I want the President of the United States to be right, to succeed.
I don't care what name follows the title "President" - whether it's Obama or Bush or Clinton or Bush or Reagan or Carter or ... what matters to me, and my guess is thousands of other average Americans, is not what party that president belongs to; it doesn't even matter to me whether I voted for that particular president or not. I always want whoever is the President of the United States to be successful.
It just makes sense. It's good for the country, for all of us.
Even today, while my beliefs might align more with the Republican way of thinking (even though, as a Southerner, for years even as I might have been voting Republican I identified myself as a Democrat), I want what works for the country to thrive and prosper.
So yes, I heard a lot of good ideas in President Obama's "jobs'' speech Thursday night. And if his jobs bill gets passed, I hope it works.
But here's what bothered me about it.
Why did it take so long for him to make this speech? Why did it take three years into his administration for him to do the research he apparently did to come up with this plan?
Why do I have this nagging suspicion that this speech was so good, so impassioned, because it's 14 months until the President faces the electorate for re-election, and while there are questions about what skills he demonstrated prior to being elected president, what is known is that President Obama is a magnificent campaigner; and the timing of this just screams of President Obama being in his element, which is running for office.
I won't even try to figure out why we should believe that, after spending trillions on failed bail-outs that were supposed to save and create jobs over the last three years, now he realizes that less is more; spending half a trillion will do the trick where spending a full trillion didn't.
Better late than never, I guess.
But it just seems to terribly convenient - which, come to think of it, is what politics seems to have become. I mean, it's not about doing what's best for the country, it's about staying in office. Getting re-elected.
And it's not just this President; it's also Senators and Congressmen and right on down the line.
Which is why more and more I am an advocate for term limits.
Oh, I know. It means when you do get a good representative in, you lose him too soon. But I'd rather risk that over the current situation, where we have career politicians who gather power to themselves. And you know what they say about power: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I believe that if people went to Washington, D.C., knowing they only had so many years to be there and then they were going home, several things would happen: they'd remember to care about whatever business they were in before being elected; they'd do things that would help their business when they return (I know, I know - that could be bad); and they'd be more willing to make tough decisions that might not be popular because they don't have to worry about being re-elected.
I don't like not being able to trust the President of the United States.
But I don't think that's my fault.
It doesn't mean I don't want the President to be right, whoever is in the office.
But I do wish I could believe.
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