Obama's 100 Days: A Blueprint for Success

The rating of a US president’s first 100 days in office has become a must see media show in the coliseum of modern journalism. President Obama was no exception. A recent Pew poll showed Obama’s approval ratings for the first 100 days in office higher than Reagan’s. Unlike Reagan, who did not face the biggest recession since the Great Depression, Mr. Obama encounters unprecedented challenges in both the domestic and international fronts with a scattered but determined opposition, which seems to be slowly regrouping.

With a renewed and [innovative] sense of urgency, the White House has strived in the first 100 days to make government more accountable and transparent. The impetus of Mr. Obama’s message, amplified by his weekly radio addresses, frequent press conferences including a live network show appearance gained traction in the public’s perception. There was consensus among Obama’s supporters that the administration tried, and modestly accomplished, to steer away from business as usual, at least in the exceptionally high strung corridors of government. But if success is measured by perception, intent becomes the distinctive mark by which an administration is successfully appraised. President Obama’s first 100 days in office have been characterized by a new tone, a synchronized dance, a national dialogue much too different from the previous administration, whose pigeonhole approach to domestic issues contributed to their demise.

However, many suggest that the “house upon a rock” that Obama’s White House is trying to edify is too much too soon for the immense challenges we confront. Mr. Obama faces many obstacles on his uphill battle to fix Washington and America’s image in the world, and some of these sand blocks are within his own party, whose loyalties lie more with electoral demographics than with the President’s vision.

In the international arena, Mr. Obama’s new foundation found some adherence. In his trips abroad he provided an opening for dialogue between US and Iran and other regimes, including Cuba. His decision to close Guantanamo, release torture memos, put demands on Israel, set a date for pulling troops from Iraq, send more troops to Afghanistan and kill three Somali pirates are clear measures that change is taking place, albeit slowly and cautiously.

In the domestic front, things were slightly skewed for this administration. The passing of the stimulus bill, which set the tone for his economic agenda, was met with ebullient criticism. Reactions to the banking and the auto-industry bailouts were not unreasonable and the administration’s failure to cap Wall Street bonuses diminished their leverage among the American people to deal with the overall recession.

But Mr. Obama’s first 100 days showdown is over, and the real work of government has just begun. Finding common ground for all his measures will be hard, and even though change is part of our everyday parlance, the ‘house upon a rock” vision needs walls and a roof.

Waking up to Electoral Reality

Republicans are beginning to look dazed and confused. Without a leader in sight or a relevant slogan, they are still making banter and noise, desperately flocking TEA parties and resurrecting radio hosts. After many closed door sessions, they still have not produced a single counter-reformative measure that can effectively compete with Obama’s much criticized stimulus bill.

Just this week, a new Pew poll shows Obama’s approval ratings for the first 100 days in office higher than Reagan’s numbers. Unlike Reagan who did not face the biggest economic slowdown since the Great Depression, Obama’s challenge, unprecedented in all categories, seems to have propelled the opposition’s cacophony to new levels.

What Obama has to realize is that oppositions are part of the dynamics of a democracy, and that instead of creating a playing field for them, he has to govern by the ideals he was elected on. In every democratic government, oppositions get by relatively well, as long as they are productive and coherent, which has not been the case for Republicans. Image rehabilitation is only part of the medicine needed for a healthy recovery. This was the case for the Democrats in the eight years of the Bush Administration.

Finally this election was a referendum at all levels. Mr. Obama should not expect any complacency or candor from the opposition. If this is a showdown between the status quo and fulfilling the platform he was elected on, it should sink in that 58% of the electorate is banking on status quo reversal.

The Opposition’s Tug of Rhetoric

Yesterday’s speech by President Obama, addressed to a joint session of Congress and clearly directed at the American people, was a sour reminder of the uphill battle our nation faces toward recovery and reform. Guilty of caution to an extreme, the President managed to sound hopeful to an increasingly politically incredulous crowd. But this is insular Washington, so in my book, he gets points just by standing up there and making his case for a better future.

