as knowledgeable about the issues and proposed corrective policies as I or you might like. People like yourself and your peers are in a much better position to analyze, project and discuss with people who can make a difference.
When they refuse to act in the interest of the nation, who tells us (the people), when someone is engaged in misinformation and manipulation, who alerts us (the people). The media just seems to go along with the game being played or are part of the scam.
Americans, increasingly are begining to see that we have been left out here by ourselves. And if we dain to stand up we will have to face all those forces aligned to divide us, control us, and manipulate us.
Just look, those who claim to have solutions, want to sell us books and movies at the same time. How's that for a nation we want GOD to bless?
How is it that we always find out we've been f 'd after the f 'er has taken the money and run?
Arcticles I have read here and there don't seem to give his results the same credibility they once did. I guess you could say the same for many others.
I stand by my belief that people such as he, who are in the business of knowing people and what moves or motivates them, are not doing much of a job, in either alerting elected officials, or helping them to adjust strategy, in combating manipulative campaigns.
Conversely, there is no logic which supports declaring that "modern society is the total source of climate change."
The evidence is there for anyone to see that modern society, with it's pollution, chemicals in foods, waste products, and continuing over-population, without proper resource planning, is a root cause of many/most modern ills, including disease.
Please see http://scienceray.com/biology/we-want-zero-sum-pollution-now/
Fanned
Mr Obama and his party had 2 years of absolute control, 60 senators and the House. They waisted, they did nothing except make fun of the other party.
The American people voted to give the House to the Republicans, because we were upset with what was happening, all of us knew our economy was going to get worst the first two years, what we did not like was the joy the democrats got while making it worst.
Google a list of the Obama Administration's successes. Really, do it. I think your statement about a waisted (sic) administrative period is ludicrous. Most of those lists don't even count our multitude of foreign policy successes.
You must know that Lieberman and many Blue Dogs joined with the Republicans to filibuster nearly every bill in the Senate. That small majority stymied the entire process with the stated goal of "making Obama a one term President" yet that list of accomplishments still happened. They didn't have to "make fun of the other party", because that party is already a clown show (a very dangerous clown show).
Everyone knew that our economy was going to get worst the first few years because that was the inevitable result of the failure of unregulated Capitalism joined with Bush's great decision to fight two wars while cutting taxes dramatically. Who in their right mind would fight two wars without raising the revenue to pay for them?
I don't understand your line about "the joy the democrats got while making it worst". I tell you brother... I'm a Democrat and speak with many other Democrats. There is no joy in this Mudville.
Foreign Policies successes, I may be bad at grammer, and typing, but one thing is certain we have had no foreign policies successes in a long time. No worries, Mr Bush had none either, so most likely we have forgot what one is.
They are Democrats, the blue dogs are part of the Democratic party, sorry, but Mr Obama is not able to work with his own party is something very few people think is a good thing.
Just like Mr Obama, you guys on the left love getting the people on the right all upset, that really is not helpful to our country or people like me in the middle, but as the people on the left do not like the people in the middle either, you should understand why you lost power in 2010.
We had more regulation under Mr Bush than under Mr Clinton. We had more government spending under Mr Bush for non-defense than Mr Clinton.
Many of our elected leaders jumped for joy when the economy started to fail, and even after would have sly smile talking about how Mr Bush hurt our economy. Today the Republicans do the same things.
Guess what, hopefully in 2012, we all vote out both parties, I would vote for anybody that ran against the Democrat Republican party. I swear that Mr Bush/Mr Obama/Mr Rommey are all the same person.
Yeah, I see a lot of that in the "Progressives" who post here too. The 2010 election should have been a wake-up call to those who felt "sending a message" would be good for the Progressive cause: thanks to the influx of Teabaggers, Progressives are now having to re-fight battles that they'd won early last century. Just look at Ohio or Wisconsin with their Republican governors and assemblies, turning the clock back to the early 20th century ... now imagine what a Republican President with a Republican Congress would do. Somehow there are still "Progressives" who would like to see Obama go down the drains, and let Republicans destroy the country, just because they didn't get their way.
Darrel Issa was another blushing bride on Barack's born again America's altar in 2008. The new age groom was the same hack as the rest. The Republicans aren't any worse. The Democrats aren't any better.
Obama is a politician. I voted Nader.
Leftists who think this way are engaging in the same kind of error in thinking that the RW engages in - Black and White thinking.
Me too, but Nader is not running in 2012, we are in trouble.
Here's a short example of how those "negotiations" have gone....
1) The R's say they want Obama to give them a dollar. Obama offers them that dollar.
2) The R's say they want two dollars instead. Obama offers them two dollars.
3) The R's say two dollars will not fly, they want ten dollars. Obama refuses.
4) The R's say that Obama refuses to negotiate.
Example... The Insurance Mandate is currently opposed by the Republicans. That idea originally came from and was championed by the Republicans for years. Newt Gingrich's own plan called for that mandate (until they recently erased it from Gingrich's website). Obama and the Dems adopted that cost-saving measure to appease those Republicans, but all of a sudden it's anathema to Republicans. The goal posts keep moving with those R's. How does one negotiate with a moving target?
That the GOP candidates criticize a resounding success and cannot even give Obama the slightest acknowledgment speaks volumes abut their integrity and intellectual honesty.
The agitators on the airwaves have always had a red ring around their collar. Unfortunately, it got a lot worse after Obama took office, before he even did a thing. Bush left him with a terrible mess and the Republicans have done everything that could to thwart progress for our country.
VOTE OUT ALL REPUBLICANS.
Yee Haw and Bnice!