You may think of it as one of the pitfalls of being a moderate, but they call them “pitfalls” for a reason.
Toles has a funny observation to go along with this comic:
Funny! Washington: broken! Government: broken! Politics: broken! Diagnosis? Partisanship! Extreme position-taking! Nobody willing to compromise! Intemperate language! How, or when do we move away from this paralyzing stalemate, and start to work on moderate, consensus-building solutions?
So, what do you know. Why, right there in the White House is a president who seems do do nothing other than try to find or craft a middle course and patiently pursue it, with minimal bombast, on issue after issue after issue. And we hate him for it.
4 Comments
Toles’ comment is spot on. I think all the vitriol just highlights two things:
1) The modern right wing modus operadi of savagely attacking anyone that isn’t 100% in agreement with them
2) The sad fact we still have a long way to go in being color blind.
I don’t think Obama has been an ideal president, but that’s only because I was looking for a visionary that would inspire us all past the partisan destruction of the country. The pragmatic, moderate and toned down President that he turned out to be is the best we can hope for in the hyper partisan reality of today’s America.
I just think we can rise above it, but I don’t see too many signs thar it is actually happening.
We agree. It isn’t Obama who is broken, it is our political system. Or, it is us, who believe the propaganda pumped out by those with enough money and power to keep pumping it out.
As for changing it, I think it is only going to happen from the grass roots, which is one of the reasons I keep pumping out this damn blog.
Agreed, IK. But the “grass roots” needs a rallying cry and a visionary leader to follow, and “we dont like what’s happening” isn’t a big enough thing to rally around.
The Tea Party started because fiscal conservatives realized the Republicans werent serious about real fiscal discipline, and Democrats are perceived as big spenders, but it has been mostly co-opted by the hard core conservatives both socially and fiscally and therefore has lost it’s populist draw.
I think we need to find the leader, and with the rules today that means someone super rich or someone that can raise money from the super rich. That may limit the field to the wrong people, but I don’t know we have another option.
I still wonder if hiring an actor to PLAY the President we need may need might be the best approach 🙂
It worked for the GOP and Reagan! 🙁