blind_html Fwd: follow up
- From: Nimer Jaber <nimerjaber1@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: blind_html@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 04 May 2009 16:49:46 -0600
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: follow up
Date: Mon, 4 May 2009 15:05:55 -0700
From: Edwin Cooney <edwincooney@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <edwincooney@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I've just received word from one of you that the message that should
have contained my column was blank. Wow!
Here's another effort. I can't imagine how that happened since the copy
I sent myself had the column.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
Warm Regards,
E.C.
Hi All,
Yes indeed! Assessments such as you see below are only forecasts and
with less science than your irratic weatherman utilizes. Nevertheless,
it's all part of president watching. After all, the president is human
and all of us (except historians and scholars of course) are in the
habit of humanizing everything including the office of President of the
United States. I think it works although humanization of an institution
can distort the total picture now and again. However, most of us will
be following the person of Barack Hussein Obama for nearly the next four
years. If his presidency is successful and he's re-elected, then he'll
personally be seen as successful. If otherwise, he and not the
institution of the presidency will be blamed. That's both the way it is
and ought to be in America these days.
So, I hope you'll read what's here and make of it what you will. Your
comments are always welcome.
Thanks for being one of my readers!
Warm Regards,
E.C.
MONDAY, MAY 4^TH , 2009
SO! WHAT DO WE KNOW?
BY EDWIN COONEY
What our recent preoccupation with the significance of President Barack
Obama?s first one hundred days probably best demonstrates is that our
thirst for presidential scrutiny is as much about personal
identification as it is about genuine historical analysis.
Since FDR?s time, except during periods of economic uncertainty, little
attention has been paid to the new boss?s first ninety-nine White House
morrows. However, these are uncertain economic times, to say the least,
and everyone is watching closely (especially the president?s foes both
political and personal).
A quick peak at a few post FDR presidencies might provide us a bit of
perspective.
The first one hundred days of George W. Bush?s administration were
almost anticlimactic after eight turbulent years of William Jefferson
Clinton. True, there was still much gnashing of teeth over the ?Supreme
Court Presidency? of the shy and newly minted George Bush. Still, the
economy, which had been in a tailspin during the last months of the
Clinton presidency, was expected to be righted by the new
administration?s tax cut engineered through a GOP Congress. This tax cut
would use the Clinton ?surpluses? (which the GOP doubted really existed)
until it came time for them to share the money with their political
friends. This reality notwithstanding, Sunday, April 29, 2001 arrived,
smiled at President Bush for twenty-four hours, and receded into history
leaving Americans still hopeful about their new leader.
Bill Clinton?s first one hundred days were pretty much a disaster. It
seemed that things were falling apart rather than coming together almost
as soon as he lowered his right hand after taking the presidential oath.
By April 29, 1993, two Attorney General candidates (Zoë Baird and Kimba
Wood) had been forced to withdraw for employing illegal aliens as
domestics. The third appointee (Janet Reno) was already embroiled in the
April 19,1993 Branch Davidian holocaust. Additionally, terrorists had
partially destroyed the World Trade Center on February 26^th raising
questions of the president?s ability to keep us safe. Finally, as if all
that wasn?t enough, Bill Clinton was unpopular by his hundredth day with
both straight and gay citizens over his ?don?t ask, don?t tell?
compromise for gays in the military. Obviously, there would be no second
term for William Jefferson Clinton ? would there?
President Ronald Wilson Reagan was still riding high by his hundredth
day in office, but his popularity had nearly cost him his life. He?d
been elected, in part, to clean up Jimmy Carter?s economic mess which
had been brought on by a combination of high interest rates,
unemployment, and inflation, or ?stagflation? as they called it. Budget
cutting, tax cutting and income tax indexing were some of President
Reagan?s proposed antidotes for the ailing 1981 economy. The proposed
solutions hadn?t even been fully thrashed out* *when young John
Hinckley, Jr. severely wounded the president, his press secretary and
two Secret Service men outside a Washington, D.C. hotel on Monday, March
30, 1981. Even by President Reagan?s one hundredth day in office, it was
apparent that America was enthralled by his decisiveness, ideological
principles and personal magnetism and would likely re-elect him if the
Secret Service could only protect him.
By April 29, 1977, Jimmy Carter was rapidly spending what political
capital he possessed when he proposed a domestic war on energy waste.
The president?s outsider status was not conducive for playing ?inside
the Beltway? politics. The steely and independent-minded Georgian was
determined to reorganize the government, to see that those who lost
their jobs due to the economic policies of Presidents Nixon and Ford
were re-employed, and to realize sufficient monetary savings so as to
end his first term with a balanced budget. The people wished him well
and he wished himself well, too, but politicians (not all of them
Republicans by any means) never would be so sure. President Carter?s
political future was already cloudy by his hundredth day, even with all
of the economic uncertainties, but there were all kinds of silver
linings on the horizon.
Question: What do we know from this first 100 days about President
Obama?s political future? Answer: Most of America likes him better than
they did President Clinton, more than they did President Carter and
perhaps, just perhaps, as much as they did President Reagan. Uncertain
of our economic or physical security, America will likely understand if
President Obama should decide to shift ideological course from time to
time. However, it is likely that the President?s greatest asset is the
good-natured, unflappable outlook and steadiness that the American
people believe now resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C.
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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