President Obama’s Leadership

Those questioning Obama’s leadership need to look at the facts.

Inheriting a disastrous economy, he has stopped the bleeding and put in motion programs and policies that will help us recover. It has costs lots of money up front, but the alternative was simply unacceptable.

And the best sign of his leadership, unlike the previous administration, is the honesty and openness with which he as presented the economy’s problems and solutions to the nation. He has done so with great humility and restraint when discussing how well Obama Administration actions have worked so far.

Obama also has kept up the War on Terror, both accepting some of the Bush Administration policies and practices and by re-focusing American military might on the al Qaeda sanctuaries in Afghanistan and Pakistan. These actions have angered many within Obama’s broad constituency and may be the main reason for his drop in the polls among independent voters.

A significant test of Obama’s leadership was having the courage to put forth health insurance reform. This action took the kind of leadership which says, ‘I do this for the good of the nation, no matter the impact on me personally.’ In the face of heated opposition – however misguided – from Republicans and the health insurance companies, he has refused to back down on the central tenant of reform, that all Americans deserve adequate health insurance and that the costs must be lowered to save individuals and businesses from financial ruin.

A good leader is not beloved by everyone because the toughest test of true leadership is doing what’s right in the face of popular opposition.

Obama critics vs Bush critics

McClatchy political correspondent Steven Thomma was wrong in Sunday’s edition (The Charlotte Observer) to equate the demonstrative anger on display this month with the anger toward the Bush Administration shown during the last election.

Besides the involvement of separate political groupings, a major difference is that the anger toward the Bush Administration was for actual deeds, while the anger towards Obama is based almost entirely on lies and half-truths propagated by his Republican opponents and the insurance lobby.

Much of the shouting at this month’s town hall meetings was more about “breaking” Obama than health care reform. “Let’s take our country back” is the long held cry of right-wing conservative extremists. And across the south, many whites will never “accept” an African American president. Republicans carefully cultivated these and other extreme views to manufacture “outrage.”

The true villain in this “angry and bitter” public debate is a news media so desperate to survive that it lacks the fortitude to accurately take on those who would use fear and uncertainty to stifle progress on such an important issue as health care reform.

As a result, this country suffers.

(an edited version of this post appeared in The Charlotte Observer on 9/1/09)