Many say that President Obama has it tougher than any other. I beg to differ.
FDR had a tougher row to hoe versus Republican opposition and a split Democratic Party. FDR led us out of the Great Depression, reigned in the bankers, passed the New Deal and WPA, and rebuilt our crippled nation.
 |
| FDR - Leader |
FDR did all this while suffering from constant pain, in a wheelchair, through sheer force of will. He then inspired and led us toward Allied victory in WW2 over one of the greatest threats humanity ever foisted upon itself.
LBJ had his own party split down the middle and a staunch Republican Congressional opposition, yet as President, he managed to create and pass into law the Great Society programs which included aid to education (Pell Grants & Student Loans), Federal attacks on widespread disease (NIH and preventative care programs), Medicare, Medicaid, urban renewal, national beautification, government and citizen borne conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime, The Voting Rights Act, several environmental protection acts, and the creation of laws to help protect consumers.
With the help of the Supreme Court, LBJ's executive orders desegregated the nation's schools, private businesses, and public works against majority public opinion, all because HE KNEW IT WAS RIGHT!
 |
| LBJ - Flawed, yet a Leader |
After the Great Society legislation of the 1960s, for the first time a person who was not elderly or disabled could receive a living from the American government rather than starving on the streets as so many do today. LBJ was flawed and over militaristic, but he led with power, conviction, and soul.
The most recent President to remain committed to his moral, ethical, and campaign promised ethos and plan was James Earl Carter. President Carter had the guts to come on television and speak the truth to a weary nation telling us that we were straying from the core principles of shared sacrifice and shared progress that had built our enduring society. That instead we were trading our national ethics and compassion for selfishness and crass consumerism.
 |
| JEC - Leader, Truthteller |
President Carter in reelection was thwarted by the ego-driven run of Ted Kennedy. Though I loved him, Teddy was irresponsible in his hubris in '80 and Teddy was almost entirely responsible, in his vitriolic primary campaign, for weakening the Carter Presidency and giving us Reagan and the Reagan designed supply side depression in which we reside.
Here in Vermont we passed, and over the next four years are implementing 100% Universal Coverage with a state paid public option that includes mandated coverage for complimentary & alternative medicine. We are building upon the legacy of Dr. Governor Howard Dean, whose strategy put President Obama into office and who would have been President, if not for media stupidity.
 |
| Howard Dean - Leader |
This President said what we are doing in Vermont could not be done. He was and is quite mistaken. The rest of the Industrialised world has single-payer-universal health-care, why can we not? It is nothing more than a function of political will or the lack thereof.
Dr. Dean should have been appointed by President Obama to lead the health-care team for President Obama if not for the egos of Plouffe, Axelrod, and Emmanuel and the well moneyed influence peddling of the Insurance Industry and Big-Pharma, whose lobbyists had a bigger seat at the negotiating table than did the citizens or the bulk of their representatives.
 |
| BHO - Legacy to be determined. |
President Obama entered the Oval Office with both both houses of Congress overwhelmingly of his own party. Had he muscled Leader Reid into invoking simple majority cloture in the Senate in 2009, he could have passed every and any bill on his stated agenda without a single Republican vote. But this President did not have enough guts to face down his own Senatorial colleague and demand action.
Most of President Obama's "promises kept" are tiny in comparison to his failures on Iraq, Afghanistan, Tax Reform, and Health-Care. Thus far it is a failed presidency with a failed "stated" agenda.
Health-Care-Reform under Obama's watch is a failure because:
- it does not include the Patient's Bill Of Rights in toto.
- It does not cover ALL Americans.
- It does not offer an option apart from the for-profit insurance companies who remain almost completely outside regulatory regimen.
- It does nothing to alter the pricing structure for health-care, hospitals, labs, or drugs.
- It does nothing to eliminate the profit in keeping people sick, which is the basis of profit in US health-care.
- It has no enforcement agency written into the law.
- The only winners in it are the Insurance Companies who were given a mandated 30M new customers & Big-Pharma who have no fear of price controls in this law.
I read the entire law, all 1900+ pages, did you? Did your representative in Congress? I doubt it.
President Obama's difficulties are entirely of his own making. The buck stops at his desk and thus far he keeps on handing it to someone else, not bothering to note that it is a boomerang, destined to return, aimed directly at his neck.
Shame on this man for failing us so miserably at nearly every turn. Shame on the American public, on both sides, for having so shallow a grasp on recent and 20th Century civics and history. Shame on the US Congress for the most part, for having so craven a modality as to be set in near paralysis.
Passion must be paired with knowledge and wisdom. A President must be held to his word, with the people and the President's party holding the POTUS' feet to the fire.
Neither the President or his blind cheerleaders are showing much wisdom or memory at all. Such ignorance and laxity does no favour for any of us save the mega-industrialists who are raping our treasury with the President's and Congress' blessings and complicity.
Barring personal calamity, heavens forbid, Mr. Obama will receive a second term. Thus, President Obama still has time to redeem himself and he has the intellectual capability and the advice of a brilliant wife to help him in so doing.
Let us hope and pray that he does. Let us hope that he finds courage and genuine conviction in the coming five years.
