Flying High and Doing his Job

A Republican friend called to complain that President Obama seems to be flying here, there and everywhere as if on a continuing campaign. He wishes President Obama would stay home and save the taxpayers the cost of operating that very large airplane.

I told him that as far as I am concerned, the President can stay in the air all the time as long as he keeps addressing or attempting to address our nation's very real problems. The economy has had three consecutive months of real growth (3.2% for the last quarter). Unemployment is down (only stayed above 10% for two months unlike Reagan who had 10 consecutive months of 10% unemployment or higher). New Home sales are up. The stimulus package is working. Most importantly, the regulatory arms of the US Government are working again. The FDA is working, the SEC is working, FEMA is working, NHTSA is working. No one is trying to dismantle government these days. Bobby Jindal of LA is asking for more help from the FED not less. Speaking of the Gulf, this morning there was a news report that federal regulators did nothing in 2004 when they were told by BP that the safeguards built in to their deep water wells might not work. Nobody from the Bush administration asked, “why?”

The saddest thing continues to be the Republican insistence on bringing Obama down by sticking to their strategy of denying him any success whatsoever. They were opposed to Wall Street reform until their own polls said "you have got to be kidding," and then they couldn't turn around fast enough. Government is supposed to work when elected officials do what is best for the country, not what the fickle weathervane of public opinion tells them is the "safe" thing to do. Governing is hard. If an elected official doesn't understand that and is not willing to ignore the polls and exert the necessary intellectual and personal energy to do the job, they should get out.

"What if we are wrong -- again?"

The Old South is truly the heart of the Republican Party. The 11 states from the old Confederacy are represented in the US Senate by 15 Republicans, or 2/3 of the 22 Senators from the South. Republicans dominate the state legislatures in nearly all of the Old South states. The head of the Republican Governors Association is Haley Barbour of Mississippi.

Does that mean we are on the cusp of a new enlightened age? Hardly.

As every school child learns early, the Old South states were wrong when they seceded from the Union in the 1861; they were wrong when they opposed civil rights legislation in 1965; they were wrong about the need to go into Iraq in 2003 when we should have focused our national energy and military resources on finding bin Laden in the mountains of Bora Bora.

Could it be these same states and their Republican representatives are wrong about President Obama? What if he is not the anti-Christ; what if he is a US citizen? What if he is more of a Christian than they are? (Ask yourself who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ closer?) What if he is right about climate change? What if he is right about health care reform? What if each of us received our “bailout” when he took steps to keep the entire economy from collapsing?

In short, what if you are wrong – again? What if you are missing the opportunity to support the best President – popularly elected by the people -- in a generation?

What will you tell your grandchildren?

Lock, Stock and Barrel

You are a conservative, loyal member of the Republican Party. You are not in favor of the Federal government bailing out Wall Street or anyone else for that matter.

But your party’s leaders in Washington don’t care.

They have been bought lock, stock and barrel by corporate interests, especially Wall Street bankers and brokers.

One thing you can say for them: once they are bought, they stay bought. On Monday, April 26, 2010, they objected en masse to moving forward with debate on a US Senate bill to reform Wall Street and reign in the greedy barons of Manhattan whose actions threaten your job and the jobs of your friends.

How does it make you feel to know that you are loyal to a party that ignores your views, manipulates your loyalty and generally disregards your best interests. How does it feel to be in a political party like that?

Bush 43 did his best to dismantle government

Let’s go over this one more time: The Bush 43 Administration was opposed to government.

The Bush-Cheney regime displayed as much contempt for the government with which they were entrusted as the extremists of the current Tea Party movement.
Long time political observers of Washington saw it up close every day…and wondered if the country would survive. It did, but just barely.

I talked about it and wrote about it as often as possible. So did others – and all knew nothing would be done. Why? The Republican machine that preserves the Reagan mystique was in full throttle to protect the Bush Administration from the obvious: they were incompetent.

The saddest fact: Responsible Republicans ignored the misfeasance of the Bush 43 regime, holding fast to the idea that maintaining their ruling influence was more important than serving the people.

Bush 43 propagated EVERY agency of the federal government with individuals who adhered to the philosophy that “the government is best that governs least.” That may have worked in Thomas Jefferson's time when the total population was under 4 million, but it does not work today when the population is 324 million.

A big government is necessary to serve the people in 2010. Anyone who does not agree with that has no interest in seeing government succeed at any level...and thus their motives are suspect.

So what happened during the Bush era? From 2001 to January 2009, regulators were told the free market will make the correct and best decisions. Don’t worry about fulfilling your regulatory duties. They didn’t. For eight years, one federal agency after another was stripped of the funds to support its lawful activities, and populated with individuals who knew they would be rewarded if they did not interfere in the free market or spend money the law charged them to spend in support of citizen needs.

We paid the price for 8 years but veteran observers also knew we would pay the price for many years after Bush 43 left town. We are. It will be many years before we are able to say we have recovered as a nation.

