This whole email back-and-forth started with him forwarding (does everyone over 60 only know how to hit the forward button on email?) an email about some ad in a newspaper taken out by some doctor who states that he and his staff paid over 270,000 in federal taxes last year but that wasn't even enough to cover Michelle Obama's recent Hawaiian vacation, which supposedly cost $1.4 million.
So I responded with a bunch of various points. I asked if this doctor had ever taken out the same kind of ad when George W. Bush was taking a record number of vacations at a similar cost. I made the point that it was the President on that trip as well, so it wasn't just Michelle Obama's vacation and wondered why he was picking on her, suggesting that he probably wanted to call her an uppity nigger bitch in his ad. I brought up many other points about not hearing any bitching from conservatives about fiscal responsibility when Bush was driving our economy in to the ground and suggested that maybe race was a factor in conservatives' opinion of Obama.
In one reply I made a point that the Obamas were exactly the kind of black people that conservatives claim to love: Worked hard to get where they are, were never on welfare, had their kids after marrying and have stayed married, and have never in their lives played the so-called race card. The response I got to this was that my step-dad said he didn't have a personal beef with the Obama family and think he's a good family man. No he doesn't hate Obama personally, it is (and I'm not making this quote up) "the deliberate destruction of our free society that I decry."
Seriously.
How do you have a rational conversation with someone who would say that? The answer is, you can't.
Now we all have heard this before in the rhetoric that comes out of the right-wing establishment. But we all know that most of what the lunatics running for the Republican nomination and the opposition party members of Congress say are just empty statements made for political positioning. I seriously doubt that mitt Romney really believes that Obama is "waging war on free enterprise." (Well, I seriously doubt Mitt Romney believes anything.) I don't think Newt Gingrich really believes that Obama wants to destroy the Catholic Church or that the President supports "infanticide." I don't think that even Rick Santorum, a holder of three college degrees, believes that getting an education is snobby. And certainly no Republican who has called Obama a Socialist (pretty much all of them have) really thinks he's a Socialist, unless they really don't understand the definition of that word.
No, they just say a bunch of incendiary shit because they are trying to win elections or block legislation supported by the President. Nobody really believes any of this nonsense. Except, apparently, people like my step-dad. I always heard people like this existed in real life and not just on YouTube videos but I never really believed it until now. (To be fair, it is not totally the fault of the nutjob Republican politicians and their incendiary rhetoric. After divorcing my insane mother my step-dad married a crazy born-again Christian and this is when the journey from fiscal conservative Reagan Republican to Glenn Beck-like insanity began.)
Listening to the idiots who want to be President and their followers has made me really think a lot about how I feel about our President. Like many Progressives I have my issues with Obama. Unlike conservatives, my issues are based on reality and not shit that I make up. Those on the right seem to have issues with Obama being a Socialist, not being born in America, being a secret Muslim, waging a war on Christianity, creating our economic woes, hating Israel, slashing our military budget, wanting to open our borders to illegal immigrants, being soft on terrorists, etc. See, none of these things are true. Obama saved Capitalism, was born in Hawaii, is a Christian, pretty much saved our economy from collapsing in to something worse than the Great Depression, has the same Israel policy as every president since the creation of that country, raised the Pentagon's budget, has deported more illegal immigrants every year than Bush ever did, and fucking killed Osama bin Laden* and several other leading terrorists, including an American citizen in Yemen.
[*To be clear, I actually don't support such a thing as what he did here. Osama bin Laden, based on all accounts of the raid in Pakistan, could have been easily taken alive and had charges of mass murder brought against him in an international criminal court. I understand the arguments for what we did, but I firmly believe we should show the world why we do it differently. We believe in solving our problems and our crime, even egregious ones, with due process and a rule of law. That does not mean two bullets to the head without a charge or trial. We showed the world what our ethical standard should be when we gave fair trials to the surviving Nazi leadership at the end of World War II. If you think Osama bin Laden committed worse atrocities than the Nazis you are out of your fucking mind.]
It is not just the weird Birthers and insane Rush Limbaughs of the world who make up shit about him. Mitt Romney has made a whole campaign about accusing Obama of having policies that are the exact opposite of Obama's actual policies. Not only that, but Romney touts policies that are the exact same as Obama's. Romney calls Obama's Israel and Iran policies dangerous and wrong, but when you read his they are EXACTLY the same. And the guy who wrote Obama's health care bill, that Romney calls the path to Socialism and takes away our personal liberty, is the same EXACT guy that wrote Romney's health care bill in Massachusetts. Those two plans are so alike it's ridiculous.
My criticisms of Obama are based in reality. Guantanamo Bay prison is still open despite the order he signed on inauguration day for it to close within one year. Extraordinary rendition of terrorism suspects to other countries - ones with looser laws and morals about torture - still goes on. Halliburton continues to receive no-bid contracts from the government to do their evil in the name of America. Obama has continued the stance that the President has the right to hold any terrorism suspect he wants, for as long as he wants without charge or trial. I also think he could have done more for the economy, including standing up to the Republicans to end the Bush tax cuts for the rich. And his health care plan, while probably an improvement, still falls about a million miles short of the single-payer system that we should have - you know, the one they have in the rest of the civilized world. There are other things, but you get the point.
But the mindless attacks on him from the right have made me think about the things he has done that wouldn't have been had John McCain become president.
Obama has stood up for gay rights more than any other president in our history. You may or may not see letting gays and lesbians getting killed for their country as an improvement of their rights and their dignity. But if you've seen that picture of the Marine just home from deployment - in the hangar on a military base in front of everyone - being held up by his boyfriend with his legs wrapped around his boyfriend's waist while they kiss passionately...., well tell me their lives aren't better.
He stood for the rights of women's health over religious dogma. Woman have a friend in the White House like never before (not counting Eleanor Roosevelt).
We were saved from having the Greatest Depression. Period. If you doubt that you are not looking at the facts. Things have been bad, yes. But I think people don't understand how bad it could be. If McCain won we;d be wishing we were as well off as Greece right now.
The health plan ain't great but at least we have something. You think McCain was going to write one?
Two great appointments to the Supreme Court. Can you imagine a continuation of the ideology that gave us Roberts and Alito?
There are other things, smaller issue but no less significant. Like cutting the banks out of the federal student loan program, which saved the taxpayers money. And you can read more of them here.
Point is, we are better off with him than the alternative offered last time and will be A LOT better off than with any of the alternatives being offered this time.
Would like to have a Dennis Kucinich-type president who would have a Department of Peace in the Cabinet, give us a single-payer health care system, and free college for everyone? You bet I would. Am I going to get that choice anytime soon? I'm not going to hold my breath.
The more I've thought about it over the last year or so, while listening to these bizarre ad hominem attacks on him, the more I've come to the realization that Obama is the best president we've had in my lifetime. It is really no contest for me. (I was born during Nixon, if you need context.)
I've spent much of my voting life casting my ballot for third party candidates who had no chance of winning and will probably do so many more times in my life.
But not this year. I'm voting for Obama, again. Without reservation and without hesitation.
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