It has been a long 3+ years on the road to the presidency and occupying the White House. During that time my emotions have been all over the place. I've had many highs and many lows but after viewing the below video one thing is for sure...President Obama has a very tough job in an isolating position trying to take on the entire corrupted government system and our military industrial complex. It is truly amazing that we've gotten as much legislation passed as we have. While not perfect I think I'm starting to become a little less critical. Follow me over the jump.....
PLEASE CLICK ON THIS OBAMA INTERVIEW. IT IS POWERFUL!!!!
The President from the Rolling Stone article
Question: You've passed more progressive legislation than any president since Lyndon Johnson. Yet your base does not seem nearly as fired up as the opposition, and you don't seem to be getting the credit for those legislative victories. There was talk that you were going to mobilize your grass-roots volunteers and use them to pressure Congress, but you decided for whatever reason not to involve the public directly and not to force a filibuster on issues like health care. What do you say to those people who have developed a sense of frustration — your base — who feel that you need to fight harder?
When I talk to Democrats around the country, I tell them, "Guys, wake up here. We have accomplished an incredible amount in the most adverse circumstances imaginable." I came in and had to prevent a Great Depression, restore the financial system so that it functions, and manage two wars. In the midst of all that, I ended one of those wars, at least in terms of combat operations. We passed historic health care legislation, historic financial regulatory reform and a huge number of legislative victories that people don't even notice. We wrestled away billions of dollars of profit that were going to the banks and middlemen through the student-loan program, and now we have tens of billions of dollars that are going directly to students to help them pay for college. We expanded national service more than we ever have before.
The Recovery Act alone represented the largest investment in research and development in our history, the largest investment in infrastructure since Dwight Eisenhower, the largest investment in education — and that was combined, by the way, with the kind of education reform that we hadn't seen in this country in 30 years — and the largest investment in clean energy in our history.
You look at all this, and you say, "Folks, that's what you elected me to do." I keep in my pocket a checklist of the promises I made during the campaign, and here I am, halfway through my first term, and we've probably accomplished 70 percent of the things that we said we were going to do — and by the way, I've got two years left to finish the rest of the list, at minimum. So I think that it is very important for Democrats to take pride in what we've accomplished.
I thought this quote was pretty impressive and clarifying for me as a supporter. The emphasis is mine.
I could have had a knock-down, drag-out fight on the public option that might have energized you and The Huffington Post, and we would not have health care legislation now. I could have taken certain positions on aspects of the financial regulatory bill, where we got 90 percent of what we set out to get, and I could have held out for that last 10 percent, and we wouldn't have a bill. You've got to make a set of decisions in terms of "What are we trying to do here? Are we trying to just keep everybody ginned up for the next election, or at some point do you try to win elections because you're actually trying to govern?" I made a decision early on in my presidency that if I had an opportunity to do things that would make a difference for years to come, I'm going to go ahead and take it.
The President acknowledged that the above mentioned legislation is not perfect and needs to be built upon and in that I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree. But, it is a start. A start that we would not have had if the current administration was President McCain and VP Sarah Palin. Again, I think I have a new found humility for this President. He is but one man trying to do the impossible against improbably odds. Let's continue to work to build upon the progress that we've already made.
We need to aim our attention at getting the President more support and help in congress. Our main focus should be Max Baucus (D-Neb), Mark Warner (D-Va), Jon Tester (D-Mont) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn). JUST TODAY they voted to not end debate on the legislative bill that would have rewarded companies who kept jobs here in America but taxed them at a higher rate for shipping jobs overseas!! You can understand if they felt the need to vote no on the final legislation for political reason but this has Chamber of Commerce's money written all over it. Guys, the money in Washington and even internationally is too large for must of us to wrap our minds around.
As overwhelming as this seems sometimes we've got to stop depending on the MSM to spread these messages we've got to continue to do it ourselves. We can no longer just sing to the choir. We've got to continue to engage open-minded regular folks and get them to understand there is a cost for not being apart of the process. That cost is probably a job that has been shipped over seas.