Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Deep Thought

Does it make me un-American to think that we can't do anything?
Posted by blackink at 25.2.09
Labels:

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Un-American? Nope. Honest? Yup.

February 25, 2009 at 2:46 PM
blackink said...

Thanks. I was just wondering. Just sounds like a bit of a jingoistic egotism.

I imagine that if we could do anything, we'd have already brought peace to the Middle East, prevented the implosion of our banking system and been able to prevent the slow death of our auto industry.

Oh, and give every American a unicorn.

February 25, 2009 at 10:48 PM
John P. Araujo said...

I think we could do a lot more, to be honest. Perhaps not anything and everything, but certainly a lot more than we are doing now. Unfortunately, those we deem "our betters" prove to be short-sighted, narrow-minded, and petty by serving only their party or ideological agendas instead of the greater good (and this is both liberals and conservatives; Democrats and Republicans) - if not serving their own selfish desires. Pretty much that's all that serves in D.C.; a city of selfish, short-sighted leaders. You can certainly cite such examples from the Bush years (and feel free to do so), but Obama didn't help things by nominating a lot of Clinton-era retreads and - despite a multipage questionnaire - managed to miss tax cheats when nominating his Cabinet members. How the hell do you miss something like not paying one's taxes when vetting a candidate for something so public as a Cabinet position? I had hoped Obama would prove me wrong when he said that he was going to bring change to Washington, but so far it's been the kind of change described in that axiom "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Hmm. Maybe you're right Joel. Maybe we can't do anything.

February 26, 2009 at 8:41 AM
blackink said...

J.P., good to hear from ya.

But I gotta say, you're a lot more cynical than me. I'm not so sure that our leaders in D.C. are to blame anymore than we the people, throughout our country. If we have a problem with our politicians, it's certainly within our means to vote our preference.

As for Obama, you know, he admitted to making a mistake with the nomination of Daschle. If anything, that's a radical departure from the previous eight years. I don't think anyone with any amount of sense expected him or his administration to be perfect.

I think Americans want Obama to minimize his mistakes, and have his mistakes be minor in nature. Perfection is not going to be possible, especially given the depth of our troubles.

And I go one of two ways on the appointments of scads of former Clinton officials: 1. it's politics, as usual, and not change; 2. it's helpful to have experienced staffers who know the political meat-grinder that is the White House to implement new policies.

Can we do anything? Well, I guess we could try. But we're not the only country in the world. We don't have to do it all, no?

February 26, 2009 at 4:01 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)