News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Aug. 5, 2011: Somebody had to say it first. This is it.
Call it my 50th birthday message for Barack Obama.
For the good of the country, for the good of our future, for the very survival of the Democratic Party as viable, President Obama must decide NOT to run for re-election. If he is unwilling to do so, those who care about OUR country, OUR future and OUR Democratic Party must convince him to do so.
We are racing toward one of two terrible scenarios in 2012. Either both a Republican controlled House and Senate and an enfeebled barely re-elected President Obama. Our only hope is they don’t get big enough majorities to overcome his one remaining power to veto whacky Republican legislation.
Or the ultimate nightmare scenario in 2012. A Republican House and Senate and a Republican President all beholden to the most right wing reactionary elements in the Republican Party.
Kiss America as we know it or want it good bye!
This fellow Americans is how bad Barack Obama’s Presidency is. How bad was made frightening clear by his complete cave in to Republican radicalism in order that the U.S. not default on its obligations and plunge us into chaos.
Time and again the Republicans have called Obama’s bluff and they win. Making it worse he is a terrible negotiator. Better put a non-negotiator. Nobody fears Obama. Obama was happy to get nothing but a promise the issue would not come up again during his re-election campaign.
I’ve been identifying a core problem with Barack Obama since the day I began this series of weekly Commentaries months ago for NewsAmericas. Obama has only ONE agenda to win re-election at any cost and keep the Very, Very Good Life for himself and Michelle and all the Obamas.
It is sweet indeed living in The White House.
As for his strategy whether he admits it to himself or not and whether his staff has a Clue or not or even cares his strategy is this to do as little as possible to upset anyone meaning Independents and Republicans so he can amass enough Electoral votes otherwise known as states to win again.
He assumes of course with reason Democrats and Democratic majority states will vote for him no matter what he does or does not do in utter FEAR of a Republican President. There he is right.
Well here is our choice call Obama’s bluff.
Tell him the Truth he needs to step aside. Announce he will not seek re-election. That would be the one shining moment of his Presidency for which he will be eternally appreciated. Let him and Michelle start making the Gazillion Dollars a few years early they will earn from Obama having been President.
Get those big book contracts sooner all former Presidents and First Ladies get. Both of them sit on a bunch of corporate boards for the big bucks. Both of them make speech after speech around the world for hundreds of thousands $$ each. Best of all get cut into insider business deals by their Silicon Valley friends and others and make more millions than they can count.
No need to shed any tears for former President Obama. But if he does not take the bait the rest of us will be kept weeping and suffering for years to come as the Republicans dismantle what is left of a vibrant nations “selling” it to the Right Wing Whackos and their Rich Big Business Supporters while shoveling you know what to the rest of us.
Unprecedented you say? Wrong. We’d be a lot better off if any number of Presidents had chosen not to seek re-election as a few have done. Making matters even worse for Obama the deal he just made to avoid default further insures the economy will stay weak for the next year and one half and the Republicans who are responsible for this mess will benefit nonetheless as voters punish the incumbent President and his party for the bad economy as they almost always do. Want worse …..
The Republicans have pulled off a black magic trick here. They now have the momentum worst of all their bitter tea party wing claiming they have saved the nation and that they are returning fiscal sanity and small government to America just the false but effective message they need to keep control of the House of Representatives and with increasing confidence believe they can also gain control of the U.S. Senate on 2012. In fact they are sure!
Whether they can win The White House is still a tossup but it is disappointing indeed that recent polls show any generic no name Republican candidate virtually tied with Obama in Presidential election polls. They might actually have to nominate Michelle Bachman to lose.
Just three years ago we hopefully enthusiastically elected our First Black President in the belief we had a real leader; a Change Master as he promised and as the first African American President sure that he would identify with and fight hard for the less than privileged meaning most of us.
Instead we got a Wimp.
President Obama is destined to go down as one of the least effective U.S. Presidents in American history. So what is the alternative? With Obama pledging not to run for re-election a wide open Democratic Party nominating process in which well known, lesser known and unknown Democrats can and will vie to prove which of these women or men is best up to unmasking the Republican BS….
….. offering an attractive vision for all Americans and who can lead the Democratic Party to victory in 2012 not only winning the Presidency but preventing the Republicans from taking control of the U.S. Senate and just maybe even yes it is possible win back the House of Representatives.
What is crystal clear is Barack Obama is NOT that Democrat.
Leadership is not even in Obama’s vocabulary let alone his middle name as much as he was very good as conning us otherwise four years ago. Might we really get nothing more than another Barack Obama in his place. Well ironic as that would be it would still be far better than this Barack Obama. The fact is Obama did get elected and brought a Democratic Party Senate and House along with him. But it all collapsed these last three years.
If we do no better than repeat the recent past we will get a new Democratic President and a Democratic Congress. That will be good enough to halt the Republican madness for at least a few years. Infinitely better than the alternative with Barack Obama as our candidate and Republican supremacy by the end of 2012.
I may be the first Democrat to call for President Barack Obama to stand aside. I won’t be the last and we should all pray it becomes an effort that grows and grows and convinces Obama.
No it won’t be easy but the stakes are so, so high, and while Obama may not be rational about it he should be. Better to step aside than be vilified for generations to come as the President who resulted in the United States becoming more unbalanced, more unequal and more like a police state than it has ever been with out of control right wing Republicans in charge of our government.
If so, we will witness the permanent decline of America as the rest of the world increasingly sees her as a pitiful former giant fallen into the hands of intolerant radicals. As bad as that will be the impact on those of us in America will be far worse. A country that even more than now or in the past fully controlled by money and a bunch of self proclaimed religious zealots Republicans wrapping themselves in the flag and God to disenfranchise the majority of us they hope forever.
We live in a rapidly changing world (not that we ever haven’t) and we need leadership in The White House and in Congress which has the understanding and the appreciation of this new world to lead us there certainly not Republicans who as always think that leading us back into the past and a far less inclusive wealth controlled America and America that operate as a modern day colonial power. That is the Republican message if you dig below their calculating rhetoric and flag waving.
What we have is a nation with a disappearing jobs base, an out of control medical industry bankrupting us all, young Americans without a bright future to look forward to, older Americans living in fear, Americans dying in foreign lands we needlessly invade and occupy at huge expense and protect corrupt power brokers, the threat of terrorism misused by those who will steal our liberties while costing us billions for nothing in the misused name of security.
We have a tax code that is an abomination and allows the rich and very, very profitable major corporations to literally and legally take from the rest of us while casting off jobs in record numbers and place more and more of their plants elsewhere.
Our crumbling infrastructure is national disgrace. American schools are producing some of the worst educated young people in the developed world. We have more Americans in prison than anywhere else and often in inhumane conditions.
The list goes on and on yet the Republicans are winning hearts and minds with their lies and policies that are only going to make things worse for the majority of Americans. Sure we can place the blame at the feet of the Republicans but that will accomplish nothing if Barack Obama remains President.
Place the blame where it will do some good with Barack Obama for letting the Republicans get away with their con. Place the blame with Barack Obama for not being strong enough or even willing to confront the Republicans but rather allowing himself to be rolled by them. In return for his re-election at any cost to us.
Barack Obama reached his ultimate Rubicon with the debt ceiling negotiations these past months when he proved beyond a doubt he was not up to the challenge. Rather than crossing this American Rubicon President Obama sank to the bottom of this Republican swamp of phony budget leadership. Thinking he was buying votes.
Now we have an easy if unfortunate choice.
It’s Barack Obama or it is us.
Barack Obama step aside.
Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.
