I was planning to write - and still am - a lengthy post regarding the cynicism that permeates our culture, and the root of that cynicism in the administrations of Richard Nixon and importantly Ronald Reagan's. The Obama Campaign was based on a difference in concept than has existed in any campaign in my lifetime - not just hope, but a principled approach to governance that has been lacking for at least three decades. I have read his book, Audacity of Hope, and watched his campaign from an early time. My opinion of him has not changed. He is trying to bring a different approach to the position of the Presidency, but we, as a polity, are impatient and unrealistic in our expectations. Consider ANY policy position that the administration is getting flack on - any one - and tell me realistically that it could be resolved in 270 days. I'd like just one. Many of the complaints, including Doug's are based upon false - and unpromised - expectations, and now when those unrealistic and cynical expectations are not achieved we complain about the only one in the process trying to change our approach. There is a very long way to go, and proclaiming "failure" is not just unfair, unrealistic, hyperbolic, and misguided, it is, in my opinion, unAmerican: not because "he's our President, right or wrong," but because it is attacking the foundations of change.
Lighten up, get realistic, and try to be less reactionarily negative. Give change a chance and try not to fall back into cynical excuse-making. Frankly, I am sick of it.
