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| Barack Obama |
By Dr. Wumi Akintide
Mitt Romney the current front runner is only beating the President by just 2% margin in opinion polls. Governor Rick Perry may look strong before entering the race. He is surely going to unravel as he faces more public scrutiny because he too has a lot of skeletons in his cupboard.
I call the narrow margin of Mitt Romney a statistical dead hit in probability parlance this early in the race. That margin is bound to fizzle out in a twinkle of an eye with the race engine running on all cylinders 6 months to one year from now.. Above all, the nation is not yet paying full attention more than a year to the D day, and the President is yet to fully deploy his charm, his oratorical flourish, his power of incumbency and all the arrows in his quiver as the great communicator.
I have come to the conclusion that Obama’s emergence as a force to reckon with in American politics is simply above and beyond human understanding and whatever names he is called by charlatans like Rush Limbaugh and their collaborators and nihilists in the extreme right of the ideological divide in American Politics.
My readers should view this piece as the part 2 to my last article titled, “The Republican position on the Debt Ceiling Debate in America” I predicted in that piece what has now become a self-fulfilling prophesy that America has no other choice than to increase the debt ceiling and to find some rational and carefully calibrated ways to cut spending and simultaneously increase the debt ceiling. Cut, cut, cut as the Republicans were insisting and spend, spend, spend as the Democrats were suggesting were both a sure panacea for disaster for America and its capitalist economy which has become the only game in town following the death of Communism.
Republicans who insist on cut cut cutting could eventually cut America and their own political interest to death in so doing. Democrats who have never seen any spending propensity they have not liked could also spend their own political interest into oblivion by totally destroying the financial credibility of America to a point of no return.
You can tell from this statement that I am neither pro or against any of the two major parties even though I am now an independent-leaning democrat by choice because I just know the two political parties are far from being the saints they both profess, and more and more voters are getting to know that as we speak all the calculations on the economy American leaders and pundits are making today could go out the window in a heartbeat, if all of a sudden another Tsunami, God forbid, hit Japan or if the State of Israel the 51st State of America were to go into another war with her Arab neighbors if Argentina renew hostilities with Great Britain over the Falkland Islands.
I say so because America regardless of her own multi-dimensional problems at home now see herself as the policeman of the world who must be drawn into every world conflict whether or not their own strategic interest is threatened. For as long as America retains that mindset, for so long will she continue to live above her means thereby putting her economic viability and security in serious jeopardy at all times.
The debt ceiling debate is really nothing but political posturing by the two major parties in preparation for the 2012 elections. All America, and the rest of the world, want from America is simply to make a significant start or down payment for addressing the financial problems of America. They do not want America to throw away the baby with the bath water like the Republicans are suggesting in the hope and belief the President will become the sacrificial lamb when the great majority of American voters who historically vote their wallets get behind those polling booth curtains to pull the lever against the incumbent President. They have figured it out that Obama will be blamed for all the atrocities brought on the nation by George Bush.
They are crying wolf today against Barack Obama as if George Bush Jnr. was not the main culprit for the economic woes of America, the mounting deficit and the so-called astronomical increase in the size of Government. Republicans actually wanted the American situation to really get worse before it gets better and they are hoping and praying the cataclysm occurs under Obama’s watch in an election year they all believe they can win if they sufficiently demonize Barack Obama and the Democrats. They totally forget, however, that their intransigence and nihilism could also lead to unintended consequences for this President who really has nothing more to prove as a great President other than to leave an enduring legacy that will, forever, be honored by History for many years to come.
The Health Care Reform Bill which is already saving millions of lives as we speak, the Stimulus Package which has minimized or cushion the debilitating effect of the George Bush’s 8 years of reckless spending in pursuit of two needless wars, and the final elimination of Osama Bin Laden without losing one American life and the carefully planned withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama’s refusal to get drawn into the Libyan conflict have already marked him out as a great President even if you discount his getting the Nobel Peace Award within a year of his coming to office. If he was white and a Republican by party label, Republicans would by shouting Hosanna till they turn blue in the face. Because he is black and a Democrat by choice, they are dismissing his entire presidency with the wave of the hand. I can tell you that History would be far kinder to him than the Republicans. That is precisely why he is going to win again, even if it means by the narrowest of margins. Read my lips. I say four more years for the new Gipper.
The ultimate goal of the silent majority of Americans was not to make the Congress cut so deep or spend so recklessly as to put America in a double jeopardy. America’s financial cul-de-sac had taken years to pile up. Only a fool would not know it must also take some years to repair the damage. Any effort to by force wake America up from her slumber like the Republicans and the Tea Party nihilists are suggesting could irredeemably hurt America so much so that her slumber could metamorphose into a fatal coma. It could also completely change America and all the values for which she has been held in high esteem around the world for two centuries and counting. The centrist argument has won again in the final analysis with a 269 to 161 votes in the lower House and a similarly impressive tally in the Senate and despite the prolonged intransigence of the Tea Party ideologues who have completely misinterpreted the voters’ mandate arguably given to them in the 2010 midterm elections.
