Is Obama Being Too Timid? by Rambling Raven
By Raven • Jul 27th, 2010 • Category: Rambling Raven •
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Is Obama Being Too Timid? by Rambling Raven
I stood in line for three hours to cast my vote for President Obama. I cried when he won the presidential election. My hope in America and its future was renewed. Yet, I knew that the first African American president was going to have an uphill battle. I knew the ugly racists out there were going to throw everything they possible could at him. My greatest fear was for his safety. I was prepared for the hateful and cowardly actions of others. What has thrown me for a loop recently has been that of the actions of the president and his administration.
I never expected President Obama to be the savior of America or the world. My hope was for him to bring intelligence, class and fairness to the office of the presidency. He certainly is intelligent, has class and tries to be fair. My issue with the president is that I desperately want him to be more forceful towards his critics and detractors.
It appears as if the president and his administration react too late to some major issues, causing President Obama to appear timid. An example of this is when the BP oil spill occurred. The administration took too long to address the spill to the media and the public. Obama should have come out forcefully condemning BP and demand that there be a quick solution to stopping the oil spill. Instead the president and his administration were curiously quiet on the issue until the story appeared to gain steam in the media. The late reaction caused people to question where Obama stood on the issue. And in some cases point blame at him for the not doing enough to protect the environment and America’s interests.
I am most disappointed in how the administration are allowing the loud mouth conservatives bash and distribute lies about the president, without barking back. FOX News is an entity built on attacking Obama. I am convinced that the network is aiming to destroy President Obama’s chances at winning a second term to office. The reports that are spewed by many of the commentators on the network are vicious and racist. Now, I KNOW that Obama and those in his administration can not go around answering to everyone who say things that aren’t favorable. However, in some cases they are dealing with news outlets that reach millions of people. The administration needs to try and counter some of the idiotic things being touted as truth.
The Shirley Sherrod case is yet another example of how the Obama administration appears to be spineless and spooked by conservatives. Instead of investigating the case for full details, those within the administration appeared to have been scared that they would be featured on the Glen Beck show. Instead of standing up to the hate-mongers the Obama administration jumped the gun and unfairly fired Ms. Sherrod based on an edited video segment.
The Sherrod case isn’t the only case that the new administration appears to give in to the conservatives over. We all can recall the Van Johnson case, where once again FOX News commentators demanded that the president get rid of someone based on preceived racial bias. Instead of fighting for Johnson the Obama administration gave in. The organization ACORN was also a victim of fanatical conservatives distorting the truth and the Obama administration once again caved in by disbanding the organization.
I think those of us who are rational and fair want our president to be a bit more vocal against those who are being irrational and unfair. I want President Obama to stop side stepping some of the issues because they involve race. We don’t want him to spend all of his time addressing the loud mouth conservatives who bash him. Still, we don’t want him remaining silent and allow them to the only voice that America hears.
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Raven is an educator with a B.A. in Psychology and a M.A. in Education. She has been an avid reader since childhood. Her favorite genres are mystery, suspense, and horror, although she will give any genre a try. She is a life long resident of Chicago. Her love of books opened her mind to people, places and events far beyond her Chicago home. Reading helped to shape her world and her opinion of the events that took place within it. No matter what demands her career requires of her, she has always found time to read and write in a journal. Along with reading and journaling, she loves to watch the sunset, and discuss hot topics with family and friends. She loves baseball, horror movies, mysteries, listening to music from every corner of the world and expressing her view of the latest books with the women of APOOO.
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Dear Raven
I also feel very uneasy about President Obama’s apparent fear of any kind of confrontation. For instance, even though it is theoretically admirable that he should want to seek consensus with the Repubs, unfortunately the truth is that they will NEVER, ever extend the same gesture in return. Sometimes I just want to shake my President and say, “don’t you get it, Mr. President? These people are going to do their best to bring you down. They will not play nice with you just because you try to play nice with them.” YOU are the President. YOU tell them the way things are gonna be, whether they like it or not.
We saw how the President allowed congress and various other interest groups take the reins on health care reform and water down the concept of universal coverage until it was too dilute to even faintly resemble it. Right now what we have is compulsory health INSURANCE, not universal coverage, and the insurance companies, with whom Mr. Obama made some back-room deals, are very happy with the arrangement. The President came in at barely the last moment to try and resurrect the almost dead health “reform.” By this time, the process had mutated too far. What it is that makes Mr. Obama kind of hang back, watching from the wings until the actors have botched the play beyond recognition?
Isn’t it odd that although the President has won 3 major legislative victories – health, finance, and the stimulus package – we kind of feel like he hasn’t won much? It’s because Mr. Obama hasn’t come out swinging with something that makes people get goosebumps and say YES, you are right, Mr. Obama! We want to hear him say something like, “Ladies and gentlemen, the video on Shirley Sherrod was not the whole story. It was edited and shown out of context. She is an honorable woman and we are NOT going to dishonor her by asking her to resign. The truth must prevail.” This would have made me leap from my seat and say, “Hell, yeah! You tell them, Mr. President!”
raven, i’m also becoming a little disappointed with this adminstration them have drop the ball on the situations you have mention I really am praying that President Obama,start too MAN UP and be the Man.the republican will eat him alive ,making the chance of a second term unlikely.
And I thought I was the only one feeling this way. Although I also stood in line a long time to vote, and stayed up all night and danced a happy dance when he won, I have to admit to being disappointed at his performance. Although I knew his first term would be ridden with racists, idiots, and people whose only job is to gleefully make sure he is a one term President, I expected him to be firmer, sturdier, have a backbone, and standup to the opposition party. I did not expect him to taunt the opposition, but be firm with them,allowing no nonsense. We the voters spoke with our votes to tell him we agreed with with his agenda.
Now we seem to see a timid, lackadasial,scared man. A man who let his Health plan to be watered down to keep insurance companies happy, who let the Governmen assist big business during the downturn, but offer no help to the retirees, and others affected who saw their accounts dwindle down to next to nothing. The retirees who put money hopefully away for their retirement are now forced to depend on Social Security as their only form of income. This just makes me sick.
I am in accord with what you are saying Raven. I’m praying he will make the right decisions and speak truth to power.
I back Pres Obama 500% with whatever he does cause I fell he is doing something that will result in a better country having had him in charge that is better than what we had for the past 8 years and whatever McCain and silly Palin would have done.