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Op-ed
To paraphrase a once popular song, “The Election is over but the Malice Lingers On.” I am referring to Mary Logasa’s letter (“How did Obama fail? Here’s how”) in the Nov. 13 issue of the Index-Tribune.
Ms. Logasa, your comments are right out of Karl Rove’s playbook, which takes the nastiest things one is guilty of, then accuses ones opponent of those very things. Rove and his group of poor losers will go on whining and complaining because, even with all that obscene amount of Super Pac money, he was rejected by the American people – and he lost big.
Mary, the Obama campaign didn’t run a dishonest campaign; the Romney campaign did. They honed their negative skills against all those kooks in their Republican primary, and then unleashed them full blast against Obama when the very unpopular Romney finally won his nomination.
Ms. Logasa, don’t you remember how our new president tried over and over to win bi-partisan support for many proposals? Some of his own party even accused him of weakness because of this. But the Republicans, led by their leaders McConnell and Boehner, rejected and filibustered every one. Many of these proposals were Republican ideas, until Obama agreed to them. The Republicans then voted against them. Then they had the guts to accuse him of not getting anything done.
You list your ideas of his failures. Check this list of his accomplishments:
Equal pay for equal work (the Letty Ledbetter law); saving the auto industry (against Romney’s advice); credit card reform; the Hate Crimes Prevention Act; the Affordable Care Act (after years of failure by both parties); student loan reform; Wall Street reform; middle class tax cuts; repeal of “Don’t ask Don’t Tell”; raising fuel efficiency standards.
And then the big ones: Ending the Bush/Cheney unnecessary war in Iraq; putting wheels in motion to end the War in Afghanistan; killing Osama Bin Laden (Bush failed – Obama succeeded).
Mary, you mentioned the tragedy in Benghazi, and tragedy it was. But lets wait for the investigation results before we go off half-cocked, like Romney did. And lets keep things in perspective. We lost more than 3,000 people on our own soil under Bush’s watch, after numerous ignored warnings. Thousands of our troops were killed in Iraq, and thousands more were maimed for life, to say nothing of the thousands of civilian Iraqis killed.
You call Mitt Romney the “man of integrity”? Perhaps.
But does a man of integrity make millions in his own country and then hide the money in foreign countries so as not to pay taxes on it, and then refuse to reveal his tax returns?
Does a man of integrity close down factories, putting thousands out of work and shipping their jobs to China while making millions for himself?
Lets support our President instead of tearing him down.
Our Allies around the world are thrilled that Obama was reelected. He is leading our country in the right direction.
• • •
Bill Schang is a resident of Sonoma.
Please note: Your full name will be published with your comment.
Bill, this was such a masterful repeat of MSNBC!
Obama's pension fund is invested in foreign countries to avoid taxes.
Name the businesses that Romney closed to ship the jobs overseas. Obama's donor Jeffrey Immelt of GE fame invests $2 billion in China to make imaging equipment hiring at least 65 Chinese NOT American engineers and will likely increase the number Check it out on Bloomberg. GE is not investing in the US.
Obamacare has a new tax of 3.8% on capital gains including selling your house. Health care costs aren't going down instead they will increase costs $1.2 trillion by 2020 according to the CBO reports. Will our health care be better? Probably it won't be for Medicare seniors who will find their doctors too pressed by low reimbursement.
The list goes on but still you pump it out without an examination of the facts.
I cannot support a President who was elected in one of the most corrupt elections in history. I wrote a blog about it, titled The Chicago Way (which you can find on the Sonoma Patch). If you choose not to look for it, I will highlight the points in a future post. It is laden with poll numbers, voters vs registered voters, big discrepancies. Obama couldn't run on his dismal record, so he chose to focus on the character of Governor Romney...oh wait, his character is beyond reproach. Choosing another Chicago tactic, he just kept repeating untruths, with a media refusing to fact-check, they were too caught up in making sure Obama was reelected, after all...he was The One. I can't understand any person who would even consider running for public office, in this day and age, it is shameful how some candidates, and their families are treated (see Sarah Palin). Could you please point out the negative or untrue anything the Romney campaign put forth? The Obama campaign put forth personal ridicule, suggestions of ethical misdeeds, and aspersions of his patriotism. This was due in fact that all they had was Big Bird, a made up war on women, and deeming Romney's success as something no one should emulate. I won't even attempt to get into your supposed bi-partisan nature of Obama, that is so laughable and I don't have enough space to write.
List of Obama accomplishments: Lily Ledbetter...ahem...and women in the Obama Administration are paid 18% less than men. So, support equal pay for women all you want, he doesn't support it in the White House. Obama saved the auto industry? Romney wanted the auto industry to go through a managed bankruptcy, as all failing businesses can choose to do, to be able to regroup and move forward. Instead, billions of taxpayer dollars (which you will never see again) were thrown to a few car companies, thereby allowing companies who were failing to step over those who didn't get that advantage. But, Obama became Super Saver of the auto industry.
Romney was a gentleman in a street fight with the media deck stacked against him. Only the republicans could lose a sure thing .... again.
Imagine just how confused everyone would be if repubs just accepted gay marriage and abortion as law of the land. And where would the evangelicals go? To the party that thinks its unlawful to say God in the public square?
Thanks for your excellent letter Bill. While President Obama didn’t accomplish everything on my own personal wish list (we didn’t get single payer healthcare and we are still in Afghanistan), the alternative would have been a disaster of the highest magnitude, and an unthinkable prospect.
Let’s hope that we can all take the high road with an end to all of the recent partisan bickering, and as you say; let’s support our President!