The Tea Party ideologues may have been sent to Congress to rock the boat a little bit by creating needed awareness. They were not sent there to create gridlock. They were sent there to improve the lot of all Americans. They have totally misread their mandate as a marching order to go protect the interest of their major financiers, millionaires and oppressors of the poor and the middle class in America. It was a major mistake on their part, and the pay-back time is going to be 2012 when the chickens shall come home to roost as the first black President stays 4 more years to consolidate his monumental achievements.
I, for one, strongly believe the Republicans are doing what they have been doing as a strategy. Some of them have actually admitted their ultimate goal was to rain on the parade of the first black President who would have been a sure bet for automatic re-election with little or no campaign at all, but for the color of his skin. FDR to his credit became the best champion of Capitalism and the longest serving President in American history because he came to the Presidency during the great Depression and he had the courage, the vision and the resourcefulness to turn it around by doing what very few Presidents in America were ever able to do because he knew like Obama did, that he was elected to do big things rather than docking his responsibilities. The big difference was that FDR was white and Obama is black. FDR like Obama knew America can do better if Americans stick together. It could take some time, but America would surely overcome any obstacles placed on her way.
The History of America has validated such resilience and that has always been the position of this President from the “get go” He has always been a centrist all his life and his position in the prolonged debate has clearly proved that. He clearly understands the advantage of starting where Americans are, and that is why the Republicans would never succeed in taking him out by disrespecting him and calling him names like “terrorist” a “tarred baby”, “Adolf Hitler” and a “socialist”. The silent majority of Americans know he is none of that. They are not going to judge him by the same yardstick the Republicans are using for him because they know better.
They voted him into office, to begin with, not based on his skin color but the strength of his character as eloquently and forcefully anticipated by the great Martin Luther King of blessed memory. I can tell you that Obama could never have been elected without a George Bush running as his “John the Baptist” who actually prepared the way for Barack Obama who was considered the least likely of all the democrats running in 2008. Americans electing their first black President in more than 200 years actually validated America’s exceptionalism even better than all of her military power and scientific breakthrough including her distinction of being the first country on Earth to land the first man on the Moon and to safely bring him back to Earth
Obama’s victory has demonstrated for once in a life time that American or Western Democracy has clearly trumped any other system of Government the world has known, and it immediately proved to all Americans regardless of race, color and creed that they have an equal chance or opportunity to be anything they want to be in this country, if they work hard enough and put their trust in God. America’s supremacy has put Britain, America’s former colonial master on notice that the British House of Commons has remained the mother of all Parliaments in name only. The real deal in Democratic Government around the world is the American Congress for sure. That Obama has become the very first black man or the first minority to ever head American Government has sent a powerful message to Britain and the rest of the civilized world about the efficacy of Democracy as a system of Government.
So much was expected of Obama but he could only do but so much in the perception of most Americans because things had gotten so bad and arguably out of control under the 8 years of George Bush. America as I said before has taken on additional responsibilities as the self-appointed police man of the world including her fighting 2 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while still meeting her obligations to her own people and the needs of her strategic allies like Great Britain, the State of Israel, Egypt as the arrow head of the Arab League, Japan and North Korea to mention just a few. It was one mission impossible for any one country or leader to carry but you have to admit on balance that Obama has been doing as much as can be expected of him given the divided Government he has to work with to move America forward.
Those who criticize Obama for not calling the bluff of the Republicans by invoking some of his rarely used powers of an American President as defined by the Constitution are probably not good students of History and they probably forget that America fought for their independence from Britain to start their own experiment to avoid creating a dictatorship that the Monarchy clearly represented before it became a ceremonial institution.
A black President invoking such powers could easily have been blackmailed as a dictator and he would have made more enemies for himself to undermine his political survival in America where a day in Politics could be Eternity and could also mean the difference between life and death in a truly Democratic state. I think Obama is doing precisely the right thing by remaining level-headed, long-suffering and totally unflappable and doing so with grace and finesse under the worse set of circumstances. I take off my hat for the young man. His naming Joe Biden as Vice President has become, in hindsight, one of greatest accomplishments, if you factor in the role of Joe Biden in finally working out a deal with Mitch McConnell and Speaker Boehner
The deficit could have gone much higher and deeper touching the poor and the rich in America if the credit rating agencies around the world have been compelled to revoke or substantially down-grade the “Triple A” rating of America in the committee of financially-buoyant nations. Capitalism which has become a major instrument of Policy in Geo-Politics has been the brain child of America for more than 200 years. American dominant influence in wealth and military power has led to the fall of Communism not only in the defunct Soviet Union but even in the last bastion of Communism in China and Cuba not to talk of Communism in rogue states like Libya, Indonesia and North Korea. Communism everywhere around the world is now on life support as the few surviving beacons of Communism are fast collapsing giving way to free enterprise and competition which are the major pillars of Capitalism.
As a matter of fact, former Chinese Leader late Xiao Ping, the great reformer was the first to realize that Communism was terribly flawed in some of its basic assumptions. He personally altered the definition of Communism as we know it in China by forcing China to gradually start to jettison the central control fundamentals of Communism while at the same time integrating free enterprise and competition which are the unshakeable pillars of Capitalism.
