Tuesday, January 12, 2010

"When the system fails, it is my responsibility," Obama said.

Everywhere we look these days, we see "Obama." In news articles and reports, his name is almost synonymous with government itself.

Contrast that with the time Bush (or any other president for that matter) was in office. We may have questioned how much influence Bush had over anything at times, but at least, in our minds, we could separate the president's name from the government. We understood that though he cared about everything, the president wasn't actually responsible for everything. At least then, there were other people at work in Washington for our good, other people who had a huge stake in the game, other people who needed to do their jobs well to make "change" happen. We realized that the president couldn't do it all. Or maybe, the president realized he couldn't. And, this wasn't just because he was Bush (ignorant, incompetent, impotent and all the other things the media said about him) so much as because he knew and we all knew that he was, in fact, only human.

Now, I didn't vote for him and I will be the first republican to sigh if a man (or woman) of worth from my party is able to be elected next term, but I wonder at Obama, Democrat and all. I worry for him. I realize he is so motivated and so capable (or the media, thus far, has eagerly painted him as such), but is it prudent for any president, any leader at all, to have his hands in so much, but to be taking full responsibility for so much... from health care, to the war(s), to homeland security, to education, to the housing crisis, the economy, to unemployment, the list goes on? Doesn't he delegate? Doesn't anybody work for Obama anymore? Or, maybe more importantly, aren't there still people involved in our government who aren't doing his bidding?

I wonder, by literally chaining himself (politically speaking) to the success or failure of so many of his programs, his strategies, his initiatives, his plans, his systems... is it even possible that Obama won't fail?

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