Obama Loses His Backbone

This is an article I've already written for my campus newspaper called The Vanguard. You can see the Vanguard here.

The backbone wasone of the greatest evolutionary mutations in the Earth’s history. Without it,the composition of every animal you can name or think of would be starklydifferent. If anything the most familiar animals we know wouldn’t be the same:Humans.

Imagine usmoving around as alien blobs with our nervous system randomly floating around.It seems that for the evolutionary development of humanity, a backbone isnecessitated. With such obvious reasoning for the backbone, it strikes me tofind that our President, Barack Obama, doesn’t seem to have one.

From the start,the former professor sought a very professorial technique to getting thingsdone: Allow “the students” to begin discussions and only guide them in theright direction. This was his approach to the healthcare debate some years agoby allowing Congress to start the debate.

More recently,he’s chosen to be more compromising to his executive leadership against aRepublican influenced Congress. When the Bush Tax cuts were set to expire, he“compromised” on a key political promise by extending them because the newlyelected Republicans were feeling powerful.

When thegovernment was on the brink of shutdown, Republicans refused to let groundagain, and the President compromised. When the U.S. Treasury was set to nolonger be able to pay its dues in full, Republican staunchness was mostpronounced; here, the President buckled as well.

The unwaveringRepublicans were even so eager to reject any compromise by the President that,for the first time in history, a Presidential request to address a JointSession of Congress late this summer was rejected by the Speaker of the House.

The eagerness ofRepublicans to regain political prowess after the Bush administration shouldn’tbe laughed at because it is only reasonable. What should be laughed at is aPresident who promised to be a compromising and understanding leader and bring about fundamental change.

The two areincompatible when juxtaposed to each other. To bring about fundamental changemeans to push your ideals as strongly as you can in the face of opposition. Tocompromise to is break from your fundamental ideals in order to resolve theissue.

Today, we seeRepublicans that are illogically uncompromising and a President that isillogically knee-buckling. The poison of our political discussions (discussionsthat shouldn’t be the norm) have saturated the bed of the President so much itseems he has no fight left in him.

In his bid toseem more presidential, reasonable, and responsible (all of which he shouldbe), he has given up too much for too little. The Bush Tax Cuts shouldn’t havebeen extended in full (thankfully they will soon expire) and the healthcaredebate should have been led from the start by the President.

A governmentshutdown would have looked bad for the President but no one is ignorant of thefact that the Tea Party is the extreme right wing driving force pushing theRepublicans to take illogical stances. The blame would have fallen both waysbut then again, government could always be fixed.

Finally, BarackObama was responsible not to let the government miss its financial obligations,however, Republicans were just as nervous of bad press as the President was.Here, he should have been more forceful on increasing taxes.

Discussing thedate of his speech would bear no purpose than to steep to the disgusting lowerdens of radical tea party extremists. A date? What’s in a day? It was justanother slap in the face of a President they don’t like because they couldn’tprove he wasn’t a citizen of the United States.

With every newConservative victory came another crack at the spine of our President and withevery new swing it becomes more difficult to regrow. Extreme conservatism canonly be fought by liberalism that is ground in firm, and when necessitated,staunch reasoning.

Obama’s speechto Congress was the right start, not in content (that is debatable), but intone and forcefulness. For the sake of this country, for the sake of ourfuture, and for the sake of basic reasoning, let us pray he grows a backbonesoon.

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