"I am bound to disappoint some, if not all" - Barack Obama

[FrenchieCat]

Reposted from GDP; a Clio the Leo's thread titled: "I am bound to disappoint some, if not all"

I am a Democrat....

.... after all; my views on most topics correspond more closely to the editorial pages of the New York Times than those of the Wall Street Journal. I am angry about policies that consistently favor the wealthy and powerful over average Americans, and insist that government has an important role in opening up opportunity to all. I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose anybody’s religious beliefs–including my own–on nonbelievers. Furthermore, I am a prisoner of my own biography: I can’t help but view the American experience through the lens of a black man of mixed heritage, forever mindful of how generations of people who looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized, and the subtle and not so subtle ways that race and class continue to shape our lives.

But that is not all that I am. I also think my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at times. I believe in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship, and think no small number of government programs don’t work as advertised. I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers. I think America has more often been a force for good than for ill in the world; I carry few illusions about our enemies, and revere the courage and competence of our military. I reject a politics that is based solely on racial identity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood generally. I think much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in culture that will not be cured by money alone, and that our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.

Undoubtedly, some of these views will get me in trouble. I am new enough on the national political scene that I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.

As such, I am bound to disappoint some, if not all, of them.

The Audacity of Hope

[FrenchieCat]

1. The fact is, some deceived themselves,

and are Blaming him for it....
like they blame him for everything else.

That's classic intellectual dishonesty,
and there ain't two sides to this that can be argued...
it's just plain 'ol ordinary calculated deliberate dishonesty.

[nofurylike]

2. great post, FrenchieCat! and Clio the Leo! thank you! nt

[treestar]

3. Thank you for posting that Frenchie Cat

I've never had the chance to read that book yet.

[BlueCaliDem]

4. He has disappointed me at times, but I still have full faith in him as my President

and I understand how hard it is for him to work against entrenched elites on both sides of the aisle.

I will never forget the shock I felt when the Senate voted 94-3 to deny him the funds in order to bring Gitmo detainees into the United States for trial. He campaigned on closing Gitmo and bringing the detainees into the United States to be tried, but the Democrats and "their friends on the other side fo the aisle" wanted to make sure he understood that was not going to happen.

He was barely three months President, and they already wanted to show him they could, and would, stop him if he thinks he can try and change their cushiony Washington.

That vote was their warning salvo. I knew then he wouldn't be able to get the change through I know, in my heart, he wants, and what he's promised us. They simply won't let him.