First Things First, Mr. President

Suppose I had my eye on a new house, a real “fixer-upper”. It’s a bigger house than I have now, and it’s more money than I want to spend, but I want it nonetheless. And maybe “fixer-upper” is too generous. There are leaks in the roof, the appliances are old and some are even broken, and the yard is overgrown. But I want this house, and I decide to pull out all the stops to make it mine, exhausting my savings and borrowing heavily. Then imagine that during the time between the acceptance of my offer and the closing, the leaks worsen until finally, right after we close, a full-fledged hole develops in the roof, allowing rain, cold air, debris and other undesirable things to enter the house through the hole, rendering it nearly uninhabitable. At this point, however, we are committed, this is our home, and so we proceed as planned and move in.

We have big plans for this house. We plan to add a new master bedroom to the back of the house, we want to put a pool in the back yard, and we also want to take the necessary steps to make the house “green”. Our first few weeks in the house, however, things aren’t going too well. The constant cold air rushing through the hole in the roof forces us to use the heat at all times, driving up our power and gas bills. The washer and dryer, already old and unreliable, finally kick the bucket, joining the refrigerator on the list of now defunct appliances. About a month after we move in, the area of the roof where the hole had been completely collapses, and now we have no roof over the dining room at all. Our new house is basically a living hell, and I find myself constantly reminding my wife that we didn’t cause the problems in the house. Did the previous owners really allow the house to fall into such a state of disrepair?

I promise my wife that we are, first and foremost, going to address the roof. It has to be done. We are basically living outdoors. We ask for a number of estimates on the roof, and despite the fact that one of the roofers has had his license revoked for construction violations, he says he has the most experience dealing with roof problems like ours, and so we hire him anyway. He begins to show up every day, but it seems as though he only examines the roof over and over again, taking pictures and measuring, but not actually doing anything. One day as I watch him again examining the missing roof, I ask him just when he plans to get to work. He tells me that he is still formulating the best plan of action, and that as soon as he has a full plan in place, he’s going to get started. I’m slightly irritated – there’s no roof over our dining room, after all – but he’s supposedly the best, and I figure it’s probably better if I don’t interfere too much.

In the meantime, I have promised the kids for years that we would have a pool as soon as we moved, and I just don’t think I can make them wait. I contact the pool company, and they come out to give me an estimate. It’s staggeringly expensive, but a promise is a promise, and so I go back to my bank where, miraculously, I’m given additional loans. At dinner the next night, I tell my kids that we’ll break ground on the new pool in a few weeks, and of course, they are ecstatic. My wife is worried, though, because of the other problems that remain unaddressed, but I think I know how to pacify her. I’ve been promising her the new master bedroom, and deep down, she’s as excited about that as the kids are about the pool. The next day, a contractor shows up to give us an estimate on the addition. It’s almost as much as the pool, and while I feel a little sick to my stomach, I am able to borrow against my mortgage to get the cash to pay for it. When she hears that we’re going to begin building her dream bedroom, she nearly forgets about the missing roof.

The following week, we’ve broken ground on the pool, the plans are in place for the new bedroom, and the roofer still shows up every day to tinker with his plan, but he hasn’t yet made the repairs. At the same time, the missing roof has become such a constant that we’re almost immune to the inconvenience and discomfort, and we continue to wait for the roofer to work his magic. But then things change dramatically when I get some bad news: I’ve been laid off at work. While they offer me a decent severance package, with the job market as tough as it is, I know it’s going to be hard to find work. In an attempt to soften the blow that the news will be to my wife, after I leave work for the last time, I go right to Sears and buy the best washer, dryer and refrigerator they have with my Sears Card – the only credit card on which I’m not maxed out!

When I get home, all is not well, though, as our pipes have burst and the first floor is flooded. The pool company asks if I still want to move forward with the pool, and the contractor offers to halt construction of the new master bedroom, but I am terrified of disappointing my wife and kids, so I go full speed ahead on both. Even the environmental company is nice enough to offer to cancel our consultation, but my in-laws have made it clear that they won’t visit us unless our house is environmentally friendly, and I do not want to cross my mother-in-law! The environmental consultant is aware of my situation, and amazingly, he tells me that I can delay my payment by a year if necessary, and so I tell him to go ahead and get started on making our house green. My mother-in-law is thrilled! All in all, things seem pretty good.

Does all of this sound completely and utterly crazy? It certainly should. The scary thing is that this is nearly the equivalent of what Barack Obama has done in his 50 days in office. In this little allegory, I’m President Obama. The house is the country. The roof is our economy and financial system, and the roofer, obviously, represents Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. My wife and kids are the various far Left constituencies who helped elect Obama, and to whom he is politically indebted. The pool represents the Obama budget, the master bedroom is the stimulus package, and the plans to make the house green symbolize Obama’s recently unveiled healthcare initiative. My father-in-law is Harry Reid, and my terrifying mother-in-law is Nancy Pelosi.

