To Slay The Dragon

If I hear one more representative of the broad spectrum of the right say, "The president just doesn't seem to understand...", "The president hasn't figured out...," "The president doesn't believe...," etc., etc....

These people can't be serious. Over five years, and even if he was a schoolchild with absolutely no awareness of history, surely he would have learned by continually pounding the same ideology into failure after failure, the economy and the culture in general in a perpetual state of infirmity. We haven't seen so extended weakness in American production, economic vitality and employment opportunity since The Great Depression of the 1930s, when FDR followed a similar course.

At least Roosevelt didn't have The Great Depression to refer back to. But Obama is NOT a schoolchild. He's not entirely oblivious to the lessons of history. He's quite aware of The Great Depression that he accused George W. Bush of approximating through his first term and still today. But Bush saw healthier growth in 7 of his 8 years than Obama has seen in any of his 5 so far. Obama knows exactly what he's doing. He's cutting a nation down in size that he thinks has been too much the exceptional success in the world.

Republicans who only whine and won't use their power to de-fund, de-fang and nullify these persistently destructive and confining actions are pathetic. They haven't the courage to do their duty and confront the disparagement that we all know would come their way from popular culture. But that's what noble leaders do: carry truth and justice into the storm. Look around at those that popular culture has pounded as mean, stupid and dangerous. That is what establishment Republicans fear, and so they become colorless bland gruel.

But those disparaged individuals are the ones who should be our model. There are a few out there for the job. But we need many more. No, Barack Obama isn't stupid. But he thinks we are. And on the evidence of these spineless representatives and an electorate that re-elected Obama (legitimately or not - it shouldn't have been close, and I knew we were in trouble on election night when I saw that it was), it looks like Obama is right on that count.