Obama promised change, not miracles

By Libby

I wouldn't want to be Barack Obama right now. I have a feeling at this point he's wondering why he ever wanted this job. He survived a brutal two year long campaign and now, only a month later, he's under fire from all quarters and he hasn't even been sworn in yet. I fully appreciate Barney Frank's joke about post-partisanship and he's absolutely right that the very concept begs for derision, but really, what is Obama supposed to do?

While it's true that we in essence don't have a real president at the moment in terms of effectiveness, legally we really do only have one at a time. Obama can hardly march into the White House and demand that Bush start acting on his policy prescriptions. And he's not a Senator anymore so for him to swoop into the chambers and start pressuring them to deliver on his wish list would give rise to a whole new round of vicious media criticism about his 'presumptuousness' just at a time when he needs to foster some semblence of comity between all the factions who have been perpetually at war with each other for the last eight years. I can't think of a better way to further mobilize the GOP's enraged base into goading the Republicans to greater acts of sabotaging the process.

Yes, I know the GOPers are going to do that anyway, but too much interference at this point by Obama would give them political cover. And yes, I also remember that Obama ran as the "change candidate" but I don't recall him ever promising he was going to change everything overnight. Besides I don't think it's fair to expect Obama to do all the heavy lifting. It strikes me the Democrats are looking for some political cover as well, instead of doing their job and facing the consequences of their decisions. Maybe they forgot they're supposed to working with the President, not for him.

In fact laying the onus on Obama as the new President seems to me to be part of the problem of executive overreach. Nothing is going to change until the legislative branch remembers their own role in restoring the balance of power. That requires they act independently and take some of the political risks too.

Comments

[Gabe]

Have been looking around your site, like the layout, love the content.

Would you like to trade links with a bipartisan politics blog offering a uniquely youth perspective.

ThePurpleYouth
http://www.thepurpleyouth.com

Or just let me know at Quash100 [at] gmail.com

[Libby]

Hey Gabe. Thanks for the encouragement. You should email Cernig on the link trade.

[Whatever]

You say that Obama is only one man and it is the responsibility of all Dems to create change but
I bet you drop all the responsibility for the
last 8 years on Bush's doorstep.