We've just come through a historic year in America. Barack Obama waded into the biggest political and economic mess ever handed to a president since FDR. Two wars, a broken economy on a downward slide and moribund international relations were the gifts of his predecessor. When you take office at the White House, all that mess gets engraved with your name. You now own it. This week at his first SOTU address, Obama faced a nation with a short memory and a short fuse. His approval ratings were at a very low point and his support was shrinking. The accusations hurled at him are often the fallout of unreal expectations. In January of 2009, America was riding a cloud of hope that change was finally here. It was, but what were people really expecting. Since I don't watch the talking heads much and won't let them set my thought agenda, my expectations were realistic. I do not put faith in a single man to be a messianic figure in a secular, cut throat, political world.
A careful look at the tale of the tape will show that the nation made significant upward economic progress in 2009. But if you're at the bottom of a 5,000 foot deep hole that took ten years to dig and you miraculously rise 4,500 feet in a year: if you are white the people will say, "what a miraculous turnaround engineered by that brilliant Harvard Graduate!" However, if you are Obama: "He thought he was God and was going to save the economy and he failed. Yeah it came a long way but he fell short by 500 feet, He was arrogant and he broke his promise. He thinks that because he was a Harvard grad he was all that; well, He's a liar and an elitist. He had a whole year to fix the nation's problems and he failed we need to get a new leader."
Think of how unreal and stupid the expectation was: One year to fix the banking system, Wall Street, the wars, Housing, unemployment, gays in the military, gay marriage, healthcare, climate change, and international relations. What president in recent memory or in history for that matter, was expected to fulfill his administrative agenda in one year?
