President Obama gave a brilliant, potentially career saving, speech on Thursday night that unveiled a $450 billion dollar stimulus package designed as a last-ditch effort to boost America's faltering economy and his increasingly dismal re-election hopes. It was a remarkable display of passion, tough talk, and a fighting spirit and combative tone that, to the chagrin of increasing numbers of liberals, has been largely missing from Obama's White House. A president elected on the combined strength of dazzling oratory and improbable personal biography has proved more deft at saving his political career in times of great crisis, such as the now iconic "race speech" from March 2008, rather than crafting a bold vision of American democracy in the 21st century.
Part of Obama's current political troubles reflects a larger crisis in American democracy. Some of the president's most vocal critics on the left, such as Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, have excoriated the White House for ignoring the poor and turning a blind eye to the increasing misery facing the black community, whose unemployment rate has reached depression era levels in many areas. Environmentalists point to Obama's capitulation to corporate lobbyists and oil companies as an unexpected betrayal while unions are still waiting for the president to offer more than symbolic signs of robust support. Obama defenders, including MSNBC host Reverend Al Sharpton and public intellectual Melissa Harris-Perry, highlight the unprecedented levels of assault waged against the nation's first black president while urging the White House to adopt a more robust posture of social and economic justice advocacy.
African-Americans, despite the administration's relative silence on issues of mass incarceration and the ongoing crisis of institutional racism, have remained Obama's staunchest supporters. This counterintuitive posture owes as much to feeling of racial pride and solidarity as to a sophisticated understanding of the racial animus behind the Tea Party phenomenon, right-wing activists and powerbrokers such as the Koch brothers, and Republican politicians who have allowed a major American political party to be hijacked by a small group of extremists unconcerned about the responsibility of governing.
How did it come to this? Fourteen months before the 2012 presidential election, Obama's approval rating hovers at 43 percent, Republicans are emboldened by their debt-ceiling victory, and millions who were inspired to join our democratic process in 2008 stand disappointed and disillusioned. Eulogies for the Obama presidency are already being discussed in major newspapers, political blogs, and cable news shows. The standard allegations suggest that Obama lacks the three B's: Boldness, Brains, and Balls. Liberals have pointed to the president's timidity after the election and reluctance to confront right-wing politicians while Fox News conservatives have questioned the Harvard Law School graduate's intellectual credentials as part of bizarre strategy to bolster the political chances of Texas Governor Rick Perry.
Obama's proposed American Jobs Acts may be too little to late, but at least hints at the bold, New Deal inspired programs that many of his supporters expected in the wake of his watershed presidential election. But the very pragmatism that helped Obama win the presidency has helped to undermine his administration, both in terms of public policy and political optics. Obama's efforts to become a Democratic counterpart to Ronald Reagan have faltered due to the end of the style of legislative bi-partisanship and political comity that allowed the "Gipper" to become a transformative president during the 1980s. Bill Clinton massaged the dawn of the new Gingrich-led Republican partisanship in the 1990s by embracing welfare reform and benefiting from the unexpected dotcom bubble that created millions of new jobs. Part of the president's current predicament stems from Tea Party politics that insist on political purity at the expense of governing compromise. At least some of this is the result of unspoken discomfort surrounding the president's racial identity.
Obama's own political timidity, almost religious belief in the intelligence and political sophistication of elite experts, and cautious governing philosophy has helped undermine an administration that has struggled to articulate a coherent vision for the nation's future. Obama concluded the toughest and most combative political speech he has given as president by channeling a spirit of American optimism that helped get him elected. After acknowledging the difficult years that the country has recently faced, he looked toward the future, noting that Americans were "tougher than the times we live in" and "bigger than our politics have been," only lacking in the inspiration to meet our current historical reckoning. If last night's speech was a start, we have a long collective journey ahead of us.
Rev. Chuck Currie: Pass The American Jobs Acts For A Stronger, More Moral America
Gary Shapiro: We Can Handle the Truth: Our Government Is a Jobs Killer
Obama Puts Passion Into Jobs Speech Rarely Seen In His Presidency
Obama Jobs Speech: President Outlines Economic Plan (LIVE ...