In the last few months, our economic and financial problems have worsened dramatically, and as things have deteriorated, the administration has looked at the problems, talked about the problems, but really done nothing to fix the problems. Despite this glaring and fundamental issue, Obama continues his incredibly ambitious and expensive plans with almost no regard for the growing economic mayhem around him. Last week, on the same day the Dow again lost another 4%, Obama announced plans for healthcare reform with a $650 Billion price tag. He is prepared to sign a $3.6 Trillion budget which will not only double our national debt and add more to our deficit than all of his predecessors combined, he is prepared to sign this budget replete with its 8570 earmarks – earmarks Obama promised to do away with. All the while, our economic and financial predicaments become more and more severe, and Tim Geithner has yet to offer any sort of concrete plans to address it. The proverbial house is crumbling around him, but the president seems determined to make it bigger anyway.

Our new president didn’t cause the problems he now faces, but he has exacerbated them. What Obama and his administration should have done – and perhaps still can and should do – is set aside their other plans and focus almost myopically on the economy. The other initiatives can and must wait. Fix this, and the political capital Obama will have will be nearly limitless, and the American people will support almost anything he wants. But fix it, and fix it now. As one of the ubiquitous talking heads noted on television recently, Obama and his team are remarkably good at politics, but are they as skilled at governing? Let's hope so.

(An abbreviated version of this post can also be seen at Splice Today: http://splicetoday.com/).

No Thanks from an Ungrateful Nation

Two weeks ago tomorrow, Barack Obama took the oath of office, becoming the 44^th President of the United States. Obama’s swearing-in also represented the end of the George W. Bush Administration, a fact greeted with vindictive glee by many across the country. Even though I did not vote for President Obama, I wish him well, and I appreciate seeing our democracy at work. There is something very powerful and very moving about the peaceful transfer of power we are privileged to witness every four or eight years. I also join so many others in celebrating our country’s first African-American president – a truly extraordinary and historic moment for our nation. I cannot, however, take part in the mean-spirited jubilation that accompanied the end of Bush’s tenure in the White House.

It is very fashionable to deride Bush, his administration, and his record. It is “cool” to hate President Bush, and to flippantly talk of how he “shredded the Constitution” after September 11^th, or “lied to the country” in the run-up to the Iraq War. It’s popular to fault Bush and Bush alone for the current financial crisis. So loud were the criticisms and so organized the accompanying media narrative that it is simply assumed Bush deserved all of the blame for the myriad missteps in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. East Coast elites ridicule Bush’s inarticulateness and sneer with certainty at his alleged stupidity. West Coast, Hollywood-types blanch at his lack of “sophistication” and even professed shame for their citizenship in a country led by the proudly un-hip Texan. The mainstream media not only share these sentiments, but have also perpetuated the same narratives through sometimes alarmingly blatant and slanted reporting. Through it all, Bush refused to alter his course, resisted what might have been a natural inclination to change for the sake of popularity or political expedience, and in doing so, only further enraged them all.

Of course President Bush made mistakes. All presidents do – all people do. 9/11 forced Bush into some difficult and sometimes controversial decisions, but to assign ulterior and sinister motives to his choices is simply unfounded. While I do not agree with those who believe that the war in Iraq was a mistake, I absolutely believe that for far too long, the war was managed poorly, and as Commander-in-Chief, Bush is ultimately responsible. He indeed deserves some of the blame for the financial and economic predicaments in which we now find ourselves, but in fairness, many of the seeds of this systemic failure were planted over a long period of time, including during previous administrations and in years when oversight was the responsibility of a Democratic Congress. Without question, there were mistakes made during Hurricane Katrina and the botched handling of her aftermath – at every level of government – yet somehow then-Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin both seemed to avoid the finger-pointing directed at President Bush. Admittedly, Bush is a poor speaker, and in this era of modern media, the ability to skillfully communicate is a very important quality for an effective president. And while his poor diction often failed him in making his case to the American people, ineloquent oratory does not always equate to idiocy. As I recently argued to a friend, while Bush is surely no genius, it is simply impossible for anyone to run and win a national campaign – much less to function as the most powerful man in the world – without a degree of intelligence that surpasses that of the average person. Bush is no exception, and he is no idiot either.

Seemingly lost in the frenzy of hatred and criticism surrounding Bush is the proverbial elephant in the room: there has not been a single subsequent terrorist attack in America in the seven years and four months since September 11^th, 2001. The apparent ease with which so many seemingly disregard this singular but seminal accomplishment reflects an unattractive and ignorant naivety on their part, as well as a fundamental misunderstanding of the world in which we now live. How quickly so many seem to forget the pain we collectively felt when, as a country, we were blindsided by that horrific day. How shortsighted so many appear to be in blocking out the intense fear that those heinous acts caused us. How ungrateful so many apparently are for the fact that Bush and his administration managed to do what even the most optimistic of us would have considered impossible that horrible day. And how ironic that New York, the city most affected by the horrors of 9/11, served as the effective epicenter of the anti-Bush movement.

