OBAMA BOMBS?

Dear Readers,

In a free society like the United States, being able to elect our leaders is one of the most cherished rights we have - even if this right is only exercised by about half of the eligible voters in any given election year. If the system has a flaw, it's that every year seems to be an election year, even if - like this year - there were only a handful of contests of national interest. There just never seems to be enough time between elections to get much done before the political winds begin to shift.

So, only 10 months or so into a new Presidency, voters in Virginia and New Jersey have reversed themselves and voted Republican in states that President Obama carried only one year ago. Many will see the results as a test of Obama and of his polices, and the man who sailed through a fancy school like Harvard has scored a 'D', at best. If there's any comfort for the Democrats out of this election, it's that the weird race in New York's 23rd congressional district, where right-wing kooks pulled out all the stops to win, may turn out to be a gain for the plucky blue-staters. But it's not much comfort for most sane people to see the GOP, having been reduced to a quarrelsome rump by the unambiguous results of the elections of 2006 and 2008, suddenly feeling as if they have renewed life, especially as they have petulantly poisoned the national debate and body politic all year long.

The 'new spirit of co-operation' lasted only long enough for Republican pols to digest and eliminate the inaugural-day meals they ate (along with some humble pie) on January 20th. I give team Obama props for giving 'peace' a chance, but once it was clear that co-operation on the serious issues bequeathed to the country by the Cheney-Bush nightmare was not going to happen (this should have been understood say...about January 21st), then the Democrats should have just proceeded to ignore the 'bleating hearts' of the opposition and gotten down to business. But the cool and calm Obama (perhaps bringing the first sense of thoughtfulness to the Oval Office since JFK) didn't exactly spring into action but instead, accidentally built up an image of a dithering neophyte - a cardinal sin in a country full of five-minute attention spans, talent 'reality' shows where a new idol is created in a matter of weeks and a techno-savvy electorate who have seen 85,000 apps for the !#$%&*ing I-phone appear in a matter of months. How do you explain and re-set complex issues like the economy, health care and international terrorism to a mob like that? The worst that can be said about the administration is that it didn't seem to try.

Into this vacuum we saw the cruel simplifiers of the GOP effortlessly fill the void. From tea parties to town meeting disruptions to the Fox News Channel's endless Obama-bashing, the opinions tipped and the losers of 2008 became the winners of 2009. The ineptitude of the Democrats was excruciating to watch through the spring and summer.

Now, here in the autumn, we witness life being breathed into an ideology that looked like road-kill only twelve months ago. The architects of a system that has failed an enormous number of people for an enormous amount of time are acting like leaders again while our actual leaders look feeble and uncertain So, ladies and gentlemen, as of this moment, the 2010 election has officially begun, which means it's almost certain that nothing good is going to get done for a bad, long while. Ironically, people impatient and frustrated over a perceived lack of movement for the better have once again voted for -you guessed it - change.