Hanging Out with Hogs
17 September 2009 6:21 pm by Taylor Marsh
by Paul Szep
So, what’s Pres. Obama’s biggest problem with Independents and non-Democrats who aren’t right wingers?
Is it that he’s our first black president?
No. Though for some that is certainly the case. People like Joe Wilson, a staunch supporter of the South’s Confederate history, surely gives evidence that old racial scars still run deep in the south. Just look at the birther statistics and where most of those believers live.
But in the end everyone looks to their own lives, their own circumstances.
From the moment Barack Obama came to Washington he made the calculation that he had to bail the country out from what George W. Bush left behind. People have very short memories, so whatever Obama inherited, it didn’t take long for people to forget it came from George W. Bush. This goes all the way down to Afghanistan, as Adm. Mullen proved this week.
Tim Geithner’s tax problems were the first introduction to Obama’s financial fixes. Since Geithner was going to head Treasury, it was an inauspicious start. Then there was his penchant for bipartisanship and his common ground affliction, because Mr. Obama thought it best not to look backwards. This gave a gasping conservative movement room on the floor, which has grown into owning the microphone no matter how Obama uses his bully pulpit. You decide whether being on all the Sunday shows, sans Fox, is overusing it or not.
But when Obama started bailing everyone out from car companies to Wall Street using taxpayer money, as people were losing their jobs, their homes, as they saw health care rising, all of a sudden it was The People v. Obama, who didn’t look anything much like change after all.
The whole ACORN mess, facts and fictions of it, didn’t help either, because it emphasized the impression of a government kleptocracy, especially after the bailouts. After the Senate vote, in a GOP-led stampede, the House voted today to de-fund ACORN that went even further than the Senate.
The “Defund ACORN Act,” introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), would bar the federal government from doing business with the group, citing several voter registration fraud investigations. But it would also go much farther, prohibiting “any organization that shares directors, employees, or independent contractors” with ACORN from receiving federal cash.
Now the old government is the enemy battle, which is never far away with the right, now includes vocal libertarians and independents, and has reignited, with Obama seen as part of the problem. People have forgotten George W. Bush, so whatever opportunity Obama had to hang this mess around his neck is long gone.
There also hasn’t been near enough focus on the basics: J-O-B-S. It’s been about Wall Street and fixing corporations instead of main street, mom and dad.
Every day we’re hearing more stories about how Wall Street is the same as it always was, some people thinking it might even be worse. Frankly, I don’t think anyone knows, which the people sense, adding to the unease.
Something tells me when Michael Moore’s movie, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, hits October 2nd, that sentiment is going to rise exponentially.
What’s unfolding on health care is going to make matters worse.
