"No Drama Obama" Needs a Strong Second Act by Walter M. Brasch and Rosemary R. Brasch,
t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
The Obama administration is a welcome change from the Bush-Cheney years. Against severe Republican opposition, President
Obama has kept campaign promises to reform health care, curb Wall Street excesses, create a federally-funded stimulus
program to help bring the nation out of the recession, and to remove American troops from the needless Iraq war, which
has already cost Americans more than $740 billion and 4,400 lives. He has also pledged to eliminate the Bush-Cheney tax
cuts for the rich, while not raising taxes on the middle- and lower-classes.
However, much of what the President is doing appears to be little more than an extension of Bush-Cheney values. And that
is not what the Americans voted for when they elected him to office.
Candidate Obama ran, and won office as an anti-war politician. President Obama has increased American presence in
Afghanistan. In July, 66 American soldiers were killed, the highest number for any month during the war.
Candidate Obama pledged to end the PATRIOT Act, which has done little to protect American safety and much to destroy
American Constitutional rights, including freedom of expression, due process, and protection against unreasonable
governmental invasion of privacy. However, President Obama signed legislation to extend the Act for yet another year.
During the 2008 campaign, both candidates Barack Obama and John McCain promised to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
However, President Obama, apparently scared by the right-wing paranoids, hasn't transferred any prisoners to maximum
federal security prisons in the U.S., any one of which would should have little difficulty dealing with suspected enemy
combatants among the general population of killers and rapists.
President Obama had failed to clean up the corrupt Minerals Management Service of the Department of Interior, which
under the Bush-Cheney administration had become little more than feckless advocates for Big Oil. About a year into the
Obama administration, the MMS exempted BP from filing a full environmental impact statement. Against the advice of
environmentalists, and his own statements while a candidate, President Obama allowed continued deep water drilling in
the Gulf, claiming that safety concerns were met. About a month later, the BP oil rig ruptured, killing 11 workers and
leading to the worst oil spill in U.S. history. It took five weeks before President Obama finally placed a six month
moratorium on deep well drilling, only to have that moratorium overturned by a Louisiana judge with financial ties to
the oil industry. The Obama administration appealed that order and issued a broader moratorium. By then, more about 200
million gallons of oil had spilled into the gulf, killing wildlife, the fishing industries, and tourism.
Although Candidate Obama promised better transparency in government - and to a certain extent has succeeded - as
President he allowed BP and his own government to place severe restrictions upon the media that were trying to give full
coverage to the spill.
The transparency credibility issue surfaced again this month when the Defense Department rejected the application for
Rolling Stone reporter Michael Hastings to accompany troops in Afghanistan. Hastings had accurately reported the
political statements by Gen. Stanley McChrystal that led the President to fire him for the nature of his comments that
"undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of the democratic system."
Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama had said he believed in gay marriages. However, President Obama, although extending the
rights of gay couples, has yielded to the fears of irrational conservatives and says he opposes same-sex marriages, but
believes in civil unions. Unlike President Obama, supporters of same-sex marriage include Bill Clinton, Laura Bush, and
Cindy McCain.
The Republican leadership tried to block extending unemployment benefits during the Recession; it was weeks until
President Obama spoke forcefully against the Republicans, which has earned its label as the "Party of 'No." Hopefully,
President Obama will be quicker to denounce the prattle of Republican leaders who are mounting a campaign to reduce
Social Security benefits.
Solely for political reasons, the Bush-Cheney administration took gray wolves off the endangered species list one week
before Barack Obama became president. Slightly more than a year after taking office, President Obama officially
continued the Bush-Cheney policy. The action by both administrations allowed the killing large numbers of the 1,600
wolves in the Rocky Mountains of Idaho and Montana, often by state officials from helicopters and often into the dens
that housed pups. No matter what the federal government said about wolves not being endangered, there were two
realities. First, the Cattle Industry lobby wanted wolves removed, although federal subsidies reimburse ranchers for any
livestock killed by wolves. The second issue is that wolves are competition for hunters, a majority of whom tend to be
conservatives or supporters of Republican philosophies. While wolves kill for food or to protect their pack, human
hunters may claim they hunt for food, but go to extraordinary lengths and expense to stuff and display their "trophy
kills," and often will kill animals, such as bears, prairie dogs, and coyotes that have no food value. Unlike their
human competitors, wolves usually don't use guns with telescopic sights, buy all kinds of whistles and electronic calls
that mimic the cries of other animals, use elevated shooting stands, send out decoys, or even create elaborate steel-jaw
traps. They never take their prey back to a cabin, consume 6-packs, and tell stories with other wolves. A federal court
this week ruled that gray wolves in the Rockies were not only an endangered species, but stopped state-supported wolf
hunts in Idaho and Montana.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, against severe opposition, pushed through some of the most critical social
legislation in the nation's history. Harry Truman stood up for his principles and for the benefit of the people when he
lashed out at a "do-nothing Congress." Candidate Obama was elected on a forceful campaign mantra of "Change you can
believe in," and not "A slight variation of present policies that you can maybe live with."
President Obama is known as "No Drama Obama" because of his quiet intellectualism. He needs to be more forceful, both in
fully supporting social legislation he and his base believe in as well as attacking the vicious smears, lies, and
distortions from the extreme Right Wing. If President Obama continues to pandering to the conservatives, and continues a
slide into compromise that dilutes necessary social justice legislation instead of trusting the millions who voted for
that change he promised, especially when he has both the power of the presidency and the votes in Congress, he will be a
one-term president, hated by both the right and the left.
Cross posted from Truthout: http://www.truth-out.org/no-drama-obama-needs-a-strong-second-act62467
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Walter M. Brasch is a former union officer, a member of The Newspaper Guild/Communications Workers of America and the
Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculty, and a former member of several unions, including the
Writers Guild of America and the United Auto Workers. He is a former newspaper and magazine writer and editor and
currently a professor of journalism. His latest book is "Sex and the Single Beer Can: Probing the Media and American
Culture"; among his 17 other books is "With Just Cause: Unionization of the American Journalist." He holds a Ph.D. in
mass communications.
Rosemary R. Brasch is a former secretary, Red Cross family services specialist, staff officer of the largest AFSCME
local in the nation, a specialist in both labor history and grievance actions and instructor at Penn State. She has an
M.S. in labor studies.
The Brasches are award-winning syndicated columnists. You may contact the Brasches at brasch@bloomu.edu.