He Gives Us Hope

An old friend of my husband’s dropped by the other day to invite us to an event. He wasn’t home, but I invited her in and we sat in the backyard chatting about this and that. Some desultory talk about the state of the economy, and government in general ensued, and suddenly (though the President’s name had not come up) she announced that she liked Obama, that she thought he was trying hard, he just walked into a mess. Upon my asking her specifically what she liked, she replied, “well, he gives us hope.”

Well, that response didn’t give me hope, so I switched the subject. What do you say to that? Hope for what? Hope the economy will get better despite the mind-numbing trillions his budget will spend, and we watch our deficit grow to where a third of that budget will have to be borrowed? Hope for the housing market to recover as we see on the news today that new home sales have fallen 33%? Hope for a “better international image” when with all his rhetoric, his bowing and scraping to unfriendly leaders and snubbing of friendly ones, he can’t win friends and influence people? Hope for a post-racial America? When anybody who opposes him or his policies is immediately dismissed as a racist? Hope for lower energy costs? When his response to the gulf oil spill is to try and shut down all the off shore drilling, without regard to the safety records of the individual rigs or companies that run them? Hope for a cleaner environment? When he impedes the clean up effort on that same spill by refusing to allow foreign ships with oil spill experience to enter our waters lest his Union support falter? Hope for a more open and above board government? When he wildly appoints “Czars” with authority not screened by Congress and answerable only to him to run things?

I could go on and on, but I’ve said a lot of it before.

I wonder at the passiveness of people like my husband’s friend. She’s not a stupid woman, and I don’t think she’s a rabid partisan. She’s either just not paying attention or she belongs to that group of people who still watch the 10 o’clock news (sometimes) and think they’re informed. The news, which has become a sound-bite magazine aimed at not distressing our attention spans. One of these days, I’ll sit down with a timer and figure out how much actual news one gets in our nightly hour. Minus the commercials, the sports, the local interest stuff, the celebrity gossip, the weather, and the “latest” no-new-information bit on whatever horrific murder, disappearance or sex/divorce scandal is current. Ten minutes maybe?

I’m sure the average news watcher knows who Joran VanDerSloot is, and all the details regarding his probable status as a murderer of two girls. I doubt they know that President Obama was the biggest recipient of political donations from BP in the last 20 years. Or that BP was a founding member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership and lobbies for Cap and Trade.

Remember that 20 billion dollars that Obama extorted from BP as a compensation fund (something he had absolutely no authority to do, by the way)? According to the Wall Street Journal, "one aim of the fund -- and a prime reason BP agreed to it -- will be to minimize lawsuits against the company."

Who’s zoomin’ who, here? Obama gets points for action and caring from those unaware of both the behind the scenes deal going on and of the Constitutional limits on what authority a President can extend over a private company.

I don’t mean to pick on my husband’s friend. She, like most of us, is busy raising her kids, working, running her household etc. But the thing that bothers me is wondering how many responsible, proud Americans, who more than likely take pride in fulfilling their responsibility and privilege to vote in every election still base their support of this President on the idea that, “he gives us hope.”