Obama Criticised by Some Leftists

Is there any activity more loved by the masses than bitching and moaning about their leaders? And every single one of those people is convinced that they know better how to get the job done. Even the British engaged in it in WW2, many of them had better ideas about how to run the war than Churchill.

It seems to be some kind of law of politics that parties out of power have more idealistic promises than can actually be delivered, and once a party gets in power, they need to tone down the goals to suit the conditions they find themselves in. It kind of reminds me of young parents with a new baby, full of idealism of how they are going to raise their "perfect" baby, then it turns out twenty years later that baby is all grown up, and they made a lot of mistakes, but thankfully it sort of turned out OK in the end. No one will ever know how it would have turned out if they had done it differently. It certainly is an experience to make you a little less likely to spout off with your opinions.

Today I was reading an article about "Obama a Very Smooth Liar", by John R. MacArthur on Common Dreams, a website I used to read often during the Bush years. Following it are almost a hundred comments along the same lines of "Obama lied to us". I suppose a lot of those comments are from Republicans or from Libertarians who never voted for Obama in the first place, but the ones that did vote for him should just get a grip.

Obama cannot afford to make any stupid mistakes, and no matter what his personal opinion, he must try to lead the country - which means taking into account not just the 3% of the most extreme left wing, but also the 97% of the rest who will have to be not only carrying out these tasks, but giving top level advice as well. If Obama tried to pull any nutty stunts and a horrific slaughter resulted, who is responsible? Certainly not the Monday morning quarterbacks posting comments on Common Dreams.

One characteristic in a true democracy, is that when power changes hands, the country does not flip immediately to the very opposite of what it was. No, that's what happens in a bloody revolution, where the opposition is all killed or locked up. The USA had an election, that's all.

In the rest of the world, as in America, actually, most people are quite happy with Barack Obama. Hardly anyone outside America had any unrealistic expectations from a mere democratic change in leadership. They can see some obvious changes, one of them is: Obama is speaking out against the Israelis settlements. Although some Israelis settlers are quite angry about it.

Another change, the Pakistanis are going after the Taliban. It's doubtful they would have, or could have, done that with the Republicans in place who are regarded world wide as a warmongering party. Obama is actually trying to close Guantanamo. Didn't Mitt Romney say he would have opened two more? Obama is trying to talk to Iran, did Rudy Giuliani say he favoured a pre-emptive nuclear strike? So go ahead and make your suggestions to Common Dreams, but keep it reasonable. Obama is way better than the Republicans, and most of the world knows it.

If the economy rebounds, and the wars wind down peacefully, he could be on track to be one of the best presidents ever. I may not agree with all his moves, but I can at least see how they might all fit together in some larger plan that could result in more peace and prosperity and even a better environment. Unlike George W. Bush, whose policies set my teeth on edge, with the ignorance of world history, and utter disregard for diplomacy, the environment, human rights, or even human decency. Not to mention the "dead or alive", and "bring 'em on" rhetoric. Nope, let's not go back down that road to destruction, we went far enough already. I just hope Obama can get us out and back onto solid ground.