by Who decided newly elected presidents have only one year of “blaming their predecessor” for the failures of the country and then, after a 12-month grace period, they “own” everything that’s on fire around them? That’s a ridiculous notion based in fantasy and not hardened by reality.
How can a new president be held responsible for the ongoing effects of a previous administration? The idea of a grace period is ridiculous. The idea of a time-limited grace period is outrageous.
If we could undo the damage done over the last eight years of the previous administration in 12-months, then I would be on board with the “one year, then you own it” mandate, but reality suggests it will take many years — generations, perhaps — to fix the recklessness done under the Dubya regime.
For all 12 years of his presidency, rightly FDR blamed Herbert Hoover for all the woes of the country as he worked to fix them, and any reasonable and logical person precisely understood FDR’s argument.
We are many years removed from the wholesale healing that needs to be done in the wake of the Bush era. We have to fix the economy, the schools, the military, our healthcare and social services.
Obama has at least four years of emergency surgery to do before he can
even begin to address the reasons he was elected in the first place —
and that is our fault, not his, for giving him such a fallow path to
follow — and that’s why Obama’s second term, we hope, will start to be
the meeting of the man we knew and loved and originally elected to set
us back on the right road to humanity and prosperity.
There were people who were disappointed that everything wasn’t magically fixed on day one! To those people I ask the color of the sky in their world because in this reality, the Valdez spill is STILL being cleaned up and that was “just” an oil spill! I am glad that Obama is in office to help fix the mess.
It is going to take a long time to fix. The Supreme Court is the largest mess and I don’t know if Obama has enough time and tide to help him wash away the politicization of that austere branch even if he gets a second term. Bush buggered us all and the aftershocks are still hitting Obama hard and fast and for Obama’s enemies to now claim he owns all of his predecessor’s misdeeds is just insanely laughable.