General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Sugar Makes the Poison Taste Sweet [View all]lapfog_1
(29,147 posts)We do not have an imperial presidency.
President Obama cannot simply issue executive orders to do the things you would like him to do.
He can't mandate that the minimum wage be raised to $12/hour.
He can't increase the taxes on millionaires and billionaires to pay for things we might want the government to do.
He can't actually cause the military to spend less money.
He could change the rules at the NSA... so let's wait and see if he does.
He can't mandate that women receive equal pay for equal work.
He can't mandate an end to global warming.
so let's talk about the soldier.
Let's be truthful about this. President Obama says he met the soldiers when he was part of an honor guard at a D-Day event. The soldier went back to Afghanistan and was wounded, horribly wounded.
Afghanistan was Obama's "war of choice" because Bush fucked it up. Bush invaded Afghanistan to "get Osama" and then a) didn't get Osama, and b) left it to invade Iraq (where the oil was).
Obama decided years later to try to "finish the job" in Afghanistan with a "surge" of his own.
Reasonable people can debate if that was a good idea or not. I think the invasion of Afghanistan was justified and we should have won the war, arrested the Taliban and Osama, and put them on trial. We should have done it with 200,000 troops and all of the coalition forces we could get to help. And then we should have run the country for 10 years and build schools and hospitals and roads with the direct involvement of the local village leaders and the Afghan people, not outside American contractors. And then we should have left. Completely left.
Obama was too late, even though he did "get Osama"...
So we have the wounded soldier on his 10th deployment.
I don't know how Presidents deal with what they do... I think certain ones of them ("W" comes to mind) really don't care about the decisions they made and the young men and women who pay for those mistakes. I think other Presidents really do care. I think that's why, after 8 years in office, Presidents look like they have aged 20 years. It's not a job I ever want.
But I don't think Obama used this young man as a "prop" in the way you are thinking. I think he was truly trying to honor his service to our country AND demonstrate the cost of these wars to everyone, including those in Congress that want to "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran". So maybe the young man was a prop, but a prop against "future entanglements".
We are mostly disconnected from the wars... they get very little coverage, the soldiers that die or are maimed are not named or shown on TV that much... we don't spit on them like some people did to the Vietnam vets were when they came home, but we don't really think about them much either.
You don't like this President very much... many here in DU don't like him either.
Of the Presidents who have been President since I was old enough to think about such things, I've been disappointed in all of them.
Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. Only 3 Democrats in the list, none were a progressive (yup, Carter was not a progressive). All of the Democrats were better than any of the Republicans. Obama ranks as number 1 or a close second (Clinton did a bunch of things I didn't like too, but overall, he was likely the best of this bunch).
Will Hillary be any better? Any more progressive than Obama? I doubt it.
So where does the current hatred (yes, it's hatred when you accuse the President of using a wounded soldier as a cheap applause prop in a SOTU, a very cynical thing for a President to do... something worthy of Bush at his worst) come from? I think it's just disappointment, coupled with some realization that you will likely never see a President you really want. One who can accomplish all of the things I listed at the beginning of this response.