There are increasing signs that Bush’s successor has begun to understand the difficult realities of the world and maybe even to gain some appreciation for the job that President Bush did under circumstances you and I cannot fully know. The most telling of these, obviously, was Obama’s decision to keep Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. It was also striking that, even while he fulfilled his campaign promise to close Guantanamo Bay, he is not sure what precisely to do with its detainees and not finding many prisons (here or abroad) eager to welcome those currently held there – problems also cited by the Bush Administration as hindrances to closing GITMO. The story was similar with the issue of “torture”, a favorite charge of the anti-Bush crowd, and an issue on which their leader, Obama, is also now hedging. I imagine the fact that he now receives a daily intelligence briefing has something to do with the beginnings of this migration from Candidate Obama to President Obama. I predict we’ll see further moves on the part of our new president that, while probably done quietly or masked cleverly, will still serve to maintain many of the same practices and policies for which he and his party so roundly criticized Bush. In many ways, this would be the ultimate exoneration for President Bush.

I suspect – and frankly hope – that the same Americans who so cavalierly badmouth Bush today will eventually understand the good he did while president. While it may take years, as more facts come to light about Bush’s tenure, I hope that his steadfast judgment and pragmatic choices will eventually be vindicated as I believe they should be. We cannot know now and may never be able to fully know the information to which he was privy – the information on which so many of his most controversial decisions were likely based. But what we should know and appreciate now is that the last eight years have been among the most challenging ever faced by any president, and that in this time of unfamiliar and unprecedented difficulties, we as a nation were served well by President Bush’s consistency, by his commitment to principles, and by his constant goal of doing what he felt would best keep this country safe.

While I know that George W. Bush is not one to be caught up in concerns about his legacy, he deserves one far better than that which his critics are already trying to write for him now, he deserves more than the jeers and boos he received from the crowds on the National Mall at the Inauguration, and most immediately, he deserves the thanks of what is currently an ungrateful nation.

I Pledge...

Today we inaugurated Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. It was wonderful moment for our nation. I am sincerely proud of our country, and of our new president.

And while I hate to be negative on such an overwhelmingly positive day, something was brought to my attention today that I simply cannot ignore. This is not the fault of President Obama or of any Democrat or politician. I do not blame them in the least.

I do, however, blame the participants in the below video (as well as the like-minded people they are representing) for being so self-congratulatory, self-righteous, narcissistic and immature. (It even dwarfs "Our American Prayer", though they are part of the same disturbing trend of Hollywood celebrities vastly overstepping their boundaries, and because of their wealth and fame, reaching -- and, frighteningly, probably influencing -- millions).

Let me make one thing perfectly clear about what I pledge. Unlike the men and women in the below video, I pledge to always do everything I can to be a better person and yes, a better citizen. It does not matter whether the man or woman for whom I voted occupies the White House, or whether the political winds are blowing my way. I am first and always a proud American, and just as I was a proud American witnessing Obama's inauguration yesterday, I will remain a proud American throughout the four or even eight years he remains my president, regardless of whether or not I agree with his policies and decisions. That is my pledge.

Apparently the same cannot be said for Ashton, Demi and friends, now apparently awakened to their newfound patriotism and commitment to the greater good. Where was this altruism over the last eight years? Could Laura Linney really not stop using the plastic bags at the grocery store while Bush was president? Why is it that only when getting their [political] way are they willing to use their bully pulpit for an inarguably good cause?

I encourage and welcome your thoughts and reactions.

Without further ado...

MySpace Celebrity and Katalyst present The Presidential Pledge

Remember Henry?

Do you remember my dog, Henry, whom I told you about a few months ago here? Well, here he is, this morning, on Good Morning America!

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=6635910


Hope you enjoy it as much as Henry did!

A New Kind of Politics?

Like many, I watched with interest yesterday as President-elect Obama visited President Bush at the White House. While watching the video and seeing the pictures of Bush and Obama, I was sincerely moved. Sometimes the beauty of our democracy is apparent when I would least expect it, and yesterday was a wonderful example of so much of what makes our country great. Last night, when I read that Bush and Obama had talked for over an hour -- but without any aides, note-takers, etc. -- literally alone -- I was again somewhat awed by the magnitude of the moment. Here were only the 43rd and soon-to-be 44th people to hold this office in the history of our country, talking in a refreshingly frank, open (and presumably off-the-record) manner.

Yesterday was another example of the grace with which President Bush has handled the transition so far. Bush's magnanimity here should not be surprising, though, because despite whatever faults he has, Bush should be credited for the deep, clearly genuine and emotional reverence he has always displayed for the office and institution of the presidency. It's a level of respect that I would hope all presidents would show for the office, and for the extraordinary responsibilities accompanying it.

In the wake of yesterday's meeting, however, I was disappointed in Obama when he and/or his aides leaked details of Obama's and Bush's conversation to the media. Making matters worse, the leak was done for crass political posturing, specifically about the question of whether the federal government should bail out GM or other struggling US automakers. I would think (or at least hope), that even "the One" would hold some things sacred, and that accordingly, he would maintain the confidentiality and trust that such a meeting deserves. Apparently I was wrong.

Barack Obama will soon be my president too, and while he wasn't my choice this election year, I wish him nothing but success. He won last week in part by promising a new kind of politics, and while I was never clear what precisely that meant, I hope this isn't the first example of it. If so, it's neither the path to success nor the way to win the support of the 57 million Americans who voted for another candidate.