http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...cle_a237aae3-40aa-5126-a65e-b82601b3069a.html
I should have picked Hillary over Obama
I was splashing around in Lake Michigan last week when the realization hit me like a wave â I was wrong about Barack Obama. I should have voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary three years ago.
At the time of the primary, the decision seemed easy. I saw in Obama the same qualities Jack Kerouac saw in Dean Moriarty in "On the Road." He was 'something new, long prophesied, long a-coming."
Hillary was not new. She represented the second act of "Billary," and I had tired of that play long before it ended its eight-year run.
So I voted for Obama in the primary and then again in the general election. I even left the election night party at the Pageant â a party with an open bar and filled with state legislators, union guys and other acquaintances â to go to the Chase Park Plaza, where the Obama people were celebrating. I knew almost nobody at that second party, but I was there when the networks declared that Obama was the next president. People cried and hugged. I got teary myself. A black president. The times they are a-changing.
Indeed. They keep getting worse.
I heard a story on vacation that brought that home. A friend told me about a small company in Chicago that built auto parts. The company was about 50 years old and employed about 500 people. When the auto industry tanked, so did the company's sales. Fortunately, the company had a long relationship with its bank and the bank was willing to work with it. Unfortunately, the bank was swallowed up by one of those too-big-to-fail banks that we had to bail out, and the megabank was not willing to work with the company. So it is out of business.
Admittedly, both the bailout and the merger occurred under the last administration, but the company was put down during this administration. What about all that change we were going to get?
It's too easy to blame Republicans. Yes, they have blocked Obama at every turn, but that is the way of things in politics.
Frankly, there is nothing sinister with it. Conservatives and liberals have different visions. Of course one side is going to try to block the other. The blame, I think, lies with Obama. He is not strong enough to be an effective president.
Consider the debacle with the debt ceiling. The Democrats wanted to raise taxes on people making more than $250,000. The Republicans wanted to cut spending.
Obama said he'd go along with spending cuts if the Republicans would agree to some tax hikes. He was negotiating from a position of strength. The Republicans controlled only the House. The Democrats had the White House, the Senate and, more importantly, the people. Poll after poll showed that a majority of Americans favored raising taxes on the wealthy.
But it was Obama who backed down.
This was a fight he could have won. Consider hedge fund managers. On their earnings, they pay at the capital gains rate of 15 percent. According to a story last week in the Toronto Star, the top 25 hedge fund managers took home an average of $880 million last year. According to that same story, closing the loophole for hedge fund managers would save the Treasury $20 billion over 10 years.
Obama didn't think he could win that argument? He didn't just lose, either. He was pushed around. The speaker of the House wouldn't return his calls. Obama whined a little and turned the other cheek.
Contrast his behavior with that of Bill Clinton, who had a similar tussle with Congress in November 1995. When an agreement could not be reached, Clinton stood his ground and allowed the government to shut down.
Obama did not have the fortitude for that. Maybe he was afraid the markets would react negatively if the debt ceiling was not raised. Guess what? The markets crashed anyway.
So here we are almost 2 1/2 years into his presidency. We're still in Iraq, still in Afghanistan. The economy is still in the Dumpster. U.S. credit has been downgraded. We've got a half-baked health care reform law that is being challenged. The middle class is still getting crushed.
Why has Obama not lived up to the promise? He is clearly intelligent. For some reason, though, he was not ready for the rough and tumble of national politics.
Maybe his background is the reason. He went to a private prep school in Hawaii and then Columbia University, and Harvard for law. These were white-majority schools, to be sure, but also places with educated, enlightened people who were happy to see a black kid succeed. That is, I suspect, a big thing. Nobody ever wanted to see him fail until he became president.
Hillary had been tested. Eight years in the meat grinder. She'd have been a better president.
Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...0aa-5126-a65e-b82601b3069a.html#ixzz1UltP2272
I should have picked Hillary over Obama
I was splashing around in Lake Michigan last week when the realization hit me like a wave â I was wrong about Barack Obama. I should have voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary three years ago.
At the time of the primary, the decision seemed easy. I saw in Obama the same qualities Jack Kerouac saw in Dean Moriarty in "On the Road." He was 'something new, long prophesied, long a-coming."
Hillary was not new. She represented the second act of "Billary," and I had tired of that play long before it ended its eight-year run.
So I voted for Obama in the primary and then again in the general election. I even left the election night party at the Pageant â a party with an open bar and filled with state legislators, union guys and other acquaintances â to go to the Chase Park Plaza, where the Obama people were celebrating. I knew almost nobody at that second party, but I was there when the networks declared that Obama was the next president. People cried and hugged. I got teary myself. A black president. The times they are a-changing.
Indeed. They keep getting worse.
I heard a story on vacation that brought that home. A friend told me about a small company in Chicago that built auto parts. The company was about 50 years old and employed about 500 people. When the auto industry tanked, so did the company's sales. Fortunately, the company had a long relationship with its bank and the bank was willing to work with it. Unfortunately, the bank was swallowed up by one of those too-big-to-fail banks that we had to bail out, and the megabank was not willing to work with the company. So it is out of business.
Admittedly, both the bailout and the merger occurred under the last administration, but the company was put down during this administration. What about all that change we were going to get?
It's too easy to blame Republicans. Yes, they have blocked Obama at every turn, but that is the way of things in politics.
Frankly, there is nothing sinister with it. Conservatives and liberals have different visions. Of course one side is going to try to block the other. The blame, I think, lies with Obama. He is not strong enough to be an effective president.
Consider the debacle with the debt ceiling. The Democrats wanted to raise taxes on people making more than $250,000. The Republicans wanted to cut spending.
Obama said he'd go along with spending cuts if the Republicans would agree to some tax hikes. He was negotiating from a position of strength. The Republicans controlled only the House. The Democrats had the White House, the Senate and, more importantly, the people. Poll after poll showed that a majority of Americans favored raising taxes on the wealthy.
But it was Obama who backed down.
This was a fight he could have won. Consider hedge fund managers. On their earnings, they pay at the capital gains rate of 15 percent. According to a story last week in the Toronto Star, the top 25 hedge fund managers took home an average of $880 million last year. According to that same story, closing the loophole for hedge fund managers would save the Treasury $20 billion over 10 years.
Obama didn't think he could win that argument? He didn't just lose, either. He was pushed around. The speaker of the House wouldn't return his calls. Obama whined a little and turned the other cheek.
Contrast his behavior with that of Bill Clinton, who had a similar tussle with Congress in November 1995. When an agreement could not be reached, Clinton stood his ground and allowed the government to shut down.
Obama did not have the fortitude for that. Maybe he was afraid the markets would react negatively if the debt ceiling was not raised. Guess what? The markets crashed anyway.
So here we are almost 2 1/2 years into his presidency. We're still in Iraq, still in Afghanistan. The economy is still in the Dumpster. U.S. credit has been downgraded. We've got a half-baked health care reform law that is being challenged. The middle class is still getting crushed.
Why has Obama not lived up to the promise? He is clearly intelligent. For some reason, though, he was not ready for the rough and tumble of national politics.
Maybe his background is the reason. He went to a private prep school in Hawaii and then Columbia University, and Harvard for law. These were white-majority schools, to be sure, but also places with educated, enlightened people who were happy to see a black kid succeed. That is, I suspect, a big thing. Nobody ever wanted to see him fail until he became president.
Hillary had been tested. Eight years in the meat grinder. She'd have been a better president.
Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/...0aa-5126-a65e-b82601b3069a.html#ixzz1UltP2272
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