One VERY Lucky Guy

Please see “The Ghosts of Christmas Past,” listed in PodCasts, and also SYRIA TWO.

One VERY lucky guy.

Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes you don’t. Critics of the President are now saying how difficult his road is, with Egypt about to rush to civil war, our own civil rights (read voting rights) compromised, an economy beyond the President’s control, and an electorate that is not at all shy about calling him names.
We think contrarily. We think Obama is one very lucky guy even to have a second term after all the hedging, promising, “uniting,” he did in his first.
We voted for him. Twice. And we’re still glad we did. But realistically, his second term is about to go down in history as one of the worst second terms ever, and the fault will not be strictly the Republicans’.
Millions of us were ecstatic at Obama’s nomination and first election. An intelligent, well-spoken, thoughtful man who could rally the troops by speeches alone. We believed in his promises, in his dreams, and were deeply move by being included in them.
Obamacare was something we favored. We still do.
Pulling out of Guantanamo, with all of its difficulties, was imperative.
Putting America back to work was the only thing to do.
Sorting out the economic debacle of 2008 was something we thought he could do – not single-handedly, but slowly, cautiously, successfully.
A change in gun laws seemed as though it had its best chance in decades.
Uniting the polarized politicians and politics of the nation was key to returning the USA back to health.

Obamacare is now embroiled in confusion and uncertainty. Waivers of one kind or another are being handed out too easily, both to consumers and insurance companies, not to mention employers.
Guantanamo is still a hell-hole and an international eyesore.
Unemployment is no closer really to full-employment – whatever that figure should be – than it has been.
Millions are feeling the economic squeeze now more than before, thanks to the sequestration deal made with Congress, made in order to keep the government running and the debt ceiling from being capped.
Hundreds of people everyday are being killed by hand-guns and mass-assaults on the innocent continue.
Unification of the disparate elements of our society has become increasingly impossible, in part because of Republican opposition to all of the above.

Add to the list now dithering over whether or not to cut Egypt’s foreign aid as their army kills men and women who also believed in democracy. This by itself is nearly enough to turn one from a dove to a hawk. Obama got lucky, thanks to the English and French, in Libya. In Syria, he’s waited while thousands died. And now in Egypt, he’s still waiting, and refuses to get tough with the one billion dollars’ aid annually promised to that country, almost all of which goes to the Egyptian army.