Pity the next President, as forces gather to bury him

[James Delinis]

Pity the next President, as forces gather to bury him
James Delinis
May 7, 2008

For a very long time I had difficulty understanding the logic behind Senator Barack Obama’s (D-IL) candidacy for the presidency of the United States. When evaluating potential candidates for president I tend to value competence and executive experience (in business, in government, in non-governmental organizations) over ideology, oratory, or life narrative. I enjoy going to bed knowing that my government is in the hands of someone that I can trust to handle it in a capable manner.

Obama’s candidacy starts to make sense when you look at the seminal events of the last eight years, and when you take a look around at the people who make up his campaign machinery. President Bush has decided to show the world a face of America that cannot be uglier – of war, of torture, of greed, of plutocracy, of social and religious intolerance, of fear – and has unwittingly created the demand for President Obama. A black man of international origins who appears to lack the psychological demons that define Bush is in many ways the best face that America can offer. It would take a hard heart to attend an Obama event and take a look at the faces happily cheering – young, progressive, idealistic, from both rural and urban areas, the perfect response to the “Ugly American” image Bush helped propagate – and not come away feeling revitalized that perhaps Washington can be something more than a collection of scavengers squabbling over scraps.

It is for this reason that I dread the next four years.

President Bush made a habit in his first term of packing his signature legislation with poison pills that will doom whomever gets elected in 2008. The prescription drug benefit and the two tax cuts to name two of the most costly examples absolutely explode in terms of cost after Bush is safely back in his ranch drunkenly challenging his father to fights once again. Any future president will have to repeal the entire 2001 and 2003 Bush Tax Package. Democratic candidates have said they will keep the tax cuts for lower and middle income earners but as much as this would be desirable in future years the cost of doing this is what it cost so far for the entire package to begin with – and that does not include the massive giveaways to the millionaires of America. Mixed in with re-shaping the prescription drug legislation to save costs and save the treasury from a tide of red ink and the next president will take two bullets into his chest courtesy of this odious regime that should never have existed in the first place.
I do not have the space or the stomach to mention in detail everything else that will pile onto the next president – the continued decline of the dollar (that will continue until the monstrous trade deficit is fixed), food and clothing inflation (delayed for a year since producers purchase goods a year before they hit shelves), international demand to act on climate change, and a republican attack machine that lays ready to bury this movement that Obama has helped create.

It is this last point that bothers me.

These sick republican thieves who spent years looting the public till can use the rough four years that will follow to cast blame not only on a President Obama, but on the movement he represents – on the young, on those who are minorities, on those who reject the politics that have handicapped this countries development for years. They can lay all of the blame on the feet of the politician and his followers and wash their hands clean of the catastrophe that they themselves created.

I fear for Senator Obama and for those wonderful people I meet who attend Obama rallies. It is natural for me to be cynical, but the only way for him to survive his four years is to stay with him past election day – to see his inauguration as not the climax of the struggle to fix what ails this beautiful country but the beginning of a fight for a movements survival and effectiveness. If anyone can do it is the people whom I have grown to admire that make up the Obama Campaign. They have done something special, but they must remember half a job is no job at all or be prepared to see their leaders carcass destroyed by the odious plutocrats that should never ever be trusted with the levers of government again.

[Beregond2]

1. I was thinking

along these same lines as I listened to Obama's speech tonight. The people of this country are going to have to be extremely vigilant and ready to continue working their tails off, or this victory will mean nothing. No one knows that better than Obama himself, and that is why he always emphasizes the role the public must play.

[roamer65]

2. The next president will have a job even larger than FDR's.

No American president has ever had to face an inflationary depression. Obama can do it.

[gcindy6]

3. And I think us ordinary folks are ready to step up to the table

and do what it takes to assure the future, as long as Obama keeps to his words and ideals, I believe it will be o.k. "The change" is long overdue!