However clear and optimistic Obama’s message might be, there is plenty of crumbling speed ahead of us. The economy is a disaster. Unemployment will keep rising to unprecedented levels as long as credit remains frozen in the rusty pipes of the financial sector. As much as half of this downward spiral is based on fear, and as long as the American people keep stumbling upon the opposition’s misplaced criticism of the Administration’s economic reforms, the long road to recovery will seem insurmountable.

The latent defeatism of the GOP has plunged to a new low and Governor Jindal (R-LA) has emerged as their spokesperson. It is without much contemplation that the members of his party are rallying against the recovery bill’s chance to jumpstart the economy. Their fodder? That government has no place in nation-building and recovery. Of course, there is substantial evidence against this rhetoric, but in the face of political annihilation much of this verbosity has translated into little persuasiveness precisely because the GOP, the party of fiscal responsibility, has contributed to the rampant deficit and the economic tsunami we have inherited.

What should be obvious in their impertinent argument is that when government is faced with a crisis such as this one, not doing enough can be costly. We see the consequences around the world. Economic crises can weaken the middle class, obstruct development and bring chaos. The world’s biggest middle class is now in trouble and much is at stake if government does not step in. This of course, is what Jindal’s party fundamentally opposes, and their solution is more of the same: taxcuts and a hands-off approach to basic universal problems like healthcare, energy independence and education reform. Fortunately, this crisis presents an opportunity for Obama’s government to try to fix some of the fundamental problems that got us here in the first place.

When 9/11 happened and Pres. Bush rallied us against his cause for war, much of the nation gave him the benefit of the doubt. It was not until six months later that we, the American public, realized we had evidently lost control and had stepped into the biggest foreign policy fiasco this nation has ever been confronted with still no end in sight. The least this Administration deserves is a fair attempt at improving the economy with a full front-attack. And let it be clear to Jindal and his party that after two wars, Katrina, the biggest deficit in US history and six straight unbalanced budgets, they have no moral grounds to lecture the Administration on how to go about fixing the problem.

Recovery Should Be Obama’s Bait

No doubt President Obama’s first days in office have been stressful. From faulty nominations to uncooperative deals, some say it's politics as usual. The media is busy dissecting all of this, highlighting, with some merit, his inexperience in back-channel negotiation tactics. But the truth is more profound. The economy and our livelihoods are in crisis and I think it’s time for Obama to put aside his gaily efforts to be bipartisan and focus on selling his recovery bill to the American people, which finally he will do this week, with or without the Republicans on board. Ultimately we, the taxpayers, will decide in favor of it.

Republicans have been doing a great job of making this American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus bill) sound like a wasteful spending spree. For Republicans, tax cuts should be the number one ingredient in the pot. Really? And what would John Doe do with a $1,200 tax cut? Go to Disneyland? Buy a flat screen TV set? If the average John Doe is like most of us, scared and reticent, he will cautiously put that money away or use it to pay up debt. This reasoning is what Republicans don’t understand. They want to jolt the economy back to life, to the unprecedented levels of profits and growth of the past 25 years so that corporate America can go back to their old ways of doing business.

Fortunately, Obama and his team can see through the smokescreen even if some of the details don’t yet add up. He has been saying it during the campaign. America needs to fundamentally change gears when it comes to spending, profiteering, and saving if we are to learn from the deepening mess we find ourselves in. He understands exactly how we got here: on credit and by lascivious risk-taking. Wall Street got greedier and rejected conservative and sound investment policies. Their complex schemes got the better of them and they developed glaucoma in their investment decisions. When the pressure set in and the losses started to compound, whose door did they knock on? You know the answer.

I understand the argument of some, that if we grow the size of government, things will get out of hand. It is true, overseeing the debt and spending of government takes a lot of work. It requires agencies working together in efficient, transparent and harmonious ways. However, if we are to avoid the past failed attempts at recession rescue plans, like Japan’s, we need a more comprehensive approach to spending. And this bill is offering exactly that. There is plenty of smart spending, which builds upon the realization that job recreation and long-term growth can come from government taking the initiative. How? By spending on infrastructure, education, research, science and technology, energy production, reforming our tax code, our trade agreements, specially investment regulations so that corporate and government financial transactions appear, at least, transparent.

