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Okay, here we go.  Obama is now our President.  Now it’s time for he and his administration to take the country in the direction they want it to go: the left.  Now it’s time for Obama to buck heads with his own party about pork barrel spending, neverminding the now marginal Republicans.  Now it’s time for the real Obama to stand up.

Please prove me wrong.

I am a student of history, and if history has taught us anything, it’s that candidates for President run as moderates during their campaigns to get elected and then immediately move to either the right or left when they get into office.  Clinton did it, W. did it, and history predicts that Obama will do the same.

But no!  He’s different!  He’s just like John F. Kennedy!  He wants to change things!

I’ve got bad news for you: nothing has changed, and probably nothing will change.

The only thing that has changed is that the race of the new President is not Caucasian (although he is half-Caucasian, but it’s still a step up in my opinion).  Otherwise, nothing has changed.  He’s a Democrat, and we have had how many years of Democratic administrations (not to mention Republican administrations)?  A real change would have involved another party in the White House altogether.

Also, there are still no term limits in Congress.  Yes, we have a lot of new blood, but we also still have a lot of old blood still festering in there.  We still have a lot of Washington fat-cats who have agendas of their own and comfort zones they are not willing to breach.  So while the new President is on their side (as in the Democratic party side), they still have their lobster museums and studies on the pouring speed of ketchup they need to get funded for their states.  As of right now, Obama looks like he will get in their way.

Case in point: the first economic stimulus bill to fix the mess we’re in was first drafted with no pork in it at all.  It was supposedly drafted under a spirit of bipartisanship and a general attitude that we need to do something quickly to stimulate the economy.  It died in Congress.  The second Congressional leaders conceded and added “sweeteners” (read: pork) to the bill, it sailed through Congress.

Nothing has changed.  But I still want to be proved wrong.

But Obama is giving the people hope!

“He that lives upon hope dies fasting.”  Benjamin Franklin

Hope does not turn a rancid economy around.  Faith in our new President only raises his poll numbers, not his performance.  Only action does.  Substantive action, not symbolic action.

“Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.”  Robert G. Ingersoll

“The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.”  Will Durant

George W. Bush was the worst President in history!

So was Truman as a certain point, and now Truman is now one of America’s favorites.  The fickleness of the American people is legendary in its own right.  One minute they are buidling you up, then next they are tearing you down.  Public figures often bear the weight of the American people’s hang-ups and burdens; in other words, it’s their fault, not the American people’s.  The people were innocent in all of it.

I’ll be the first to say that W’s staunch belief in a good versus evil mentality is what led him straight to the political doghouse (I can’t stand someone who so convinced he’s right, despite any evidence to the contrary).  But Bush was not the problem; Cheney was.  Under Cheney’s watch, the Executive branch of the government grew bigger then it ever had before.  Cheney had always believed that Congress had for years chipped away at the power of the President.  When W and Cheney were first elected, he vowed to restore and expand that power.  He succeeded, but he also helped lead this country into an unneccessary war in Iraq just to settle some score he had back when W’s father was President.  Bush is ultimately responsible for Iraq, but Bush is not that smart about foreign policy; he counted on Cheney to make all the decisions.

History dictates that Obama will move to the left and start implementing liberal Democrat-friendly policies.  Prove me wrong.

Obama moves me so much!

His speeches move me as well.  But his actions will have more of an effect on me and everyone else than his speeches will.  If he raises my taxes, then I will not care how much his speeches move me.  If I lose important tax cuts because of him, then the fact that he is a great orator will not convince me that Obama is still the right choice for the Presidency.

The mere fact that the Republicans are impotent to prevent anything the Democrats want to do provides the ultimate environment for Obama to prove he is a President for the people, not just for the left.  But his and the Democrats continuing ignorance and dismissal of a party that represents the “other” half of this nation is a HUGE blunder, and will quickly squander any and all political capital the Dems had when Obama was landslided into the White House.  So you were marginalized under Republican rule; do you really want to play “you broke my G.I. Joe and I’m still pissed about it” just becasue you can?  We don’t need a Congress full of children; we need a Congress full of leaders!

Keep it up Dems, and your numbers will go south in 2010.

Please prove me wrong.