To be frank with my blogging audience, when President Obama was in office, at the time I didn’t think he was doing such a “great” job. I didn’t pay much attention to what he was or wasn’t doing. While he was in office, I just thought of him as an average, “pretty good” president. I didn’t pay attention to him that much because he didn’t constantly have the need to be in the limelight. He didn’t constantly feel the need to say, “look at me, look at the great things I’m doing, look at how great I am”. In fact, at times, he was outright boring, for a president. (I say this in a good way).
President Obama didn’t seem to create huge controversy – however, it seemed a few controversies surrounded him: he shouldn’t be president since some believed he wasn’t an actual U.S. citizen (or shouldn’t be president due to his skin color, or because he had a foreign sounding name); that he somehow caused or was responsible for an attack on one of embassies, with the loss of four American lives; and, of course, he was responsible for creating a healthcare system that some people didn’t like.
During the time he was in office, my initial thoughts of him were along the lines of: he seems a little bit better than President George W. Bush, only because he seemed to have some vision as to where to take this nation of ours. It looked like he tended to agree with me on some areas that were important to me.
All I knew at the time was the fact that he and his administration were elected right at the very beginning of a recession, that had started a few months before the election (the general public at the time weren’t even aware that a recession was starting). All I knew during those first few years of his first term, was the fact that he and his administration did all they could to help this great country of ours to stop and recover from this recession as quickly as possible. They eventually succeeded. Did it take a bit longer than the average time it takes to recover from a recession? Yes, according to the Economic experts, it did. However, this wasn’t just your average recession, it was, as it’s now been labeled, a “great” recession, the likes of which we hadn’t seen since the “Great Depression” of the 1930’s.
My point, if any of my above digressions have distracted you, is, while he was in office, he was an average president – in my opinion. Toward the end of his service, my opinion started to change from “average” to “better than average” (i.e., a pretty good President), since he and his administration helped accomplish a few things to help make this world a better place. Was he personally responsible for same sex marriage equality? No, but he helped to create a more tolerant atmosphere such that the Supreme Court was able to make their landmark decision, in 2015. Was he personally responsible for x, y, and z, that occurred during his presidency? No, it was a team effort, and he knew that. He was never boastful, he never beat his fists on his chest, and bellowed “look at me, look at how great I am!”
He also had decorum. He knew how to be presidential. He did not whine when things didn’t go as he wanted them. He had the smarts and skills such that he was able to truly negotiate things, to get things accomplished – whether it was here at home, domestically, or while dealing with other world leaders.
While all this was happening during his presidency, we didn’t think of him as a “Great” (note the capital G) President. Because, at the time, he was just trying to be a “good” president. A president that got stuff done. A president that had vision (and, a strategy as well), and the ability to articulate that vision to not only to people in his administration, but to the nation at large.
This, in hindsight, is why some of us have now labeled President Obama, a “Great” President.
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I started this essay out by implying I didn’t pay much attention to his presidency as it was happening – that is the honest truth.
The other thing I wanted to share in this essay is the fact, because I didn’t pay much attention to President Obama during his presidency, I wasn’t aware of how much he was disliked, I wasn’t aware of how much he was hated by some in this great nation of ours, I wasn’t aware that there were people hanging his likeness in effigy. You see, because I do not fear people of different skin color, because I don’t hate people of color, because I believe all people are equal, it’s hard for me to remember and realize there is still a significant amount of people who do not like Blacks, or Asians, or Mexicans, or immigrants who do not speak English, or they think these people are not equal to “us, whites”.
I certainly have had my head in the ground on this topic, thinking it was only 5-10 percent of the population that have this (stupid) mindset. I do not know the true extent of how many in our society have these prejudices, but, these last two years, my eyes (once again) have been opened toward people with hate in their heart, people who do not, and cannot love their fellow man, people who feel very superior to others due to their white skin. And, I now realize, it’s not a small percentage of the nation that thinks like this; it’s a huge number of people in our great nation who have hatred in their hearts of their fellow Americans, of their fellow human beings.
The current president with all of his actions, and behavior, with all of his hateful twitter tweets, with all of his remarks he’s made in response to events, or reporter’s questions, with all of his inability to speak truthfully, without making things up on the fly, this is what has made us now realize how good we had it during President Obama’s presidency; how ordinary it was during President George W. Bush’s presidency (without much turmoil other than the Iraq/Afghanistan wars); and how good it was during President Clinton’s presidency (other than the stupid turmoil over his extramarital affair with a young intern).
We have had good presidents, we have had a couple/few great presidents during the last sixty years or so.
There have not been any presidents in the last sixty years who have been so vastly ill equipped to be president as our current president. There have not been any presidents in the last sixty years that were vastly incompetent to lead. Yes, we had one (quite competent) president who had a very similar paranoia disposition as our current president, that got him in trouble with the law, requiring his eventual resignation (however, he was competent such that he was able to end a war that was killing tens of thousands of young American lives, a war that never should have been started; he was also competent such that he was able to end China’s isolation from the U.S.)
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We know what a good/great President “looks like”.
We know what a President “sounds like”.
We know how a President acts, or should act like.
We know how a president leads, how they interact with their counterparts in other countries.
We know how a president should have the ability to lead.
We know how a president should have the ability to bring us together as a nation, not divide us.
We know, we know, we know…
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It is now time for the Cabinet, and then Congress, to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment (via Section 4; “to declare the president unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office”).
Let us not wait until two years from now, for the next presidential election, to rid ourselves of this incompetent president, this hateful human being.
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Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I would like to hear your thoughts on anything I write about. I write my thoughts down, in order to provoke discussion, and discourse. Please feel free to comment, no matter whether you agree or don’t agree with me
