Dear Friends,
As you undoubtedly know, President Obama was interviewed by Bill O'Reilly as part of the Super Bowl pre-game show on FOX. It was the perfect opportunity to try to educate the FOX news audience. In today's divided political climate, people tend to watch the news show that supports their view. Consequently, it is very hard to change people's minds since they never see the other side. FOX News vilifies President Obama and has a completely distorted view of the facts. The people that only watch FOX News have their distorted views confirmed by watching only FOX News.
So the fact that President Obama was going to be interviewed on FOX gave him an incredible opportunity to at least try to get real facts to the FOX News viewers. Unfortunately for the FOX News viewers and for all the rest of us, President Obama wasted this wonderful opportunity. I watched the interview tonight here. President Obama had at least two really good teaching moments, and he failed to take advantage of either one.
Bill O'Reilly brought up the issue of the Muslim Brotherhood participating in the post-Mubarak Egyptian government. O'Reilly's questions presumed that the Muslim Brotherhood is all bad and is equal to extreme terrorists. Instead of rebutting the presumption that any Muslim group is equal to terrorists, President Obama said that the Muslim Brotherhood is not a majority and that there are secular parts of the public to offset them. President Obama let stand the FOX News narrative that all Muslims are terrorist and will demand an Islamic state. President Obama failed to call the FOX News narrative a lie which is it. What a lost opportunity.
Bill O'Reilly also quoted from a Wall Street Journal editorial saying that President Obama wanted to redistribute the wealth in this country. President Obama simply denied that he wanted to do that. He missed the opportunity to talk about how the United States government for decades under both Republican and Democratic Presidents and Congresses have adopted policies that have caused the very rich to get richer and all the rest of Americans to fall further behind. The income and wealth gap between the richest and the rest of Americans is at an all time high and is destroying the country. It is not sustainable and must be reversed. If you have not yet read it, you need to read Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer--and Turned its Back on the Middle Class by Paul Pierson and Jacob Hacker.
President Obama had a wonderful opportunity to lay out the facts to the FOX New viewers that the government has been pushing the wealth toward the super rich for decades and that it was time for the government to reverse those policies. President Obama missed the opportunity to explain how the number of people living below the poverty line is increasing and how the middle class income and wealth has been declining while the rich have been getting richer. That trend has never been clearer than today when the stock market is soaring and Wall Street profits and compensation are hitting new highs yet we have official unemployment over 9% and real unemployment in the high teens.
We need President Obama to take every opportunity he can to present the truth to the huge number of Americans who do not get the truth from the new outlets that they exclusively watch. Unfortunately, President Obama, event though he is thought of a professorial is unwilling to be honest with his constituents.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
Monday, February 7, 2011
Why Can't President Obama Sustain Change?
Dear Friends,
I have been struck lately by President Obama's inability to escape doing business as it has always been done. He seems to want to change the way things are done and even starts down that path sometimes but then he is inexplicably reined in and pulled back by some mysterious force that seems to require him to act in the ways that our government always acts.
President Obama's handling of the Egypt revolution is a case in point. He (and Secretary of State Clinton) started out focused on stability and apparent loyalty to a long time ally (also known as yet another terrible dictator that the United States has propped up in exchange for "stability"). Then in a wonderful reversal, he really seemed to be in support of the goals of the anti-Mubarak protesters even going so far as to say that change must start "now". As I indicated in an earlier post, even that was not going far enough, but it was a break from the way the United States government has reacted in the past to similar events.
Now once again he has retreated to a stance that a departure of President Mubarak now would hurt the prospects for democracy in Egypt. The rationale for the position is laughable. Secretary Clinton says that if President Mubarak steps down now the Egyptian constitution demands elections in 60 days which is too fast so President Mubarak must stay until a new constitution is negotiated and in place. President Mubarak has been acting under emergency powers since 1981, I think that the current constitution could be suspended for a few months to work out the details of proceeding. The Obama Administration's rationale is simply a smoke screen to permit it to return to the old way of doing business.
We dishonor the bravery of the protesters and our own democratic values by continuing to support a dictator who continues to this day to hold political prisoners and journalists in secret undoubtedly torturing them as he did the countless prisoners that the United States sent (is sending??) to him for torture under our rendition program. President Mubarak needs to go now. A truly independent caretaker government needs to be put in place with the support of the Army to craft a new constitution and hold free and fair elections that encourage the inclusion of all.
So why does President Obama have such a difficult time being the change I think that he really wants to be?
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
I have been struck lately by President Obama's inability to escape doing business as it has always been done. He seems to want to change the way things are done and even starts down that path sometimes but then he is inexplicably reined in and pulled back by some mysterious force that seems to require him to act in the ways that our government always acts.
President Obama's handling of the Egypt revolution is a case in point. He (and Secretary of State Clinton) started out focused on stability and apparent loyalty to a long time ally (also known as yet another terrible dictator that the United States has propped up in exchange for "stability"). Then in a wonderful reversal, he really seemed to be in support of the goals of the anti-Mubarak protesters even going so far as to say that change must start "now". As I indicated in an earlier post, even that was not going far enough, but it was a break from the way the United States government has reacted in the past to similar events.
Now once again he has retreated to a stance that a departure of President Mubarak now would hurt the prospects for democracy in Egypt. The rationale for the position is laughable. Secretary Clinton says that if President Mubarak steps down now the Egyptian constitution demands elections in 60 days which is too fast so President Mubarak must stay until a new constitution is negotiated and in place. President Mubarak has been acting under emergency powers since 1981, I think that the current constitution could be suspended for a few months to work out the details of proceeding. The Obama Administration's rationale is simply a smoke screen to permit it to return to the old way of doing business.
We dishonor the bravery of the protesters and our own democratic values by continuing to support a dictator who continues to this day to hold political prisoners and journalists in secret undoubtedly torturing them as he did the countless prisoners that the United States sent (is sending??) to him for torture under our rendition program. President Mubarak needs to go now. A truly independent caretaker government needs to be put in place with the support of the Army to craft a new constitution and hold free and fair elections that encourage the inclusion of all.
So why does President Obama have such a difficult time being the change I think that he really wants to be?
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
Thursday, February 3, 2011
President Obama and Egypt
Dear Friends,
After a slow start, President Obama has been doing a good job of supporting the protesters in Egypt without trying to dictate what should happen in Egypt. Based on the violence instigated and caused by the pro-government forces and the harassment, beatings and detaining of the press all undoubtedly at the direction of President Mubarak, it is now clear that President Mubarak intends to use extreme violence to end the protests and protect his power. President Obama must speak out now, not just supporting the protesters but indicating that President Mubarak is a repressive dictator whose actions have stripped him of any legitimacy and who must step down now and allow for an independent caretaker government to return Egypt to normalcy and prepare for and carry out free and fair elections in which all peaceful factions in Egypt are welcome to participate.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
After a slow start, President Obama has been doing a good job of supporting the protesters in Egypt without trying to dictate what should happen in Egypt. Based on the violence instigated and caused by the pro-government forces and the harassment, beatings and detaining of the press all undoubtedly at the direction of President Mubarak, it is now clear that President Mubarak intends to use extreme violence to end the protests and protect his power. President Obama must speak out now, not just supporting the protesters but indicating that President Mubarak is a repressive dictator whose actions have stripped him of any legitimacy and who must step down now and allow for an independent caretaker government to return Egypt to normalcy and prepare for and carry out free and fair elections in which all peaceful factions in Egypt are welcome to participate.
Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal
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