Obama jobs speech venue part of election strategy | Reuters
Where's the Hope and Change you promised?
Oh yeah, I forgot, that was in a prior campain speech.
Be stupid.
(I doubt you ever supported Obama in the 1st place)
There are plenty of realists left that will take your place.
See how you "feel" after you cast a losing vote for ___________ (fill in the generic republicant here).
BTW.
Lots of other people have already posted these same Karl Rove talking points for the tea bagging right.
You are way late.
As for Obama, the platform he ran on and the social network he created were on track. He just decided later that his base could be abused like this without political repercussion.
The lying, cheating, subverting, sabotaging, maligning, gerrymandering, and disenfranchisement has begun. I'm sorry if I sound cynical, but at my age, I know better. Never have I seen such viciousness in politics like I do today. Mark my word, the priority is winning, and the billion dollar corporate sponsored campaigns are positioning themselves to grab the reins of power to ultimately enrich their supporters. The needs of the country are secondary to whatever is required to win!
Oh yeah....so the poor Pres is suffering from "disenfranchisement"....??? Hey....a former community organizer who barely got his seat warm as a freshman Senator is suddenly thrust into the big leagues. And since the "State of the Union" (a boldfaced campaign speech like all the ones since !!!)...he wants More Cowbell......and the wealth of the top 15 % of Americans and corporate profits would fund the Federal Government less than a regular workweek.
AND if it WEREN'T for CORPORATIONS you would not have your computer with which to make your comments.
P.S. If it weren't for government you wouldn't have 911, the infrastructure to log onto this comment section, or the expensive Medical Care you are no doubt receiving which is funded by my tax dollars. And since I'm a patriotic liberal and not a bigoted conservative, to you I say, you're welcome.
By constantly trying to appease his enemies (the GOP) Obama continues to let them frame issues even when that framework has been revealed to be a complete sham. Tax cuts do not create jobs. If they did we 'd have zero unemploymÂÂent right now.
Cutting government spending also does nothing to create jobs.
The correct medicine for what ails our nation is that taxes need to go up on the very rich and they need to go up a lot. I think they need to go as high as 35 % which for some of the very richest means their taxes would experience a 7-fold increase since they are only paying 5%. Admittedly many are paying 10% but this still is far less than what the rest of us pay when you include payroll taxes, as well you should.
With these increased tax revenues we can have serious ramped up short term spending to the tune of a about a trillion to 1.5 trillion dollars of extra spending. The key is you don't spend it on permanent government programs, like Bush and his new Homeland Securuty apparatus, and for god sake you don't blow it on tax cuts. You spend it on goods and services and you insist that these be produced here in the USA. made by private American businesses.
There was no such effort. Obama asked the Republicans what he could do and capitulated. Can anyone imagine Reagan asking Tip O'Neil, friendly relationship or not, how much he could ask for in legislation? Reagan would laugh anyone who suggested that out of the room.
When Obama made no serious attempt (and I include HCR in that) to keep any of the big bold campaign promises that led people to believe he would be a transformative president, he doomed himself. He knows Americans don't respect wimps and that Republicans don't compromise. He surely knows that bullies who win only increase their contempt for the victim and bully them more mercilessly.
You can't ask for respect. You have to earn it. And he didn't.
He gave a great speech Tuesday that should have been given by Feb 09 and followed up on while he had the power to accomplish at least something. Now Obama doesn't have the power to do anything legislative.
Yes, we must throw out the Republicans who play with our country and people as if we are their personal political tools.
But we must also replace the President who has proven himself completely incapable of accomplishing anything and too timid or obtuse to fight for anything. We can't survive 4 more years of stalemate in Congress and passivity and capitulation in the WH.
Just like the republicants, you would never be satisfied with what Obama has done, seeing as how you placed more expectations on him than jeebus himself.
Your whining solves nothing & I doubt you win any "awards" for this.