President Barack Obama claims he knew nothing about the malfunctioning roll-out of the Affordable Care Act before October 1, 2013. He claims he was not aware of the magnitude of NSA spying before the Edward Snowden bombshell. He wasn’t prepared for accomplishing the passage of universal background checks for weapons’ purchases – notably in the aftermath of Newtown. He had no idea Congress would kill his immigration initiatives, jobs bills, employment equality, and extended unemployment insurance for 1.2 million citizens now doomed to homelessness.
Late last summer he wasn’t aware Congress was prepared to deny him the authority to intercede in Syria after clumsily offering them the choice. Obviously he assumed their eagerness to agree on military matters so adored by Republicans. (Give them credit: the Russians rescued him out of this mess like salvaging the US space program. NASA is another of America’s crown jewels Obama has vowed to privatize. See how that goes?)
Obama’s second term is effectively dead, not simply because of Republican obstruction, but Obama’s entrenched misconceptions combined with obliviousness. First, he views political opponents through rose-colored glasses, and secondly, he’s not a hands-on manager to the extent he fails to see what his cabinet and staff are or aren’t doing. Who’s minding the store if the boss isn’t?
It was on Inaugural Night 2008 when Republican leaders first met to plan his failure.
Well into his first term, Mitch McConnell claimed the #1 priority of the Republican Party was to deny Obama a second term.
Republican Senate Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell and other Republican leaders have stated that defeating President Obama, makiing his a one-term President, is the number one Republican priority. To achieve this goal, Republicans attempt to defeat President Obama's proposals, or as Senator DeMint says make it his Waterloo.
Was he aware? Or did he want to become America’s Nelson Mandela by preemptively forgiving his enemies – as they met behind closed doors (and sometimes openly) plotting his destruction and along with it our hope of recovering from the disastrous Bush years?
The common denominator in all this – Democratic leadership, particularly Obama, is afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder. Not only are they deaf to their own constituents, but to threats from enemies. Is isolation the cause? Or intellectual arrogance/ignorance?
A case dear to my heart has not been resolved – despite Obama being in office five years and having been elected by union support, specifically the American Postal Workers Union.
The Postal Service continues on the brink. No one from the White House has lifted a finger to press for the repeal of the Bush-era “Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act” from lame-duck 2006 (Republicans squeezed in at the last minute before Nancy Pelosi took over).
The bill was a poison pill for the Post Office and was designed to be so. It requires the USPS to pay over $5 billion a year in pension benefits for retirees 75 years into the future (employees not even born) in a 10-year window.
MSNBC's Ed Schultz and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) discuss the politics of congressional efforts to address USPS financial crisis, April 4, 2012
The principal question is: What is the President doing to stop the dismantling of the nation’s #1 delivery system? It is commonly recognized that Republicans are bent on destroying the public sector – no matter the service or agency. But what is Obama doing to stop them?
Wasn’t he elected to do that (not exclusively but primarily)? I was an avid supporter of Obama in both elections. Isn’t there something to show for it besides BinLaden getting nabbed and the new healthcare bill, his crowning domestic policy achievement?
Proceed to 2014. The FCC did not intervene in the corporate censorship of liberal radio shows. Most, if not all, progressive radio hosts (Randi Rhodes, Thom Hartmann, Norman Goldman, etc.) have been shut out of the live-radio market effective December 31, 2013. Clear Channel and Cumulus decided to eliminate progressive voices and did so without even so much as a whimper from the White House. Naturally, Democratic leaders put on the spin that IPod users may receive these programs through special apps, etc. But the fact that Democratic voices have been banned by rightwing corporations from public airwaves should have alarmed the President. It didn’t. Additionally, I find no mention of the issue on major news outlets.
From Wall Street to voter suppression to gun-control legislation to jobs – The attention disorder exhibited by this President is now cemented in history. It wasn’t just his first debate for his second term that seals the deal. It’s an unmistakable pattern of negligence.
It’s past-time for a new progressive President.