Mr. Obama,
No one respects your intelligence or your desire to turn this country around more than I. But I think you are missing a huge opportunity here. Your skills as an orator, as a man who can reach out to the people and gather them to your side and make them understand your vision are already legendary. And it is time to use those skills once again.
Please, President Obama. Take your message about your plan to both the stimulus and the plan to get the country back on track after eight years of disastrous policies under the Bush administration directly to America.
It is time, perhaps past time for a press conference, a speech, and a YouTube blitz in which you explain just what you are doing with the 800 billion plus package of spending, tax cuts and programs. It is time for you to talk to us in your own inimitable voice rather than let the news media parse it and the Republicans dance all over your words and put their own spin on it. It is time for talk radio to shut up (even those who support you). It is time for you to talk to us.
And it is time for you to stop making nice to the Republicans who have no intention of making nice back. If they won't give you anything back in the way of even one vote, than I say, put everything back into the package that you want, and bipartisanship be damned. You tried, they refused.
It is clear to the American public that the Republicans are only interested in acting like little children and stomping their feet and saying "No," no matter what you say. They aren't listening. They are angry that a black man (yes, a black man) somehow bested them and slipped into the White House and is now their boss. They know full well he is smarter than they are and they will have to answer to you for the next four years (and let's hope the next eight) and they are just going to put up every possible road block in your way that they possibly can. They have made it abundantly clear -- in your first wee of office yet -- that they have no intention of even trying to work with you, even as they sip your cocktails and pretend to be nice.
It is also clear that the Republicans don't even have a plan. They are not even cohesive in their own negativity. They have nothing to offer but that huge ugly NO. They remain greedy, obstructive, sexist, racist, and old school. They, like the Wall Street bankers, the corporate heads, and the old government guys, still don't get it. The past is past and it didn't work. That is why we voted for change. That is why you are the President. That is why there are Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate.
I campaigned tirelessly for you. So did millions of others. We don't expect miracles. But what we do expect is that you stick to the courage of your convictions. What we do expect is that if the Republicans won't play with you, then you walk away. Wipe your hands of them. They have nothing to offer. Recognize that.
Take your message to the people. Let us know you believe in it and will follow through. Explain why you believe in it and we should too. Make those Republicans embarrassed at their own inability to get it. I expect and want to see you on television in the next couple of days, convincing the still unconvinced and embarrassing the Republicans, while putting them on the back burner where they can simmer, and, I hope, eventually, lost all their steam.
You've done all you can. Now it is time to take off the gloves and do what the American people voted you in to do. Take a chance. Do what you think is right and consequences be damned. If you fail, it will be because you governed by your own conscience. No one can ask more of you than that.