Culture

Remembering the Barack Obama of the campaign trail

by smkovalinsky | September 6, 2009 at 05:44 pm

156 views | 12 Recommendations | 4 comments

Can this Presidency be saved?

"Fear not, then, thou child infirm,
there's no god dare wrong a worm ;
Laurel crowns cleave to deserts,
and power to him who power exerts! Hast not thy share?
On winged feet,
Lo, it rushes thee to meet!"
~ Emerson, Compensation

He did not listen to Biden on Afghanistan. He wavered on the Public Option. The bank and business bailouts seemed in bad faith ( and not, from my point of view, for the same reasons the GOP thought). He broke faith - or seemed to - with the spirit of zeal, freshness, robust power of the campaign days. Where is the Barack of that time: He of the soaring oratory, he of the rhetorical power and grace? Was it an illusion merely, to titilate briefly, and then diminish into nothing?
Dan Savage in Politics ( the Slog) has called him, "a disappointment and a wuss":

Amazingly enough watching the president reach out again and again to Republican leaders who are doing everything in their power to destroy his presidency—and watching the president jettison Democratic priorities and back away from campaign promises to important Democratic constituencies—is hurting the president among Democrats, liberals, and progressives. No one could have predicted. While some have have already concluded that the president is a disappointing wuss, I'm going withhold judgment until Wednesday night. But I'm not optimistic.

Source
"And power to him who power exerts" : Do not forget these words, Mr. President.

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Pythiian1

at 00:17 on September 7th, 2009

In fairness, it has been less than a year since President Obama arrives to his position, yet he has endured a torrent of criticisms from the extreme poles of the political landscape.

To many liberal and progressive people, it is disconcerting that he has continually reached out to the Republicans as they have continually swatted away his hand as he compromises further.

I'm reminded of the late Senator Kennedy who had compromised repeatedly in order to move forward, for example, when he allied with the former President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act.