p.Haney

I’m starting to get both angry and dispirited by any number of groups who are opposed in varying degrees to Barack Obama’s performance thus far as president. I’m not sure who’s the worst: The ignorant idealists who thought that the sheer fact of his election would somehow undo the practical and political obstructions that are a product of both the Constitution and 200-plus years of legislative and institutional evolution; the impatient electorate who expected massive problems that were decades in the making to be fixed within the space of a year; the forgetful masses who now affix blame to this administration for the tough choices it was forced to make simply to prevent things from becoming far worse; the cynical forces who know quite well whose fault the crisis was in the first place but who aren’t going to let any sense of shame or feeling of responsibility stop them from pretending that it was like this when they got there so it must be Obama’s fault.