Cuba under Raul Castro and with the tacit approval of ailing and aging Fidel Castro is sending the same signals to the world. Cuba is adopting major elements of “Perestroika” or Restructuring as defined by Gorbachev for the new Russian Republic. Cuba is quietly sending signals to the world she is just about ready to mellow her rigidity or emphasis on Communism, and ready to let new ideas come in.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela despite all his noise-making clearly understands that the days of Communism are numbered. The question is no longer when but how soon the change is going to come in Indonesia. Barack Obama has come to the presidency at an amazing period of change and he is managing the change to the best of his ability making more friends for America rather than creating more enemies. He was awarded the Nobel peace Prize for that fundamental change of approach in Geo politics without pulling punches.
Capitalism has clearly won the battle for supremacy world-wide. That was why it clearly beats my imagination that American leadership in Congress led by the radicalism of the Far Right were crazy enough to want to push the American and world economy to the precipice before finally agreeing to increase the debt ceiling and cutting spending before the scenario becomes a major embarrassment to America’s power and prestige around the world.
Those who are claiming that the Tea Party and the Republicans have won the debate are not looking at the total picture. They may have won the battle but certainly not the war, as far as I am concerned. I would submit that it is the Democrats and the President who are eventually going to win the war in the final analysis if you see the full ramifications of what I see. What the Republicans have won is at best a Pyrrhic victory in my judgment. We just wouldn’t know and the world would not know in a few months the devastating effect and the full ramifications of the Republicans position until the 2012 elections when the voters would have to speak again with their votes.
I pick the President and the Democrats to laugh last and laugh best because they were the first to admit that nothing should be off the table where as the Republicans stuck to their own guns to the very end insisting that tax increase for the richest Americans should be totally off the table. They also did not support increasing the debt limit and they insist it must remain a no go area, come rain or shine. They did not seem fazed at all by the possibility of America losing her credit rating and what that could mean for the common man in America and the rest of the world.
The Republicans clearly abandoned that notion in the final outcome of the debate as it became clear they were clearly on the wrong side of History and common sense. It is true that the Democrats had to agree to some drastic cuts even for programs like Medicaid and Medicare and other safety net programs for the poor, the disabled, the elderly and children but they were forced to cave in, in large part because they did not have the vote at the lower House to do it all on their own terms and because they were compelled to seek a bipartisan consensus in the true spirit of compromise to save America from economic suicide or disintegration.
I thought the President, Vice President Joe Biden, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi acted more like King Solomon in the epic battle between two women in the Bible who fought tooth and nail, to be accepted as the real mother of the little baby in dispute. The mother who had lost her own baby wanted the other mother to experience or suffer the same fate she has endured by quickly agreeing to King Solomon’s initial bait that the way out of the logjam was to kill and cut the surviving baby in dispute into two to resolve the conflict. The real mother of the baby knew that would mean the death of her baby and she evidently could not stand for that. She told King Solomon to spare the life of the baby because she did not want her baby killed even though she was dying to convince King Solomon that the baby belonged to her. She consoled herself by saying that sooner or later the truth would prevail but the baby’s life must be spared.
The other woman on the contrary hailed the bait from King Solomon telling King Solomon he was exactly right in his judgment and she would happily go along with that judgment. All she wanted was to reduce the true mother to the same condition she had found herself. She could care less about the fate of the baby or the true feelings and predicament of the true mother.
King Solomon knew right there and then who the true mother of the baby was, and he wasted no time giving the baby to the rightful mother. The Republicans were behaving more like the fake mother all because they were hoping that American voters were going to put the lion share of the blame on the President and the Democrats, and if that scenario holds up, they were more than sure the President would not win a second term because no President in their convoluted mind and as borne out by past statistics in American history has ever won re-election when the economy was this bad and when Unemployment is above 7.5%
What they forget is that this first black President has broken all the conventional rules in American History to come this far. I predict he would do it again in 2012 by confirming the validity of a Yoruba proverb which says that only God is able to explain how water has managed to find its way into a coconut or how a few seeds of corn have miraculously found their way into the belly of a cobra. A cobra, as a rule, does not feed on corn, but the bush rat regularly feeds on corn as their main diet. The cobra kills and swallows the bush rat. That explains in a nutshell how a few seeds of corn have managed to find their ways into the belly of a cobra.
The same God Almighty who put Barack Obama in the White House is still not finished with him yet. You aren't seeing anything yet! If God says yes who can say no? That is the million Dollar question. The Almighty God is surely going to use the foolish things of the world to confound the wise in the 2012 election. I have not lost hope in Obama winning a second term even if it means by the narrowest of margin. It is going to happen when the minorities, the downtrodden, the poor, the middle class, the elderly and the handicapped in this society who are clearly in the majority feel threatened enough and sufficiently endangered and marginalized to unite in a way that has never happened before in America.
A Democratic President beating all of his Republican rivals in fund raising by 5 to 1 margin in this election circle is one of the early signs of that miracle. Obama is going to win again as I predicted in my part 1 to this article, and it is going to be marvelous in our eyes!
I rest my case
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