Obama's Lack of Leadership Killing His Presidency

Obama: Time to do something besides fold.

In a remarkable column in The New York Times, Timothy Egan (here) lays out the case against Barack Obama for those of us who support him and his policies ... most of the time.

He has, of course, been an enormous disappointment to us, primarily because he has not forcefully represented us and the issues that the majority of Americans strongly favor. Instead, he has allowed midgets in the House (Goodlatte, Griffith and Hurt from our area alone), the Senate and the Supreme Court to bully and diminish him and his programs.

He has shown little skill and almost no nerve in pushing legislation that is needed--some of it desperately--past people living in the early 17th Century who will block anything he proposes if for no other reason than that he proposed it (think Bill Clinton). These people have gutted our voting rights and our rights as individuals, fouled our ecology, made war we have no business (or money) making, screwed with our food supply, bungled our health care system, sold our country to people like the Koch Brothers and pushed obnoxious, fundamentalist religion down our gullets.

Egan writes: "President Obama continues to give limp speeches and moan about how he can’t get anything done with a Congress of Neanderthals and talk-radio spawn. An activist court, a passive president and a feeble Congress — such is the current balance of power." Indeed, an imbalance if ever there was one.

Egan asks that Obama find an inspiration where he can and follow it: "Out of nowhere (actually, Texas), this week came the mesmerizing spectacle of an underdog legislator, Wendy Davis, standing up to the bullies who run her state. ... At least he noticed. Now he can he follow the example." Following would be better than doing nothing, but leading would be so much better. Women seem to know how to do that lately. Men don't.