[img]583|left|Eric L. Wattree||no_popup[/img]At this point, Barack Obama's Presidency could go either way. He can either become one of the greatest Presidents this country has ever known. Or he can go down as an exciting experiment that went bad.
It's all up to how he handles the expectations of Independents.
The biggest problem Obama currently faces is becoming a victim of his own effectiveness. During the campaign, he raised the nation's expectations so high that just being a good President won't do. He promised a change that we can believe in, which led many of us to believe that he intended to trash the way business is done in Washington.
But that promise seems totally inconsistent with what seems to be his irrepressible desire to hold hands and sing Kumbaya with the very Republican leaders from which we wanted a change.
This has fueled the growing suspicion that both parties are beholden to the same cabal of power. They only feign having differing philosophies toward governance. That suspicion lies very close to the surface for many Independents. After all, that's why they're Independents.
President Obama hasn't helped himself in that regard. For a man who is ordinarily so politically astute, even before he became President he did a curious flip-flop on the FISA issue. According to Greenchange.org, on Oct. 24, 2007, Bill Burton of the Obama campaign indicated, “To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.” But by June 20, 2008, Obama issued a statement reversing his position, indicating that our national security needs were more important than his objections.
An Undoubted Violation
That deeply disappointed many Independents since a citizen's right to sue a telecommunications company for invading his or her privacy in violation of the law has nothing to do with national security. Those are the very constitutional rights that we're trying to keep secure. While many Independents have kept that in mind, at least Obama had the integrity to take that stand prior to our making the decision on whether to vote for him.
Once elected a year ago today, President Obama made another curious statement with regard to the criminal activities and alleged war crimes committed by the Bush administration. In spite of the fact that there are strong allegations and prima facie evidence of torture, and some of the most unconscionable violations of the Geneva Convention since the Nuremberg Trials, President Obama stated that he wanted to move the nation forward and not look back.
Many Independents have two problems with that. President Obama seems much too willing to move forward with regard to the fat cats while lower-ranking personnel are rotting in prison. That's in direct conflict with the American ideal of equal justice under the law. Secondly, since most atrocities were committed against the citizens of other nations, it is the height of arrogance for us to be “the deciders” of whether those responsible should be held accountable. That also runs contrary to American ideals, and the concept of “a shining city on the hill.”
Two Objections
Now we're talking about sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan. Why? The nation has yet to be provided with a reasonable explanation of why we should be meddling, once again, in another country's internal affairs. One would think we would have learned something about the futility of that by now. It's a recipe for disaster.
There are only two legitimate reasons to have our troops in that part of the world. The first is obvious – to make sure the nuclear missiles in Pakistan don't fall into the hands of Al Qaeda. The second reason is to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.
Why can't we simply pull out of Afghanistan and deploy enough troops in Pakistan to protect the missiles, then let the CIA and law enforcement deal with Osama? That way we save both treasure and lives, and we're not creating more enemies for the United States by killing innocent people.
Many Independents suspect another agenda is afoot. Actually, Dick Cheney's giving it away. Independents recognize that Cheney has absolutely no integrity. When he gets passionate over an issue, we know to follow either the money or the power. Independents suspect that what is actually behind Cheney's insistence that we go recklessly rushing into Afghanistan has much more to do with Halliburton's bottom line than it does America's best interest.
While Obama has shown himself to be an excellent President in many ways, his one shortcoming —that may bring him down — is his tendency to try and appease the stupidity and greed of the GOP.
The President needs to recognize there is nothing he can do that's going to make him acceptable to the GOP, unless he agrees to appoint a Republican vice president, then resigns.
It should be clear that even while he's asleep, the GOP is trying to hatch plans to destroy him. By spending more time thinking about them than he is his base, he's playing into their hands.
I mentioned power as one of the reasonsCheney's trying to rush the President into Afghanistan. I wonder if the President has considered that Cheney might be trying to get him to make the same kind of mistake in Afghanistan that the Bush administration made in Iraq in order to take the Iraq issue off the table for the 2012 election?
If during the 2012 campaign America is bogged down in Afghanistan with the useless death of thousands of U.S. troops, all of a sudden, Bush, Cheney and the GOP won't look so bad. The President should think about that since the machinations of Dick Cheney makes Machiavelli look like a trainee.
On the other hand, if the President would have the CIA go after Osama Bin Laden (through the use of intelligence, instead of blindly shooting at rocks), then pull out of Afghanistan and make an agreement with the government of Pakistan to help them protect their nuclear arsenal, he'll be looking pretty good in 2012. And he won't have to justify the deaths of thousands of U.S. troops.
He would look even better if he allowed Attorney General Holder to do his job with respect to the Bush administration's war crimes. First, he would firm up his base by restoring their confidence that he stands for the rule of law. He also would allay the fear that he might be a puppet, controlled by a powerful cabal.
Another upside is that once Holder begins his investigation into the Bush administration, there's absolutely no doubt that he's going to find criminality, cronyism and corruption seeping deep within the GOP. Republicans will be so busy snitching on one another that they won't have the time to plot against either him, or the American people.
That would be a change we could believe in.
Mr. Wattree is a writer, musician and poet who may be contacted at wattree@verizon.net
You may learn more about Mr. Wattree at wattree.blogspot.com
Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everybody who doesn't look, think and act like me. It's just that God does.
