The article gave Obama full credit for his accomplishments. I also give him full credit for his accomplishments including administering the presidency with great intelligence and dignity. He was the perfect first African-American president because his intelligence was so profound , and his dignity was second to none ,and his general humanity have been wonderful and something to be proud of. He was as good a transactional president as any, and Hillary I expect will be as good an administrative transactional president as Obama has been. And what she is running on i.e. Obama's third term.
But 08 and going forward has required a transformational president. The two issues that face the next Democratic president and indeed faced Obama was to push back on the Republican's lies and agenda of using their power to further the goals of the plutocrats, and the plutocrats themselves. That was what he ran on and that was what was expected and that is certainly what was needed. He did none of that. He did not challenge the Republican party or the plutocrats in any serious way.
So, one of his major Gary Cooper moments was when it came to extending the tax cuts for the rich. The right wing threatened to not raise the debt ceiling if he did not extend them. When Bill Clinton faced a similar situation he told Dick Army to go pound sand. And he won because of it. They never tried that again with Bill Clinton. But Obama went ahead and allowed them to be extended. I can remember at the time we liberals were speechless, but we were still pretty quiet. It was the Congressional Black Caucus that spoke up.
Obama would have won that battle had he told the Republicans to go pound sand and refused to allow the tax cuts for the rich to be extended. And what shows the validity of this statement, is that it was the Congressional Black Caucus themselves that finally had a heart-to-heart talk with Obama and forced him to stop pandering to the right wing. No one said anything to Obama up to that point because we were all trying to respect the first African-American president and the dignity of the Democratic presidency, as mentioned.
Only the Congressional Black Caucus could do what had to be done. And you can believe that is the last thing in the world they wanted to do, but if you go back and check you'll see that I'm right. They are the ones that turned Obama around and moved him back to the left, and as a result his poll numbers started to rise as well.
And the next time the right wing threatened Obama with a similar action ,Obama did stand up to them, and he won, just as he would have won the first time. |
