By Rick Coddington
As the headlines are showing, Obama’s popularity is falling with the rising awakening of the voters to the dangers of his healthcare reform and with the staggering deficit.
Suddenly, and maybe because of the plummet, Obama is focusing more and more on getting Republicans to sign on to his disastrous plans.
Why? If his plans are good ideas as he still claims, and since he has the majority position in both houses, why does he give a hoot about Republicans? Wouldn’t it make more sense to press through with his great ideas without the Republicans so he would then be able to point out that he is the great hero in all this? For sure that’s what I would do.
Since all these programs are about getting reelected anyway, if I had a plan that was going to truly benefit the people I would count on the fact that I had 3½ years left of my term to make it work and that the people would eventually end up loving me for my genius healthcare reform once they see that it was not all the evil things that it had seemed to be.
Obama is going in the exact opposite direction! Surely, that’s not because he knows how bad his plan is and that he will need to be able to blame the outcome on it being a “bi-partisan” debacle once the real effects become undeniable. Right now, Obama is still able to deny whatever he wants because we are still in the position of being denied the truth of our predicament.
After all, no matter how bad the “potential” bills are they are not passed yet. So we are just facing potential healthcare rationing. Just “potential” mandatory counseling to encourage old folks to end their lives prematurely as cheaply as possible. And payments for abortion is just potential until everything is finalized. Then it’ll be too late to do anything about any of this!
We are in a very frustrating position here and it’s no surprise so many people are upset over all this. As Obama so arrogantly puts it “wee-weed about it.” Once again he just can’t understand our concerns.
You know, Mr. O, it’s really very simple, life and death are important to us. We have learned that government absolutely does not have out interests in mind. We have also learned that, particularly from you, Mr. O, that all the so-called change is not coming forth.
The main thing that has changed is the speed with which these bad ideas are coming at us. That’s why we are not sleeping well and why we are screaming our heads off at your little love sessions that you laughingly call town meetings. That’s why you are seeing the rise of the radicals packing guns and pictures of you with a Hitler moustache Mr. O. It’s because your smoke and mirrors dealings have left us wishing for the good old days of Bush when he was just outright secretive.
He was brutish enough in his methods that we at least understood him. You, Mr. O, you are just far too slippery. When the public opinion turns against you, you just tell us there must be something wrong with us. When your minions host a public town hall meeting and turn it into a love fest by refusing admission to people that don’t agree with you or by keeping the important questions from being asked by requiring that everything be submitted in writing and then only bringing out the feel-good questions from your supporters … you are out-Bushing Bush.
Your made a big deal out of pledging to create “an unprecedented level of openness in Government” and “establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.” Where did all that stuff go? Let me tell you how you can put all this to bed, oh fearless leader.
As soon as you get back from your little vacation, open up for public viewing the controversial sections of the healthcare reform bills. If you don’t know where they are you can go back three of my columns and read the page numbers. Being truly open and transparent will allow you to end the distrust and silence the protestors.
If the dangerous provisions are not really there, then we can all apologize to you. You can regain your approval rating and keep at least your transparency promise, all in one stroke. How about it Mr. President? Are you for real or are we all fearing you with good reason?
Rick Coddington is a third-generation native New Mexican. He attended UNM and studied political science. He has lived in Socorro since 1974. His opinions do not necessarily represent the Mountain Mail.
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