Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Deep, deep gumbo
The NY Times being a family newspaper, that is the term Bob Herbert uses to describe the status of this country and the party that is supposed to be leading it. From a missed opportunity at the beginning to a current flawed direction for the country,
We are in deep, deep gumbo.Building "castles in Spain" or Afghanistan when we can't afford to keep people working at home is not going to impress anyone. And the worst part is that it opens the door for the return of Republican rule which is based on the idea of fucking up everything.
The Obama administration feels it should get a great deal of credit for its economic stimulus efforts, its health care initiative, its financial reform legislation, its vastly increased aid to education and so forth. And maybe if we were grading papers, there would be a fair number of decent marks to be handed out.
But Americans struggling in a down economy are worried about the survival of their families. Destitution is beckoning for those whose unemployment benefits are running out, and that crowd of long-term jobless men and women is expanding rapidly.
There is a widespread feeling that only the rich and well-placed can count on Washington’s help, and that toxic sentiment is spreading like the oil stain in the gulf, with ominous implications for President Obama and his party. It’s in this atmosphere that support for the president and his agenda is sinking like a stone.
Employment is the No. 1 issue for most ordinary Americans. Their anxiety on this front only grows as they watch teachers, firefighters and police officers lining up to walk the unemployment plank as state and local governments wrestle with horrendous budget deficits.
And what do these worried Americans see the Obama administration doing? It’s doubling down on the war in Afghanistan, trying somehow to build a nation from scratch in the chaos of a combat zone.
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