Administration Stumbles

The administration previous to this one was always doomed to accomplish only noxious projects, because it came from the extremity of human thought that is permanently rooted in cesspools. And because they were so handicapped, that GWBush administration operated by one simple tactic, and that was always to do the opposite of what a Democrat, a sensible one, would do, and so they didn't take even one initiative that I was ever able to notice that could be applauded, and instead it started becoming easy to see that whatever GW Bush wanted to do had to be a bad idea.

To take just one example, one that people that I thought would have better judgment accepted without serious question, there was the prescription drug "benefit" that Congress with Bush's intense approval added to Medicare a few years ago. As could be easily anticipated, that turned out to be largely to the benefit of the drug companies and little if at all for the good of the people who couldn't do without the meds.

It would follow then, logically speaking, that the current governance under B. Obama would have an easy time of it, by adopting the same practice and always doing the exact opposite of what the Republicans, undaunted and endlessly arrogant, are still vigorously recommending, as if they are still very much in charge.

But Obama and his people seem to have a different philosophy. They call themselves approaching each issue on its own merits, and they act accordingly, regardless of how most Democrats might see things, and even if occasionally the measure might be in tune with Republican wishes.

That sounds meritorious. It is the kind of thinking that wise people have urged since time immemorial. Approach each issue purely on its own merits, regardless of ideology. This avoids tyranny, dogma, narrow-mindedness, and many other evils.

But there is a catch. It's enclosed in these two words: define "merits."   This difficulty, too, is illustrated by the prescription drug "benefit."

There may be another part of the Obama philosophy as well. They see themselves as acting on behalf of not just a part of the American populace but all of it instead, something that the Republicans never pretended to do. This means that, against their own better judgment, the Obama people might even deliberately go in a less decent and more hard-nosed direction, because it is the one preferred by those that they know don't like them and didn't vote for them. The administration won't do this often but sometimes, and it also serves to help keep the lid from being lifted too much from all the traditional resentments that have always bubbled in the American pot.

This may not be the actual case, but it's just that sometimes things seem to be that way. Otherwise the reasons are hard to grasp.

Though that policy may also make sense, of a sort, it may work against a successful Presidency The "deliberate" missteps whose failings are obvious to all but its most fanatical proponents could turn out to be too numerous, because there are so many waiting to be made.

One of those administration stumbles involves Afghanistan. Another is about Gitmo. A third is on the subject of torture. And we have to keep our fingers tightly crossed on health care, a concern rivaled in supreme importance only by climate heating, and one on which the desires of the Regressives would best be screeched from the vicinity of the Moon, or at least the South Pole.