This afternoon I was your last caller, and I am not yet finished with venting my frustration at your criticism of President Obama. You cited several things in a row, such as his not ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, being too willing to compromise with Congress, and allowing the Wall Street bankers to run amuck. Oh, and I think you said he should also have done something about (your term) “race relations” in this country.
Well, excuse me. Could you name anyone who could have done the things you are criticizing him for not doing? And no, he did not “start a war” in Libya. Our country was asked to assist the revolutionaries by thwarting Gaddafi’s murderers of people in hospitals among other places, and after lengthy conversations with UN Allies — well, you know what he did. He made a speech to explain it.
I wonder if this is just your shtick, or if you really believe he should have been able, in the aftermath of the GW Bush debacle, and in his first term, to do the following:
- Dismantle the military-industrial complex, complete with its ongoing non-competitive bid contracts, which is what unfortunately runs most of our entire economy.
- Find homes for every detainee from Guantanamo or have tried them all already (with no witnesses and no charges in any case against most of them) with the non-assistance and non-cooperation of our present Congress.
- Remove power from billionnaires who have controlled things since Year One while at the same time not getting assassinated.
- Manage to do, by Executive Order, all the programs he proposed to Congress which was stopped dead-still in the Senate by filibuster. (You KNOW all this!)
And lastly, I don’t know what the heck you think he should do about “race relations,” in this country or in any other, since most humans, animals, birds and insects seem to all be more comfortable in the company of others who look just like them. And I think I even heard you, or your radio partner say something about him being purely “a politician, concerned only for himself, Michelle or the girls.” That’s why I think it’s a shtick.
You know, the deal about being the “first black President” has to rankle. What does that have to do with anything, or make him any more likely to be able to dislodge old prejudices from the minds of people who are determined to be racist? I think you need to go back and re-read his first book. And due to the fact that he had no contact to speak of with his birth father, and was raised in a white family — as was my own daughter who was fathered by a black man, so I know a thing or two about this – how would you expect him to miraculously solve all the problems of decades of racial injustice, or even understand it much better than I do? In an attempt to make a dent, recognizing the world will always see him only as “a black man” who can’t get a cab in New York, he went to Chicago and began to work as a community organizer; learned more about the culture, married Michelle, learned even more, and has done all he can to try to bring a logical frame of reference to the conversation.
He has nothing in common with his half-brothers and sisters from Kenya, other than the color of his skin, just as I have little else in common with my own card-carrying NRA-member brother. Calling him the “first black President” is nonsensical. He is the first President of the United States with black skin. Period.
He has done a lot. He does not toot his own horn. That’s not who he is. He is working all the time, not someplace clearing brush, or riding horses out west, or fishing in Maine. He hasn’t even been home to Chicago but a couple times, and now he’s about to have to start campaigning again. And look what he’s up against? Not just the Tea Party idiocracy, but the people like you who want Superman Plus as President. I fully expect his second term to be much easier than the first, because then he won’t have to worry about campaigning; now, he still is trying his best to accomplish what he can on an executive basis, while at the same time being rational about what can be done while his enemies are barreling full-steam ahead with all the money they need.
When he has to put up with the birther nonsense and Anti-Christ stuff, and idiots in Florida burning Korans, stirring up other tribalists on the other side of the world making war even more difficult to contain, Republican governors busting unions all over the country, other governors running against him or threatening to secede from the Union, Congress trying to prevent funding of healthcare legislation and any consumer protection laws, a Supreme Court that should by-and-large be recused altogether from everything, he does not need sane and intelligent Americans like you criticizing him for not controlling the world better.
Please.
Andrea Friedell
