I don’t hide the fact that I am a Democrat and that I supported Barack Obama from the moment he was the front runner in the Democratic primaries. There are many reasons why I am a Democrat and I am not going to bore anyone with that list here. I do, however, want to make note of a few things (and perhaps some of my reasons for being a Democrat will show through).
First I want to say that although in the end I was very much against everything that Bush said and did, I was not totally in that camp. Clearly when he was running against Al Gore back in 2000 I supported Gore, however, I had more of a wait and see policy. It was very obvious that Bush was and still is a major supporter of Israel and for that I will be forever thankful. I think that due to Bush our Country will, for the foreseeable future, be a very pro Israel country. It was not until the Iraq war that I became totally dissatisfied with the Bush administration. I did give him the benefit of the doubt at first, and I really wish that the Republican right would extend the same courtesy to Obama. Everything I read from the right has been so anti Obama it actually pains me to read it at times.
If you look at Rush Limbaugh’s web site, the top headlines read “Obama Executive Orders put Politics over National Security” and “I want Obama’s Policies to Fail”. And even worse “Greg Craig, Our 44th President.” Obama has spent 2 full working days in office and this is what they have to say. Why can’t they wait and see what things are going to be like before they criticize. Of course I understand that someone like Limbaugh is partly entertainment and that the ultra left may have spouted off similarly when Bush won office. But truth be told, are we better off now than we were 8 years ago when Bush became President? I think the answer is an obvious no, and I would love to hear the reasons why someone would answer yes. Let’s wait and see what happens over the next year. When Bill Clinton became president, things were not in the best of shape, but after eight years in the White House, our country was doing the best it had been in many years.
So to my Republican friends, take a deep breath and wait and see.
Second, I am very excited about Obama’s first executive order, issued on his first full day in office. It spells out an ethics pledge that any new governmental appointee will need to sign. You can read it here.
And third, as to the closing of secret overseas prisons and Guantanamo Bay I am also happy about this. Obama said this afternoon “Our ideals give us the strength and moral high ground” to combat terrorism. Where I hear this I am reminded about what Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1775 “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
So in honor of the first days of the Obama administration….
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUS49XSN6Zs]