Commentary
By Rosemary Piser
Associate Editor
This past Friday, marked 30 days since Barack Obama became President. To mark the occasion, the Republican party ran a story on its Web site claiming President Obama had a “disappointing month” marked by “wasteful spending, failed bipartisanship, and questionable ethics.”
Clearly from the lack of Republican votes supporting the Stimulus package labeling the legislation as being “wasteful spending” should come as no surprise. And the claims of “questionable ethics” relate to President Obama’s apparent ‘flip-flopping’ by first claiming that no one with ties to lobbyist would be appointed by his Administration and then making exceptions for some appointees with excellent credentials but formerly were lobbyists.
The Republican allegations of ‘failed bipartisanship’ are the most ludicrous of all.
President Obama had stated publicly that he not only wanted “quick Congressional action” on the Stimulus package, he also hoped for “significant numbers of Republicans” to vote for the legislation. But the Republicans are acting as if they wanted the country’s economic catastrophe to be placed on hold indefinitely until the President found a way to get a “significant number of Republicans” on board. Isn’t this the kind of twisted logic that helped get our country into this mess in the first place?
As for claims of President Obama having a “disappointing month”, I think Rachel Maddow summed it up best in her segment on Friday’s show:
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It does not appear that the Republican party got the message in November that the majority of voters are tired of business as usual. President Obama was clear in his November acceptance and January inaugural speeches that getting our country back on track is going to be a difficult and long journey – one that certainly is not going to be fixed in 30 days. And like Ms. Maddow, I have not been in favor of some of the decisions the Obama Administration has made, but I think that they are making significant strides in fixing the enormous mess the Republican party has made of this country over the past 8 years.
If Republicans aren’t happy with the way things are going, how about presenting a concrete plan for how to change them besides the same old plans that haven’t worked?
