Begin the Beguine

Part II – Inception

Just like the recent film Inception was complex and complicated, so it is with the presidency of Barack Obama. Did you know that President Obama made 500 promises to America when he ran for the most powerful and daunting job in the world? I didn’t. Think about it. 500 promises. I don’t believe I’ve ever made that many promises to anyone or anything in my entire life.

Most of us who aren’t political pundits or fact-checkers remember only the promises that resonated with our own hopes and dreams. We also remember a young man exuding charisma, flowing eloquent speech, and a shining spark of hope in his eyes. What a winner! Thus, the beginning of Obama’s presidency began on high hopes with a youthful altruistic flavour. Here was a politician with a vision of helping the (previously ignored by the former administration) lower and middle classes of America begin to dig out of the six-feet-under hole Bush had dug with just about everything sacred to the American Dream (unless one was part of his “base” of millionaires and their nifty tax breaks) on the ropes. For the first time in years, we could be proud that we had a president who knew how to speak English.

He also knew how to dance a sizzling slow one with his wife at the Inauguration Ball. Ah, at last, at last! No C&W Two-Step!

Campaigner Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay, provide universal healthcare, change Washington’s MO, run a completely open “transparent” administration, provide new “green” energy jobs that would stimulate the economy, heal the sick, part the waters, cure the blind…. Well, it felt like that to many. To some people, he was to be our savior. His agenda was ambitious and noble indeed. It was also utterly impossible to fulfill in one magnanimous wave of a hand; the stroke of a pen; a speech to a stone-faced GOP.

With such a soaring agenda of change singing in our jaded hearts, supporters were ready for new faces, new tactics, no didactics.

One of the first signs that he might be veering off course was to appoint longtime Washington insiders to both his cabinet and staff positions. Appointing former Federal Reserve Bank of New York CEO and long time Washington insider Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury was, as many have noted, akin to having the Wolf guard the henhouse. In one way the choice made sense - Geithner knew how to maneuver around those tricky Wall Street devils. Better to have an insider who knew the path than someone who could trip over the hidden cracks in that street. And then there is the soon-departing Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council whose history is filled with fighting for privatization and deregulation in economics. Hmmm. Odd choice when deregulation is at the source of our current financial crisis, among other deregulations in business concerns.

Obama planned to appoint former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as his health secretary until Daschle’s tax and alleged lobbying history foiled that plan. For the all-important job of Attorney General came Eric Holder, the Justice Department’s No. 2 when Bill Clinton was president. The nail in the coffin has been Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s Chief of Staff, who was another veteran of the Clinton White House and known for his selective $#@!! vocabulary. Now on his way to run for office in Illinois, Rahm the Ram didn’t appear to do anything but butt heads with other Democrats rather than bash a few of the GOP’s horns.

The above is a small example of how the inception of Mr. Obama’s presidency began to raise eyebrows. Nevertheless, those who wanted him to succeed gave him a pass. After all, appointing Hillary Rodham Clinton as Secretary of State was a brilliant decision – insider or not – and who wouldn’t want a few seasoned insiders to get things moving?

Inheriting two wars, a staggering deficit, inevitable looming unemployment, money had to be spent = the much debated Stimulus program. OMG, cried the GOP, he’s adding to the deficit! He’s a typical Democrat – spend, spend, spend! And spend he did. And a deep recession was avoided. However, it was merely a band-aid and people weren’t listening when he said over and over again that it would take time to get out of the hole. He didn’t turn fishes and loaves into enough food for thousands.

For a variety of reasons President Obama has never disclosed, Guantanamo Bay was suddenly out of his speeches, remaining active to this day. Transparency became opaque when meetings held with corporate leaders behind closed doors began to smell like the same old cigar smoke of yore. His persistence to “reach across the aisle” to the GOP from the get-go (only to have his hand thrown back in his face) made him appear to be too “nice.” Then again, that’s part of the perception problem. Or is it?

It gets down to what I wrote at the beginning of this blog: Obama made a great deal of promises. Not all have come through. People get cranky when they don’t get what they want. There is also a question of what his priorities have been in what he has pushed through Congress, and what he has allowed to fester in the desire to compromise with those whose words to him are only “No.”

A fascinating detailed list of his promises can be found at  http://www.politifact.com/

According to their tracking, Obama’s record to date is as follows:

122 Promises Kept
40 Compromises
84 Stalled
23 Broken Promises
234 Still In Progress
3 Undetermined

Part III – Infection
Post Date: TBA

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