Letter to Obama

Taking heat from reporters

Dear Mr. President,

I congratulate you on your recent killing of Osama bin Laden, even though this is the most inhumane thing you have done as president and the vast majority of America (including myself) is not convinced that he is dead, anyhow. So I suppose I’m thanking you because, let’s face it, this very likely means that you will serve a second term as president, and the American public will be spared from another nutjob like Sarah Palin, George W or Donald Trump--although, as for Mike Huckabee or Newt Gingrich, I probably wouldn’t mind them at this point. But Mr. Obama, what’s going on! For a moment there, I thought you were going to overhaul and change the system: a new Lincoln, a modern-day Franklin D. Roosevelt; most importantly, a fresh Thomas Jefferson, who believed a revolution is due every generation. Instead, you have stagnated on important environmental issues by maintaining the status quo of not joining the Kyoto Protocol and thus mandating the U.S. to reduce gas emissions (most of Europe is already onboard, or soon will be). After your speech in Cairo early in your presidency, you have largely ignored the Middle East (except to continue that evil, oil-driven war in Afghanistan). Palestine and Israel are still precisely where they were after the end of the Camp David Accords, all these years later; Gaza is still holed in, and Israeli bulldozers are still knocking down Palestinian houses like dominos. You have still failed to recognize the integrity of Cuba, and have engaged in a Kennedy-era mentality that deem Fidel and Raul Castro the Satans of the Caribbean.

I know how hard it is to effect change with such a divided, bipartisan Congress (and maybe I, like so many other Americans, am asking for too much), but you worked your magic with your Obamacare legislation. Can’t you do it again? As the saying goes, can’t you lay another egg? I do a Google Images search of you and my query generates endless side-by-side comparisons of you and Herbert Hoover. The last thing you want for your legacy is to be compared to Hoover. Hoover is the very embodiment of incompetence and, more sourly, impotence. To be clear, the crowd that views you as ineffectual is not the same crowd that views you as a contemporary of Hitler or Heath Ledger’s version of the Joker (those are the Sarah-Palin-touting idiots--and those we can ignore). These are everyday, thinking Americans who simply and genuinely feel let down by your broken promises and failed agendas. This all makes me miss Joe the Plumber a little; at least this rambling, out-of-work Joe Six-pack who wasn’t even a real plumber kept you on task.

Ok, so you did some things with bank and credit regulation, but nowhere near enough. The fact of the matter is that another recession is already simmering. We can say goodbye to the Clinton Years and balancing the deficit (which of itself wasn’t even that much of an accomplishment). We can hail back in the Reagan trickle-down economics bullcrap that was simply code for To the wealthy go the spoils and the hell with everybody else. Mr. Obama, I need for you to look at me in my eyes: Is this what you want for your legacy? Because I’ll tell you something, no statue has ever been erected to the man who did nothing.

I really REALLY don’t want to join the chorus of critics and nay-sayers who have constantly been hounding you in the last few months, but you are getting to be a very disappointing president. Maybe somewhere along the way we forgot that you are only a man with very limited powers, even for your position. Maybe we forgot that you inherited a disaster unbefitting every president except Roosevelt. Maybe we all expected too much from you. But are we wrong for this? After all, you ran your campaign under the banner of change and hope. Look sir, we (at least I) still believe in you, but if you don’t do something big--quick--that faith will simply continue to erode. Mr. President, don’t let me down!

To this day, the most famous biography of George W. Bush (and a great read, too!) is Jacob Weisberg’s The Bush Tragedy. It’d be a shame and misfortune if history chooses as your favorite biography something along the lines of The Obama Disaster. A damn shame.

Mr. President, shrug off your cobwebs and begin once more the great work of the people. History demands it. Remember: a revolution is due every generation. Ours is well past due.