Even a steely progressive like me, is susceptible to the constant onslaught of negative news about President Obama.
With Fox News and the vile wingnut pundits spewing their hate and lies, coupled with the rest of the mainstream media’s sensationalistic presentations of gloom and doom, there are few outlets to hear the positive results of our Democratic controlled government and our brilliant President Obama.
It is easy to forget that the President has a unique historical burden to carry that no other President has ever endured, and that being the first African American President. Mr. Obama cannot get angry publicly because if he does just one time, he gets labeled an "angry black man". Imagine how the press would feed from that narrative to gain ratings.
President Obama is the Jackie Robinson of the Presidency. The great Jackie Robinson knew when he entered Major League Baseball that he could never, never lose his cool no matter how many times he was sliced with metal cleats, spit upon, punched during a slide or denied access to hotels his teammates enjoyed. The strength that required is unimaginable for a lucky white man like myself, and what our President must hear and see while carrying the water for America during a depression is beyond this privileged Caucasian’s imagination.
Banks collapsing, health care bankruptcies and deaths, auto manufacturers disappearing, home foreclosures and homelessness to surprised seemingly middle class working Americans, (real) unemployment nearing 17%, anger and frustration, and two wars looting our treasury and the Republicans screaming at the top of their bigoted lungs, that President Obama is incompetent, and socialist, and Marxist and anything, anything at all to instill fear and doubt about him.
Yet our President chugs along, smiling encouragement and reaching out his hand to anyone who will take it, even if they take it in anger accomplishing miracles that we rarely hear about. Remember the anxiety and uncertainty of just 1.5 years ago? Do you still have that feeling? Remember opening the newspapers or internet everyday and all you saw was "treason, war, torture, gloom, doom and dire days ahead!"
I don’t have that feeling anymore and more and more I read good news about everything. The economy, jobs, the stock market, health care, banking, credit cards, manufacturing , killing more terrorists than George W. Bush did in eight years without the bravado and torture, and a future. I read that we might have a future again of clean energy, healthy people and shiny new electric trains and state of the art electric grids.
Bob Shrum has written an article which is a must read for anyone who cares, and you won’t see it on Fox, or CNN or the Wall Street Journal. But Mr. Schrum’s evaluation of our President Obama and the state of his Presidency is here and happening and you deserve to hear the good news for a change.
You need to hear the good news and spread it around to the best of your abilities. In one of the most vile and destructive political environments in our nation’s history our Jackie Robinson of a President, our President Obama is winning and I suggest you read the attached article and enjoy your day and support him at every turn, every day when you have the chance. It is our duty and the least we can do to assist him with some serious heavy lifting.
I mentioned Jackie Robinson which is heady company enough, but Barack Obama is in league with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt all Presidents with historical challenges unseen during their times. President Washington leading a small, poor army to victory with a willingness to learn and listen then guiding a infantile nation to Democracy when many wanted Monarchy.
Abraham Lincoln keeping a split nation together through sheer determination and forgiving his enemies the day after they surrendered and freeing a people suffering in bondage for centuries. Franklin Roosevelt insisting that citizens have a right to social security and that everyone needs to pay their fair share, against Capitalist forces with the resources of small countries.
Our President Barack Obama has already earned his place in history and he is still learning. The President is the right man for this ridiculously self-induced depression in the United States and we are lucky to have him. I admit to having my doubts the first eight months of his Presidency, but no more and never more.
I stand on my soapbox and yell to the masses that President Barack Obama is winning and I will follow him wherever he takes me because I trust him and I will never again waiver in my belief in our President.
Bob Shrum's Article