What Differrence Will It Make 2

The recession is still very much with us and as Mr. Obama has stated numerous times will remain with us for years to come. Over one hundred thousand people have lost their jobs in the last two months alone. Greenland is in a state of chaos as protestors drove out the government there and nothing yet has replaced it. The election did not have much of an impact there.

President Obama has instituted a massive recovery project. Most of it is in the form of social services aid, infrastructure repairs, tax incentives, and one-time stimulus payments. Perhaps that one hundred thousand newly unemployed workforce will swarm to the opportunity to pave highways. One of the social services aids he instituted is the extension of unemployment benefits though, so maybe not. Maybe the previous hundreds of thousands of unemployed will swarm to sweat in the sun while pouring hot tar on a road. Maybe they will enjoy the chance to do something positive instead of passive. In that case, the problem of employment will remain. It will just have a new face.

In the first days of Mr. Obama’s presidency he promised to close the Guantanamo facility that so blackens the souls of all Americans. More recently, however, he supports Mr. Bush’s doctrine of no rights for prisoners. This wrong, one he could have corrected immediately and with positive impact, was brushed away as if it were no more than a biting fly. There is no more disappointing about face could Mr. Obama have committed than this one.

Mr. Obama as a candidate for president was a candidate for hope. Hope that the country would turn itself back to being a democracy founded on the rights of the people, a democracy of promise rather than a tyranny of fear. Sadly, Mr. Obama is turning to the fear more and more often as he struggles with financial issue.

“Yes, we can” was Mr. Obama’s rallying cry during the election. Yes, we can overcome and look forward. Now he is mired in insignificant negotiations. Mr. Obama promised a change for hope, progress, and ethics. So far, in the first days of his presidency he has backed off that promise.

What difference did it make? Not enough.