Obama going out in style.
Many things necessary, he's getting to them now.
We've got the basis of a decent health care system,
something worthy of this nation, and it will survive — be improved and built
upon — unless Republicans succeed in pulling it down.
All of the above applies to immigration, as well. And gay
rights, of course.
Remember when Obama dozed through that second debate with
Romney, then kicked Mitt's butt in their last exchange? The same pattern — rope
a dope — might be on view here. Gridlock with Republicans sent Obama into a near
vegetative state. Or seemed to. Then he absorbs the damage and comes out
swinging.
And foreign policy: If — and I emphasize that "if"
— Obama can contain ISIS, as may be happening, while negating Iran's yen for
nuclear weapons by securing a treaty that bars or seriously delays any
possibility, these will be foreign policy coups of historic dimensions.
It hasn't happened yet. Maybe it won't. But if it does,
forget the Nobel Peace Prize he got just for not being GW Bush (earner of this
century's first Really Dumb & Stupid War Prize). Give Obama a prize in math
— topological algebra, fractal anthropology, transcendental number theory, what
have you.
Does that mean I jettison my criticisms? No. Obama seems to
be holding onto a dream of an Iraqi nation — Kurds, Shias, Sunnis — that Bush,
Cheney et al broke beyond repair. Saddam Hussein was the tyrant glue (Tyrant
Glue — a brand name) of that Iraqi nation. Saddam gone now. Penny
for the old monster.
(I remember we couldn't even hang him right. Made a mess
even of that, which should have been simple, definitive and clean. But no, he hung
there, and re-hung there, and protested and argued. I doubt a tyrant has ever
been overthrown worse, or with worse consequences.)
Back to Obama: he took his damn time doing what he's doing
now. He might have stepped up sooner. That would been very energizing, populist,
galvanizing.
OK, this guy prefers to be a counter-puncher.
That's his style.
But that he is doing what he's doing now restores my hope
that to attach some hope to politics is not utterly ridiculous.
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