Leadership, and the lack thereof
John Aravosis at AMERICAblog News, a Left-of-center blog, writes, if he’ll allow me to boil it down to it’s simplest elements, that the Democrats are spineless wienies. Aravosis compares what Bush was able to accomplish with only 55 Republican Senators as compared to what the Democrats can’t deliver with their 60 pledged seats. While I agree with some of what Aravosis wrote, he gets some of it wrong;
What the GOP lacked in numbers, they made up for in backbone, cunning and leadership. Say what you will about George Bush, he wasn’t afraid of a fight. If anything, the Bush administration, and the Republicans in Congress, seemed to relish taking on Democrats, and seeing just how far they could get Democratic members of Congress to cave on their promises and their principles.
How did they do it? Bush was willing to use his bully pulpit to create an environment in which the opposition party feared taking him on, feared challenging his agenda, lest they be seen as unpatriotic and extreme.
There was nothing “cunning” about George Bush. He told us what he was going to do, and he did it – just the way he said he’d do it. Republicans and Democrats knew exactly where he stood on every issue. And he explained WHY he was going to do it and how it would benefit us. Whether you agreed with him or not, you understood his motivations. That’s called leadership – not that whiney Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama leadership – where everyone is too loud, everyone is out to get them, and they’re scared of “tones” of the debate.
Aravosis even points out how before the election, Obama said he was going to vote against FISA and then didn’t. Even Democrats can’t trust him to do what he says. With healthcare, Obama tells us “the system is broken” that “we can’t continue with the status quo” – but that rings hollow when 86% of Americans are happy with their healthcare. When we all know that the poor get the best healthcare in the world and no one can tell us who this healthcare bill is supposed to help.
See, that’s not leadership. Leadership isn’t standing up in front of the American people and talking about yourself and how things are going to affect you. Leadership is telling everyone why you’re doing stuff and how it’ll help. Saying things that make sense – not making wild sweeping gestures like telling us stupid shit like a government take over over of healthcare will save the economy when there’s no evidence that it’ll happen. Things like committing troops to war and sending them there on lame burros so it takes a decade for their presence to have an effect.
Honestly, you guys voted for the guy solely because of his skin pigment and didn’t allow any of us to look deeper because you didn’t want to look deeper than his skin.
So quitcherbitchin’.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Congress sucks, Health Care debate
Rounds square in the black, Jonn, square in the black.
Absolutely true.
I’m Canadian … so like most of my countrymen my political leanings were closer to the Democrats than the Republicans. George Bush changed all that. I thought politicians were supposed to check their integrity at the door as part of the entrance fee to the Halls of Power. Somehow George Bush managed to get around that particular requirement.
Because of him I looked more closely at American politics than I ever had before. It turns out… I’m a Republican.
Huh.
Think they’d let me vote?
God I miss Bush.
Very well said. When a man stands up and says he will do what he will, like it or don’t, it’s hard not to admire him. It is part of what makes him a man. A man who stands up to do what is right, in spite of opposition is a good man.
A man who lacks these qualities is less of a man.
Unfortunately, the president is disappointing on every front.
The cunning side of George Bush is that he would tell us what he will do and then just do it. We all know that politicians, (didn’t mention “Statesman” here, did I?), will tell us that they’ll do one thing and then do something 180 degrees out. Damned George Bush, doing what he says he’ll do, anyway.
I have long said, that what President Bush did, he did for America, whether we liked it or not, whether it was right or wrong, still, he did it for the good of the country. That is not at all the criteria of what obummer does. To him, it is all about “ME”.
A Statesman spends his career time doing for his country.
A Politician spends his career time doing for himself.
Who did you vote for?
“Never Forget Ft. Hood Texas 11/5/09!”