Looking at the Obama Administration

Looks like President Obama has gone from a very approval rating after taking office, to a low rating a year and a half later. In fact, there is talk now that he may be a one term president and that republicans may retake the house. How, as the saying goes, did he squander his political capital?

For openers, somehow he didn't get the nature of his mandate. People voted for an untried junior senator due to his vague message of hope and the perception that he was the anti Bush. People, most democrats and independents and even some republicans were fed up with Bush politics and the jaded attitude of an oilman-run, war-obsessed, corporation-loving administration. Obama, many people naively believed, would fix all that and bring us back to the America we wanted to see. Didn't happen.

The first clue was that we were sick and tired of Bush's war, his paranoia about terrorists and the trillions of our money he was pouring into middle east countries that were never going to become clones of us, no matter how many bucks and troops we sent. He missed the clue, and Bush's wars became Obama's wars, made even worse by the financial melt down that left Americans jobless and homeless. Get a clue, Mr Obama, we are hurting, your policies are spewing out new terrorist, and the people over there think we're A-holes.

Companies start out small, and like people, if they are healthy and adaptable, the survive and grow. And, like people, they lose vitality, age and die. But Obama kept many of these financial institutions alive (think transplants) beyond their normal life span. Worst of all he bailed them out when they were weak and could have signed anything. Now, they are strong again, on our money, and the financial reform will likely not fully reform anything to any great degree.

Health care reform is complicated, watered down and possibly filled with pitfalls, but what the hell, he promised it, and if we keep our collective fingers crossed, it might just work.

fixing the mineral management agency should have been done prior to a major disaster. Posturing after the fact does little good for those people who have lost their incomes along the gulf.

I'm tired of hope which, like dope makes you feel things are good when they are not. Just recently changed my voter registration from democrat to none of the above.