President Obama has made a good start on health care reform, Wall Street reform, immigration reform, energy innovation and climate change. He is not being applauded broadly for his aggressive agenda…but he should be.

We are living in the 21st century. It is time we as a people decide to do something about the problems from the 20th century that we brought with us and have refused to address for a decade.

Can you think of a single American alive today who could do a better job of addressing long neglected issues than this President? Just one??

Feeling Sorry for the GOP Today

They are flailing about looking for leadership like no other time in their history. They are desperate! Right now, they are trolling television looking for that someone with the RR charisma that includes twinkling eyes, consistently colored hair and the ability to deliver beautifully crafted sound bites in 10 seconds or less.

They thought they had that someone in Bush 43 but we all know how that turned out. The man was not even comfortable in the English language. So they took a close look at Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, until he proved in his weak attempt at a rebuttal to the State of the Union speech that he had the oratorical skills of a gnat. Next it was Sarah Palin who, by the way, continues to demonstrate daily that she is about ready to take an 8th grade history class. But with those cute legs, who cares: "Pay her the dough and let's go watch the show." Then there was Scott Brown, the Tea Party darling of Boston who won Ted Kennedy's Senate seat (through ineptness of the candidate, AG Coakley). Scott Brown has proven to be an independent thinker and the GOP can't have any of that, so scratch him off the list. And so, along comes Marco Rubio, who is about to crush Governor Charlie Crist for the GOP nomination to the Senate from Florida. Rubio hasn't even won the nomination in Florida and already the GOP is pursuing him for the national race in 2012. He is embarrassed by his party's desperation.

Here's my suggestion: Go back to Hollywood. Pick out someone like Ronald Reagan who will make you feel good even as he triples the federal debt and presides over an unemployment rate of above 10% for 10 consecutive months in 1982-83 (that's correct!!) and also watched government expand its reach exponentially during his two terms in office. And you didn't care. In fact, you idolize him for all that. He is the "morning in America" President, who watched government grow and neither you nor him cared a bit. Don't you wish you had someone like that for 2012?? Of course you do. Look, start with the tape of celebs on the Red Carpet at this year's Oscar Awards Ceremony. There's got to be a candidate there for you. Don't start with Charlton Heston. I understand he is not available anymore....but there are many who are.

You're welcome. No problem at all.

They Eat Their Young

Did you see where David Frum, former Bush speech writer was forced out of his job with the American Enterprise Institute for saying some slightly critical things about the GOP loss on health care reform? Frum says it appears some of the donors had something to do with it. Make that the GOP Pure Police. You have to be pure to be a Republican these days. If you vary from the party line, if you dare think for yourself, if you dare talk about bipartisanship, you are in deep trouble.What will happen, you say? Well, if you are a lobbyist, you lose your job; if you are a member of Congress, you get a primary opponent next time. "We will weed you out" seems to be the governing dicta of the Pure Police. "We pull all weeds."

I'm concerned. I think we should all be concerned to see that the intelligent people have been forced out of the GOP by extreme elements (tea partiers) of the GOP.

Did you see Sarah Palin introducing John McCain to a partisan crowd in Arizona today? I have never seen John McCain so uncomfortable. He kept looking at his notes (When is she going to finish), and off to the side (Where is some aide who will come to my rescue), she embraced the tea party movement entirely and said if you are supporting John McCain, you are part of the tea party movement (Help, is there no one who will get her off the stage for me). After a while you began to feel sorry for him. But that leather jacket with the zippers on it in strategic places was fetching, wasn't it. Wouldn't she make a good President?

Watching the Debate and Vote on Health Care

As I watched the debate last night preceding the historic vote on health care reform in the House of Representatives, I played a game: I substituted social security every time one of the Republicans said health care, thereby giving me a chance to step back in time to 1935 to catch a soundbite from the historic Social Security debate. I gained a new respect for those courageous legislative pioneers of 75 years ago who set the stage for Sunday night's vote.


And when the dust settles, the loud clamor against health care reform will fade into the background quickly. No one is going to succeed in challenging the constitutionality of the process. Are you kidding? Congress can pass any bill any way it wants to. It is one of the co-equal branches of government. But the Republicans would know that if they read the US Constitution. The Courts will have nothing to say about "the process" used. That is clearly the prerogative of the Congress as set forth in the Constitution. Nor will any other attempts to roll back the vote be anything but a waste of energy.


I regret the R's chose to roll the dice this way. I wish they had been willing to do as Repubs have done in the past: compromise on the issue so they could go home and tell their constituents they "won" something for them. Soon, it will be evident to all Americans, including the Repubs, that the minority party does not wish to advance the American cause; they just want to govern for the sake of perpetuating their position in power. So sad.


Watch for the growth in an Independent Party movement if the two major parties do not learn how to govern together. We are not far from such a victory and that may be the best thing for America. It will get us back on a track closer to what the Founding Fathers had in mind. They did not have the current "process" in mind, that is, where one party says "NO" and the other says, "I guess we got to do this without you." That's not representative democracy. In a true representative republic, the two sides are expected to work together for the good of all.