Well… I haven’t written in a while (school and such), so this is my “big” comeback/synopsis of the last 5 months.
Well… The economy sucks. Unemployment has gone up to around 8.1% (not good news for those of us applying to grad school), and the stock market is in an irrational downward spiral punctuated by irrational swings upward. Happily(ish), the descent to perdition seems to be slowing, as the government scrambles to throw everything possible at the situation, which leads me to…
Politics and Politicians are just as irrational as ever. Obama and the Democrats have largely reneged on their promise to reach out to Republicans because the latter has abandoned anything resembling an ideology (not even offering an alternative budget) in order to posture themselves for some pipe dream of a comeback in 2010 (not going to happen unless Obama screws up really big). Meanwhile, Obama’s approval numbers have stayed relatively high, Congress’s approval numbers are rising yet are being weighed down by disapproval of Congressional Republicans. Gallup still shows Democrats as being more trusted to deal with the economy, but nobody in Washington really knows what they’re doing.
Expectations of Obama, probably because of all of the Messianic Rhetoric, have been unreasonably high. I could count myself as vaguely approving of what he is doing, but I do think that some of his picks (such has his treasury secretary and jacking up the sin tax on cigarettes during a recession) have been… unfortunate to say the least. However, he has done a good job of attempting to be bipartisan (though it turned out to be a fool’s errand).
Political commentators are just as annoying as ever, the far right ones even more so… While there was (once upon a time) talk of unity and all that happy crap, the rhetoric from commentators has gotten more and more divisive and nasty. From Limbaugh’s “I want Obama to fail” gaffe to Laura I (I don’t care enough to look up the spelling of her last name) calling Meghan McCain a fat ditz (in not so many words) because she had the gall to say that Republicans were losing young people. Olbermann has also been harping more and more on the Bush Administration…
Pretty much, all we have to do is give Obama’s policies time to work. and if they don’t work by his benchmark, then we can bitch at him. It’s the best way to avoid eating crow later.
No Comments Yet
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
