A STEADY HAND

Not much time to spare, today. Still, as I wrote this morning on The Buddha Diaries, I could not let the moment pass without a word of praise for the President's interview on last night's 60 minutes. He was calm, clear, concise in his answers to Steve Kroft's questions. He avoided boasting or self-aggrandizement--though not coy about taking credit where it was appropriate--and came off, I thought, as a steady and reliable "Commander-in-Chief." He stands comfortably head and shoulders--and more!--above the craven contenders for his office, and is remarkable for the ease and comfort with which he handles himself in the most trying of circumstances. I get the sense, watching him, that he has the context of a much larger perspective in mind in all that he says and does, and that he is not easily swayed into rash decisions and actions by the pressures of the moment. I think we are wise to have elected this clear-headed man at a time when our country and the world are rushing toward the precipice. I trust that he will prevail in the 2012 election. I need to believe we have placed the reins in steady, thoughtful hands.

AT DINNER

I was sitting at dinner in a college cafeteria yesterday evening in the company of two smart women who take the time to inform themselves about our national problems and priorities. Like most others with whom I sit down and talk, they were as dismayed as I by the venom directed at Obama from both left and right. I say "venom," because that's how disagreement seem most frequently expressed these days. What I see on television and read online bears little resemblance to what I hear when I sit down and talk with people. There are so many who share my view that anger and impatience to little to serve the causes we support; and who marvel at the level-headedness and quiet perseverance of the man in the Oval Office.

I conclude from my personal, anecdotal experience that there is a strong groundswell of support for the President that does not get heard in the cacophony of opinionated rant. I choose to believe that, come election time, good sense and fairness will win out over irrationality and greed.

THE BUDGET DEAL

I personally deplore the concessions made by Democrats and the President in yesterday's budget deal. While I applaud the retention of funding for important programs like Planned Parenthood and the EPA, I deplore the cuts in other vital areas affecting, mostly, the most vulnerable in our society. I deplore the fact that the revenue side of the equation was not even part of the discussion, while the very wealthy and the corporations continue to be spared the burden of a proportionate share of taxes. I am persuaded by the arguments of economists like Paul Krugman of the New York Times that drastic cuts like those conceded in yesterday's agreement will serve only to further slow the already sluggish economic recovery.

And yet... it is the American electorate that is responsible for having naively handed so much power to the far right-wing zealots who apparently hold their own party and the US Congress hostage to their implacable and unreasonable demands. It required the ultimate threat of a government shutdown and its dire economic consequences to persuade these people to relinquish their demand that not one hundred but one hundred and fifty percent (and growing) of their radically right-wing policy and economic goals be met--that is, if the agreement survives the waiting period.

What will it take to awaken the vast middle class conservative part of the electorate to their own interests? Will the Paul Ryan "budget plan" gain traction and support amongst these people, when it so clearly benefits the already wealthy and further deprives the poor and needy? The Republicans are quick to rail against what they call a "redistribution of wealth" from the top down, but they're perfectly happy to redistribute it from the bottom up.

Obama is nowhere near achieving the results on the economic front that I had hoped for when I voted for him in 2008. He has, however, succeeded in turning the economy around, be it ever so slowly, against the powerful tide of financial industry and Republican political resistance. Would he have done better to have chosen a different administrative team? He has been roundly criticized from the left for choosing advisors from the same industry that brought us close to ruin. Again, I myself would have opted for more radical choices, and more radical policies.

But would a more radical ("socialist"?) approach have made for greater, speedier headway, given the political and historical circumstance? This is America, after all. This is America post-tax revolt, post-Reagan, post-trickle down economics. People have been willingly deceived for decades by the "fairy dust" that Krugman writes about; we believe we can enjoy a perpetual free lunch, that we can have all the services to which we have become accustomed without paying for them with our taxes. It's a mind-set that has proved resistant to reason and argument.

Oh, and then there are the trillions owed to pay for George W. Bush's unfunded wars and his simultaneous tax cuts for the wealthy.

That's the circumstance. You'd think America would be ready for significant change. Not so. Despite Obama's milder and more gradualist approach, conservatives successfully used the "socialist" slur to arouse old, knee-jerk fears among the voters in last year's elections. Had he applied some truly socialist mojo, might he not have put even slow progress at risk? I don't know. But I still plan to vote for him in 2012. Even distressingly slow progress, as I see it, is a whole lot better than regression.

Obamacare!

We need to reframe that word. Opponents have succeeded in giving it a negative spin, but I see it as a major achievement that deserves celebrating.

Okay, I wanted the "public option." I wanted "Medicare for all." I did not get what I wanted. Still, Obama succeeded where there has been nothing but failure for the past half century. Where the Clintons failed. We have a much needed national health care system. Of course it needs improving. Of course it needs to cover the needs of all Americans, and there are those who are still left out in the cold.

To those who say it was not skillfully handled, that the process could have been a smoother one, that better communication would have made it so, I say: perhaps. There were ugly bumps along the way. But the opposition was implacable, and well-funded. And the thing got done.

I write this, of course, in the context of yesterday's unveiling of the Republican alternative, a thinly disguised and deeply misguided plan to kill not only the Obama health care plan but even Medicare itself--a system that enjoys the enthusiastic support of countless millions who reap its benefits, and many more who still count on it being there for them. Instead, we are offered the prospect of a plan that envisions the health care of Americans as a profit-making industry, a cash cow for the insurance companies at the expense of the rest of us.

To which I say, Long live Obamacare!

When I hear Obama's opponents speak, I hear nothing but concern for their small base of political supporters and their own political hides. It's my belief that this man really does care about the well-being of his fellow-citizens, and works his tail off for us.

Yes!

We have grabbed this url and blog title with the intention of supporting the Barack Obama campaign for re-election to the Oval Office in 2012. We do this with the conviction that he is not simply better than the alternatives, but that he is the right man to lead us toward a viable future for the country.

It is now our responsibility t0 create an alternative to the deluded belief in American exceptionalism which has led us into a misguided foreign policy and disastrous wars; to the misplaced faith in the infallibility of the market economy and deregulation; and to the long period of neglect of education and other vital social services. The bankruptcy of these beliefs and the policies they justify is now apparent in the multiple crises the country now faces. The stubborn, bipartisan impasse that has stalled all progress toward solutions is further evidence that we need a man in the Oval Office who has a demonstrated capacity to listen, to make decisions without haste and in view of all available facts, and to persist calmly despite all obstacles.

We do not agree with every action and pronouncement of Obama or his administration. We have, indeed, many disagreements. But we can disagree on issues without immediately throwing support and trust to the winds. Nor do we wish to idolize the man. He needs our thoughtful criticism. But we see in Obama a man who is clear in his perceptions and fair in judgment. We see in him a man who understands the use of power in a way that allows for changing forces in the world; he shares the strength of the proverbial reed, whose nature is to prevail over shifting winds by responding to them, rather than the proverbial oak, uprooted by its own unbending stubbornness.

We also see in Obama a man who sees beyond current contingencies, beyond the chattering marketplace of bias and opinion, beyond the press of immediate necessities. If we want the change we voted for when we elected him, we'll vote for him again in 2012. Given the chaos in which we have embroiled ourselves as a nation, it will take a lot longer than a single four-year term to get there. We need Obama for a second term.