“Tough Love” Cop out

Obama regal-1 “If what you are doing requires no sacrifice at all, then you can do more,” Obama told the tony crowd at a sweeping multi-million-dollar Beverly Hills home. “If you are one of these folks who is watching cable news at your cocktail parties with your friends and you are saying ‘civilization is collapsing’ and you are nervous and worried, but that is not where you are putting all your time, energy and money, then either you don’t actually think civilization is collapsing … or you are not pushing yourself hard enough and I would push harder.”

Mr President,

I guess you don’t think things are that bad. What are YOU doing? Writing a $40,000,000 book, making $300,000 speeches and hanging out with Richard Branson, Bruce Springsteen and Steven Spielberg? That much money buys a lot of insulation from Trump’s actions. You’re set for life and your kids will do well. What’s to worry? Oh, did I mention Michelle’s $20,000,000 book?

The irony of this situation is that, even though you are largely responsible for this mess-for what you didn’t do during your eight years- you are the only Democrat who can unite the party against Trump and the Republicans. The tragedy is that you won’t. You think that because GW Bush didn’t criticize you, that it would be out-of-bounds for you to criticize Trump. But Bush left in disgrace- economic meltdown, Katrina, WMD, etc. His best strategy was to say nothing because to do otherwise would have given you an opening (though you wouldn’t have used it, of course) to criticize the policies and actions of Republicans to their detriment in the mid-terms.

You don’t realize the upside of speaking out. Your haters hate you regardless of what you say or do. The downside is already there. The upside is that, by speaking out, you will galvanize Democrats and Progressives. When we show up at the polls, we win.

I wonder if you actually have it in you to do the hard work of leading a cause. 2008 was a relative cakewalk. Nearly any Democrat was going to win the Presidency and the Democratic primary was an exercise in relative civility, quaint by today’s standards.

But hey, a book, speeches and hanging out with famous people is much more fun than defending the rights of oppressed people and fighting for Democratic principles. Do you even care about anyone who isn’t in your socio-economic class? Did you ever?

Get off the sidelines and into the game. A Twitter war with the Donald would be entertaining- for our side, finally.

An open letter to Barack Obama- part 2

Sir,

“Sometimes I wonder whether I was 10 or 20 years too early”.

What bull. What a rationalization. It has nothing to do with your progressive ideas and very little to do with your skin color. The voters gave you two terms to improve THEIR lives. When you failed, they blamed your party’s chosen successor and went with someone who had a more drastic idea about change and how to go about it. Look what we got.

How we got here is your fault. You can say that Republicans are to blame, but you weren’t stuck in first line supervision or even middle management. You had the top job and the latitude to get it done. You set the expectation by implying that you were smartest guy in the room and had smart people working for you, but you didn’t deliver. You wanted Republicans to like you instead of respecting you and your political power. When liking you didn’t pan out and you failed to be a politician and campaign, you took the easy way out: Presidential Directives. Well, guess what? Donald Trump isn’t as smart as you, but he has smart-ish people working for him and he also knows how to sign Presidential Directives- directives that cancel yours.

You were weak, never standing up to Republicans. You didn’t call them out and beat them over the head by reminding voters about Republican complicity in the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Or Iraq. Or Katrina. Or anything else. Politics just wasn’t your thing, even though Presidents are first and foremost politicians. You wanted to make nice. You didn’t campaign during the mid-terms and Democrats got “shellacked” both times. In 2012, when you had to campaign to keep your job, Democrats didn’t pick up enough seats to make a difference.

It is somewhat laudable that you wanted to return our national conversation to civility, but your opposition wasn’t having any of it and neither was a good portion of the Country. Eight years and it didn’t work, even when they had both Houses and could control the agenda for the last two. And they weren’t showing any indication they would change if Hillary had won. Expecting a different outcome when doing the same thing is a definition of insanity.

You were the wrong guy for the wrong time. But enjoy your $40,000,000 book deal.

An open letter to Barack Obama- Part 1A

Sir,

In his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, Theodore Roosevelt noted, “We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life.” However, he continued with this bracing passage: “But we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong.”

I guess the American public aren’t that dear to you. It’s only the kids and Michelle that matter. $40,000,000 will by a lot of insulation from the injustices of this country.

A open letter to Barack Obama- Part 1

trump obama

Mr President,

I don’t know where to begin other than to say the current situation in this country is largely your fault. Not for what you did, but for what you didn’t do. It will take me multiple posts to cover it all.

I begin with stating that I don’t have a problem with the policies you tried- mostly unsuccessfully- to implement. My problem is how you went about it.

You came into office with majorities in both Houses, a super-majority in the Senate and you squandered the opportunity. Your dogged instance to play nice with the Republicans, when a simple push would have sent them over the edge into long term irrelevance, made you look weak and enabled their return to power. You did an awful job of explaining your actions and contrasting them with the disastrous Republican positions, making it easy for them to turn public opinion against you and your actions. Your failure to campaign in the midterms allowed them to grow in strength each election cycle. (I actually think you wanted the Republicans to win in 2016 in hopes they would pass big-issue legislation that would require negotiation with you.) They now have majorities in both Houses of Congress, state houses and governor’s mansions. We now have Neal Gorsuch, a pullout of the Paris agreement, a pullout of the Iran nuclear slowdown, ad infinitum. Your fault.

Your unwillingness to call out Trump for his actions when you are still the highest profile Democrat robs Democrats and progressives an opportunity to make their case to the few remaining independents. Just because George Bush didn’t criticize your actions during your terms is not a reason for staying silent. Bush left in disgrace. A few words from him would have actually helped you had you responded politically to his criticisms.

I don’t mind that Republicans hate you. I do mind that they don’t (still don’t) respect you. You spent your time hoping they would like you, but a few beat-downs would have made them respect you, a far more useful relationship. You had Republicans in a corner during the government shutdown over the Bush tax cuts. Instead of extracting maximum political effect and concessions, you sent Joe Biden to negotiate to help out McConnell. Did Mitch return the favor? I have a two word answer for that question. Merrick Garland. I don’t know how much more disrespect they could have shown.

But on the upside you have a $40,000,000 book deal. If it’s title isn’t something like “I’m sorry. I fucked up”, then I know it will be 400 pages of rationalizations and excuses, at $100,000 per page!

So disappointing.

An open letter to Joe Biden

obama bohner blog Respectfully, sir,
Make as much money as you can from your book and speaking engagements AND THEN GO HOME. You and President Obama showed over your eight years that you don’t have what it takes to effectively counter Republican tactics. Now is not the time for nice guys to run for the presidency who don’t have the necessary skills to confront Trump and his enablers. The bully needs to be beaten at his own game for the public to turn away from him. He would not be in power had you done your job.