Black & White and Cardinal Red All Over

The Measure Of Success

The Obama Administration is only 10 days old and already there are evident measures of success that the previous administration either could not meet or would not meet. The SCHIP program is one such measure. Health care for our children ought to be a top priority but under republican administrations it is just a political football. They seem to care more about getting the children born than about what happens to them after they are born. Thankfully, President Obama has a different view of this issue and the proof came with the passage of the expanded State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

George Bush claimed in one of his final appearances before leaving office that he felt his major domestic policy accomplishment was the privatization of Social Security. Wait a second. Didn’t that effort crash and burn? Yes, it did. Now, four years later he is boasting that this failure was one of his best domestic policy accomplishments. George Orwell lives when massive failure to do something is viewed as an accomplishment. But, then, in the bizarro world of the Chimpster failure equals success because actual success requires hard work and a sense of bipartisanship to get the best result, something Bush never did. 

It is a good thing that his plan to privatize SS never went through because if it had recipients would be up the creek with the collapse of the stock market last month. They would be pulling in a fraction of what they would have had in the old system that Bush wanted to scrap so his his rich investor friends could get their hands on our free money. It is the same irresponsible attitude that governs republicans when it comes to children, their health and what they can get out of them politically. Children are nothing more than a lever by which they can accomplish some political goal. The public is tired of the politics that only tallies up  partisan successes and doesn’t do anything for the people these jokers are supposed to represent. President Obama sees that. The rump party that is the GOP does not.

Only one of the idiots that represent me here in Texas voted for the measure but she is contemplating running for governor and doesn’t want SCHIP hanging over her in that campaign. The other idiot just got re-elected so he can vote his conscience and he did that by voting against children. What else is new?

I’m surprised more republicans aren’t chiming in with Rush Limbaugh in saying they want Obama to fail. The legacy of failure from the last eight years which includes more people losing their health insurance, the drowning of an American city, two unsuccessful wars, and deregulation of financial systems that led to the current economic collapse are a tough record to beat if you are intent on looking upon failures as “success.” By that standard, I hope Obama “fails” at everything he touches. When he’s done, everyone will have health insurance, New Orleans will be crown jewel of the South, Iraq and Afghanistan will be distant memories, and the economy will be roaring with growth providing full employment for unionized American workers. I could do with more failures like that.

Inspired link: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/01/05/bush-social-security-accomplishment/