Though I did vote against Barack Obama (as I sure wasn't voting FOR McCain), he is my president and I will hope, support and strive to have him succeed as our leader. I will not tear him down or let emotion get ahold of me and have blind rage against him as much of this country did with President Bush. I think though Bush made some mistakes, the disrespect and vilification of him by many was deplorable. The financial/credit crisis may actually reduce the ability for Obama to implement some of his tax hikes/trade policies which were my primary concerns during a recessionary time frame. I think he will not force energy mandates right now as it will leave less discretionary income available for spending that is so needed to unwind out of this debt cycle we are in. I think some of his Economic choices have been solid and traditional in Volker, Geithner and Summers and he has stayed away from the extreme elements of his supporters and I applaud that. I would suggest other of those that didn't support Obama to do the same.
Great post, and I generally agree, although I'm not sure about Geithner. He is, by all accounts a Helicopter Ben lackey. He seems to have had a big hand in creating this financial mess. I didn't think it could get worse from Paulson, but I'm not so sure anymore.
If anyone is expecting refreshing change of Wall Street policy from the last 6 months, I wouldn't get my hopes up. I have some respect for Volker, but Geithner and Summers, despite their brilliance, have made some bad mistakes. One could say their successes aren't known, but nothing in the news lately gives me the impression that they'll change course with one or two exceptions of blatant injection of the government hand into our economy. We're going to pour in a lot of printed money. The catch will be when the economy does show signs of recovering.
Deplorable maybe, disrespectful at times certainly but that is the nature of our system that we can mock and insult our president. That doesn't take any thing away from his Presidency as even our greatest presidents have been riduculed. Heck Gen. McClellan called Lincoln a monkey and McClellan was one of Lincoln's top generals. I think we can acknowledge that GW Bush is our current president and on Jan 21 Obama will be our president but that doesn't mean they should be immune from derision and disrespect if we don't agree with them.
