Zachary Olpin, commenting on CityWeekly.net on a letter to the editor critical of Obama (“Checkmating Obama,” Oct. 8, City Weekly), put it this way: “Things are definitely taking him longer than he expected. Why? Because people like you are hanging him up. So maybe you should stop, so he can take care of things.”
Sorry, Zach, but Obama’s most stunning shortcoming is his inability to shepherd a Democratic Congress. That’s not the fault of conservative critics.
His problem is his complacent supporters, who are so impressed with qualities he has that George W. Bush lacked—vocabulary, diction, and pigmentation—that they’re fearful that any political demonstration will appear anti-Obama.
Political demonstrations have an impact on the debate in Washington. If they didn’t, then corporations—who are close enough to the sausage grinder to know how it actually works—wouldn’t spend millions on “astroturf” and its equivalents. Who’s been louder in 2009? Tea Baggers, or advocates for single-payer health care?
So, Zachary, if things aren’t going the way you like, it’s not a letter to the editor to blame.
Rant Control says it’s Obama himself and, perhaps, his listless, liberal supporters.