On the Contrary

President Obama has made some great strides since taking office and it has been quite a change from the Bush years.  He has had some unparalleled challenges and he does seem to be changing the direction of the country.  Having said that, there are some real changes that he is ignoring or failing to address, and these failures could eventually undermine his administration.  They will undermine his administration because if he is seen as just another politician who fails to tackle the tough issues by limiting his actions to what is politically expedient instead of what is right, our faith in government will be further undermined.

I believe his heart is in the right place on most of these issues, but he is getting infected with the “bubble” logic of Washington which loses sight of what’s right in the cloud of what seems politically possible.  Sometimes what is politically possible is not any better than doing nothing if it will not bring about real change.  So here is my list and challenges to the President and I am not pulling any punches.  From my point if he doesn’t soon sort these issues out, he will have failed at real change which is standing firm on our American ideals:

• Gay and Lesbian Rights – You promised to end don’t ask, don’t tell and have done nothing while good, loyal, and heroic Americans are being run out of the service.  Even Dick Cheney can see gay marriage has merit.  Yet you still can’t see that until this is a national right, there is no equal protection under the Constitution.  For a professor of Constitutional law, you deeply disappoints me especially when you confuses your religious beliefs with our Constitution.  Allowing these injustices to continue while you fail to exercise the political courage to do something about them is unconscionable.  Where is your leadership Mr. President?
• Abortion Rights – It is clear that the killing at the clinic in Kansas was terrorism, plain and simple.  It is also clear that the anti-abortion people have fomented this hate campaign and their tactics are clearly blatant intimidation the Bush administration allowed to fester.  They are being successful because they are depriving women of a legal procedure that they have a right to.  So where is your outrage?  Where is your political courage to stand up and call this terrorism and to protect the legal rights of women seeking abortions? Where is your leadership Mr. President?
• Single Payer Health Care – There is only one real change to our health care system that has any hope of working and that is a single payer system.  Some fall back government system if the private system fails is just kicking the can down the road one more time and setting us up for failure.  When do you stand up and look us in the eye and tell us what has to be done instead of pining for some bipartisanship in the sky that is destined to fail?  It is time you came out swinging for what will work, not what may play into the Republican’s hands. Where is your leadership Mr. President?
• Reforming the Banking System – There hasn’t been any.  We have bailed them out and not made the boards or their executives pay the price for their bad decisions.  The reform for derivatives to make them transparent has a hole in it big enough to drive a truck through.  I understand the need to save the banks, but now they must pay.  We own them.  Let’s break them up so they are never too big to fail again.  And by the way Mr. President, where the hell were you when the bill to allow judges to adjust mortgages in a bankruptcy proceeding went down to banking lobby?  Do they own you too?  This was the one thing that could have really helped homeowners.  Where is your leadership Mr. President?
• Torture and Detainees – Once again you are starting to look like George Bush lite.  First, get on with releasing and declassifying everything.  If you don’t, Republican obfuscation about its effectiveness will never be put to rest.  It is not behind us and it never will be if you continue on this path.  There must be an investigation and responsible parties held accountable.  There is no other way in a nation of laws.  There can be no indefinite detention or our right to habeas corpus and due process is no longer a right.  If there is an exception, then the right no longer exists.  It is only a right if you don’t make it an exception.  You of all people ought to know this.  Hiding behind some judicial process is not the intent of our Constitution.  Detainees must be tried or released and we must have the courage to live with the consequences.  Otherwise our whole system of government has no meaning.  Where is your leadership Mr. President?  Where is your courage?
• Terrorist Surveillance Program, Military Commissions Act, and the Patriot Act – These are all abominations enacted by President Bush and a frightened Congress who sold out our Constitution when they were threatened with fear for their safety.  It was the greatest example of the lack of moral and political courage this country has shown since the internment of the Japanese since World War II.  Instead of overturning many of these abominations, your attorneys have been upholding them in the courts making the same arguments about national security overriding Constitutional rights that the Bush administration did.  When are we going to restore our dignity and demonstrate the courage of our convictions by stopping this travesty Mr. President?  Have you succumb to the argument that to be safe we must jettison our most cherished beliefs?  Where is your leadership Mr. President?
• Energy and Climate Change – Have we stalled in mid-stream?  Since gas prices have fallen, where is the energy plan that will not only get us off oil, but save our planet?  We are coasting and I see no focused plan.  Are we drifting along until the next crisis?  We need an aggressive 10-year plan.  Okay then, how about an aggressive 20-year plan, but the point is where is it?  Are we even moving toward it?  I fear we are losing momentum Mr. President.  Where is your leadership?
• Secrecy and Abuse Photos – Here is where I really feel you have lost touch with your roots.  Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman have a bill to make the pictures of detainee abuse an exception to the freedom of information act.  Any bill from these two ought to be suspect just for starters.  Their point, which apparently you and Secretary Clinton seem to agree with, is that by releasing these, you may put some of our people in jeopardy, therefore they must be suppressed from public release.  THINK ABOUT THIS! The precedent you are setting is that if our government does some horrible or embarrassing thing that might, if known, put Americans at risk, it should never be released.  This is the same logic that Dick Cheney uses to justify torture.  If it will save American lives, it is justified.  I was an American fighting man and I did not fight so you could suppress the truth because it’s painful.  I fought so that our government will be transparent, that we know what the government does in our name and we can take action at the polls if we don’t agree.  THIS IS A VIOLATION OF EVERYTHING WE BELIEVE IN.  IT TARNISHES WHAT MAKES FIGHTING FOR THIS COUNTRY WORTHWHILE. You are trading safety for our right to know.  If, because you think not signing this bill you will putting some American lives at risk, you sign it, you will be denigrating everything I and many others fought for.  We will take the risk.  It comes with the territory.  If you don’t understand this, then we elected the wrong guy.
• Finally the Deficit – A recent study showed that our out of control deficit is only 7% due to your stimulus package and 3% from your agenda on health care, education, energy, and other issues.  Most of the deficit comes from the tax cuts of the Bush years (33%) and from Bush policies like the war in Iraq.  37% is from the business cycle and the increased spending for the safety net.  About 20% of the deficit comes from your extension of Bush policies like the war in Iraq and tax cuts for households making less than $250,000 and the bailout of wall street.  The Republicans are using this deficit as a fear card, yet they have no plan to curb it since they want even more tax cuts.  The author of the study had a simple conclusion:  “The solution, though, is no mystery.  It will involve some combination of tax increases and spending cuts (for everyone).”  Unlike California, which is about to commit suicide by not raising taxes to invest in their future, when are you going to look the American people in the eye and tell them they have to pay their way?  Where is the leadership Mr. President?

Okay tough language.  We know he has made great strides in many areas and are we just asking for too much too soon?  My answer is no.  These are fundamental values that must be stood up for.  Otherwise we will make changes at the margins, but we may loose what is unique to being American.