The weight of the presidency

This picture is worth a thousand words in conveying what President Obama must be feeling. The set of the jaw, the tired eyes, the gray hair, and the strikingly stooped posture in someone who so recently looked youthful and athletic.

Some presidents have died in office from health problems; a not insignificant number have been assassinated. Others have had serious medical problems. I'm convinced that the burdens are unimaginable. Even the ones we know about -- and we obviously don't know many of the crises that get dealt with silently and secretly but must weigh heavily on the man or woman in charge.

And then there are the very real accomplishments, which the opposition party has pretty successfully demonized with its base and throughout the media sphere that this base listens to.

It's time for us Democrats to get behind Obama's re-election campaign and give him some reason to feel supported. Yes, there have been big disappointments in what he has failed to get accomplished; and there is anger and frustration that he stuck to his conciliatory style far too long.

It seems, though, that he has finally decided that doesn't work these Republicans -- and seems to have morphed back into campaign mode -- both in his actual campaign for re-election and in his campaign to build support for his policy initiatives.

Our progressive friends want him to give them some reason to believe again. I say let's give him some reason to keep working hard for us, trying to get progressive policies passed. I can very easily see that man in the picture above sometimes feeling: what's the use? When even his friends and supporters turn against him.

First, we need to get him re-elected. But equally important, we need to elect a Congress that will work with him. I do not doubt for a minute that, if he had had a co-operative Congress, we would have seen a much bigger stimulus, more jobs programs, more regulation of financial institutions, a better health care reform bill, possibly even with a single payer provision, and bold new energy and environmental protection programs.

Just because he didn't fight harder for some of those things doesn't mean he didn't favor them. There's only so much political capital -- and he and his advisers know better than we do which battles are worth fighting and which should be avoided in order not to poison the well for other, more winnable issues.

It's not all his fault. Let's make sure he has a second term.

Go, Obama 2012 !!!

Ralph

So, it must mean that . . . . it's the money the counts

We've heard before that three-fourths of Americans polled agree with Obama's proposal to tax millionaires at the same or higher rate as middle-class households.

And yet not a single Republican presidential aspirant would support that. Instead, they deride it as "class warfare" being waged by the Democrats.

Now a poll reveals that fully two-thirds of Republicans favor this so-called "Buffet Rule" of increasing taxes on the wealthy.

So -- if the GOP candidates are so intent on opposing something that 2/3 of their voters support, what can it mean?

Can it mean anything other than the fact that their wealthy donors have more influence with them than do their constituents?

Perhaps they thought "We, the People" meant "The Wee People," i.e. too small to count.

Ralph

Jon Stewart to GOP: "Maybe it's You."

Jon Stewart skewered the Republican base with a characteristic heaping of scorn.

Poking fun at the fact that they can't seem to find a candidate that suits them -- first it was Bachmann, then it was Perry. Now they're souring on him. And always the word is "isn't there someone else?" Christie, please, Christie. Maybe Mitch Daniels will reconsider.

Stewart says it's the reverse of "Dancing With the Stars." They keep adding more and more unqualified candidates instead of eliminating them.

So then he says to the conservative base, in his best mocking mode: "Maybe your candidates are not the problem; maybe it's You. . . . You guys need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and not come away thinking, 'There's something wrong with this mirror.'"

Well put, Jon. But, actually, I think the candidates are pretty bad, too. Or at least they have to pretend to dumb it down and take extreme, outrageous positions they'll never be able to live down in a general election.

Ralph