Obama: What change?

            I read this commentary by a journalist named Bruce Ramsey who works for the Seattle Times. The Statesman had the article posted online. I think Ramsey is trying to reach out to both Obama supporters and not Obama supporters yet it may appeal more to the non supporters. Ramsey talks about how Obama was more blown up and the hype about him was way out of hand. He says, referring to the blue and red poster with Obama's picture with the word HOPE, "Imagine such a poster of any other recent president. People would have laughed at it."

            Ramsey asks how could the Obama believers not be disappointed in him? They pumped him up into something Presidents are not. He was just a man. Ramsey states out the points that made Obama more appealing than John McCain. Obama was young and vigorous and he was half African; giving white voters some kind of racial redemption. Much of what Obama said was hard to believe. Obama said he would change the North American Free Trade Agreement but he didn't.

            Many voters voted for Obama because they were tired of Republican wars. Voters voted for him because Republicans were in charge when Wall Street went downhill. Ramsey states that the GOP didn't know how to run the economy but now a poll in the NY Times says that 57% of Americans think Obama doesn't know either. The president doesn't run the economy even though we like to pretend to believe it. We run the economy. Ramsey says this about how Obama has "helped" the economy: "the closest thing to an economic gas pedal is spending ... and Obama has stepped on it. Repeatedly. He has discovered what FDR did in the 1930s: that public spending works better as painkiller than as nutrition." I really like this statement. He is saying it may feel better for a while but it's not good in the long run.

           I agree completely with Ramsey and I believe he makes good points about all the hype people gave Obama. Not because they believed in him but because they were tired of the Republicans.

URL: http://www.statesman.com/opinion/ramsey-two-years-later-a-promise-unfulfilled-949146.html