If we fail to act now in defense of our expensive healthcare system, our crippled infrastructure, our burdened education system, our costly energy system and our unregulated financial system, it will be too late and expensive in the future, and we will have no incentives. For example, our green revolution is waiting to take off, if government is willing to be the co-pilot. This recession will be not be a short one, its lingering effects will continue to sip in even as recovery efforts make their presence in urban, rural, and suburban areas across America. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest human challenge Americans face, one which will claim more victims than 9/11, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and Hurricane Katrina combined.

America leads again

Under the watchful eyes of the world America has once again made history. For an overwhelming majority, Obama’s victory creates the possibility for a ‘new’ America. One that is no longer white, homogeneous and singular; but rather multi-racial, heterogeneous and pluralist.

“We as a people” are part of a historic moment in our lives, Obama
said, that glorious night in Grand Park, IL recounting America’s brightest threshold moments from Lincoln’s Inaugural address to the fall of the Berlin wall, Americans have been at the center of all these transcendental events, and Obama’s victory will go down in history as the day America finally ‘evolved’.

Many of our allies in the world have yet to see a moment like this take
place on their own turfs. As the perpetual light bearer of the world, America has shown the ability to startle the world with our passion, our optimism and our sense of renewed hope. It is a place, finally, where the content of our President’s character is more important than his cultural background.

Obama's economic policy team: two thumbs up

Now that the United States is experiencing the biggest economic crisis in modern history, it is safe to say, that America’s best choice is Senator Barrack Obama. After eight years of irresponsible management and low-grade politics, the obvious choice is the Democratic ticket. But instead of capitalizing on the downfalls of the Bush administration and the offspring they have produced, here is why Obama's economic plan is the best option for America.

When it comes to improving the economic prospects of this nation at this critical time, the Obama economic team has highlighted the necessary steps for recovery, reform and renewability desperately needed in the unconscientious American financial system.

Heading Obama’s economic policy team is Jason Furman, a 39 year-old centrist economist and fiscal policy expert from Harvard University. Obama has also enlisted other top-notch economists and academics including Alan Binder, a Princeton University economist and former Federal Reserve Chairman; Austan Goolsbee, senior economist at the Progressive Policy Institute and columnist for the New York Times; Jeffrey Liebman, a pension and poverty expert at Harvard University; and David Cultler, a Harvard University health economist. Other prominent advisors come from The Brookings Institution, The Center for American Progress and Citigroup.

But the most exciting, un-official advisor and supporter comes in the form of an unpretentious billionaire named Warren Buffet, solidifying Obama’s bid for the Presidency. Buffet has held fundraisers for Obama and has rallied entrepreneurs, economists, and union leaders to back him, stressing the fact that it’s about time for tax reform and healthcare reform, specifically shifting the tax burden away from the middle class to the upper rich. In Buffet’s words, it is called social justice.

Finally, someone with enough guts has finally called McCain’s bluff. It’s not socialism you swiftboating morons, it’s social justice.

Obama is Not a Movement

Obamanism is the term coined by the media to describe the feverish excitement many Obama supporters are experiencing in this primary elections. Many are calling it a movement to reawaken the dormant electorate. I found this piece written by political scientist Benjamin Barber in his blog, which attempts to diffuse the misrepresentation.

Movements outlast candidates and candidacies. Their leaders generally don’t even run for office — think Martin Luther King, Hugo Chavez, Benjamin Spock, and Betty Friedan; or Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh. Candidates may become attached to or embody a cause, but the cause comes first and the candidate is never himself (herself) the cause, any more than working to elect the candidate is the movement. Movements do not start in a candidacy or end in an election.

When Senator Obama calls for your engagement in the political and civic process, do you really think he means only as long as it’s about voting for him? About voting at all? If there is a movement attached to his cause, beyond making him the nominee, it is a movement to call on citizens to reassume the responsibilities and obligations of citizenship. To understand that the quality of our democracy depends less on the quality of leadership than the quality of citizenship

http://blog.civworld.org/

Obama is not a movement. He is only a candidate trying to get elected.