I've been watching Rachel Maddow tonight, and she has been ticking off the accomplishments of President Barack Obama.Iit's actually rather impressive. One can't really judge this president on the basis of what he has not accomplished, because every presidency has unfinished business. And because of the legislative logjam engendered by the enormous efforts of the Republicans in congress, there is a lot of unfinished business that President Obama would have finished if he had been allowed by the people on the other side of the aisle in congress.
Seldom (not never, but very seldom) has a president had such determined and steadfast opposition to his legislative agenda as President Obama has had. When political ads claim that he has failed, that he has not kept his promises, that his economics don't work, they always omit the key fact that the congressional leadership of the Republican party stated publicly and planned privately from the very start of this administration in 2009, to use as their strategy in this election a policy of blocking every legislative initiative of the Democratic party that they could possibly block, in order to put a damper on the economic recovery from the Bush recession and the disaster of Fall 2008 from which we have been trying to recover--the housing market, jobs, and the stock market.
Interestingly, the stock market has quite nicely recovered. But you wouldn't know it to talk to Republicans. And there has been 32 months of jobs growth--more than 5 and a half million jobs created under this president . . . but you wouldn't know that to hear the Republicans.
He got us out of Iraq; and is getting us out of Afghanistan, and as Rachel Maddow noted, has NOT gotten us into any new wars . . . but you wouldn't know that to listen to Republican rhetoric.
Nor does the Republican rhetoric ever acknowledge their party's role in the difficulty we have had to get out of the economic hole that their president, George W. Bush, sent us tumbling into in the Fall of 2008. And the Romney campaign and his friends do not acknowledge in the slightest that their "change" --"big change" to get the country on the right track, as they say, is the exact same course as George W. Bush's policies . . . the failed, destructive, rich man's economic policies.
President Obama has also managed, despite all the opposition of the Republicans, managed to get a health-care reform bill passed. Not the best possible bill, but one that at least begins the process of taking back health care from the profiteers in the health insurance and big pharmaceutical industries that prey on the old and the ill, and which have for decades sucked money out of everyone who wants health care, and feathers the pockets of the heads of health-insurance companies with hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of people go without healthcare.
There are many other things this administration has accomplished, and to their credit, they have done it while being viciously opposed by the most expensive political campaign in history, fueled by unseen donors in the private sector who have contributed so much money to campaign against the Democratic party that the bill for all the political ads this election season total, according to an estimate I heard today, six BILLION dollars. That is the Citizens United bill at work for its sponsors. And let the Supreme Court justices who voted in favor of that decision explain in what way free speech for individuals should be extended to corporate entitles that don't exhibit any of the normal characteristics of actual human beings. Corporations do not get married, they do not breathe, they do not, officially, vote. Years from now i vouchsafe someone will wonder what temporary madness created this decision.
It's the same madness that ha kept the government from acting against global warming pollution: corporate greed. Different industries perhaps, though I would bet that oil and coal has had a lot to do with both causes on the Republican side.
It is sad to see so many people swayed by distortions of the recent legislative history of the federal and state governments. Only by ignoring the role of the "loyal opposition" can anyone pretend that President Obama is responsible for the economic problems we have faced. And only by ignoring that opposition's role can anyone even pretend that the policies of Mr. Romney and his Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan would improve our economic outlook.
So I urge you--any of you who can see past the basic distortions of Republican rhetoric to the truth of the struggle it has been for the Obama administration to govern effectively--to vote for this president, and for Democrats in general. I won't say Democrats are uniformly honest and upstanding and wonderful. But consider this: Republican-dominated states have acted to keep as many people from voting as they can. That is anti-American. We are a democracy, and in a democracy, we need to allow people to vote.
The Obama administration has kept its promise to work steadfastly for change, and to move the country forward in ways that are beneficial to the country. If you look closely at the legislative process we have had in the past four years, you cannot deny that it has been an arduous process. If nothing else, look at the great number of proposals that were originally Republicans' ideas . . . which, once President Obama embraced them, the Republicans opposed. There are quite a number of them. Looking at the record is like looking through the Looking Glass at a world gone mad. Because the Republicans have banked on making President Obama fail. And what they offer instead is simply more of what got us into this mess before he was president. So how is that "big change"? (Answer: it's not!)
So please vote!
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