President Obama was elected with 53% of the popular vote.  Although he beat McCain 365 electoral votes to 173, he was elected by a slim majority of the popular vote.  This is a statistic that should be noted by Black people and Democrats alike.  I was skeptical that someone named Barack Hussein Obama could ever become the 44th President of the Untied States or America. President Obama won because the Independent voters swung his way and the economy overshadowed racial issues.  He won because a large majority of Americans felt guilty for the actions of the 43rd President they had elected.  I would have never thought that America would elect a Black man President.  I honestly felt that the Republican Party would pull out the George W.  Bush play book from Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 and steal the election.  I was wrong.  However, after President Obama was elected, two things puzzled me and tempered my adulation (1) his treatment by the media and (2) the Republican counter strategy to remain relevant. 

Right away the media started to say that President Obama was doing too much.  I found that a curious and disrespectful assessment.  President Bush initiated two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, rewrote the privacy laws in America via wiretapping, attacked the educational system with the controversial No Child Left Behind Act, and enacted a $1.35 trillion tax cut, one of the largest in US history.  The tax cut came against the advice of his own Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil and the venerated for FED Chair Allen Greenspan, who warned that it would lead to a recession.  No one accused Bush of taking on too much, they just called him stupid and he and his friends laughed all the way to the Bank.  President George W. Bush was a great friend to the oil industry.  Furthermore, the Bush Presidency ushered in the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. So, what is President Obama to do but tackle the problem? 

One would think that the economic calamity caused by the Bush administration would have made the GOP humble for a couple of years.  Unfortunately, soon after President Obama was elected, the Republican Party began to develop a scorched earth, counter-insurgency type of strategy to remain relevant.  They looked to continually attack him on any and everything, looking for something that would stick, and they have seem to have found “something” with health care.  President Obama’s popularity has taken a beating since he has insisted on pushing through a Health Care Reform package.  One would think that it would be the smart thing to pull back, as did the Clinton Administration.  However Health Care accounts for 15% of the GDP and estimated to grow to 33% by 2030.  Furthermore health care or lack of is the number one cause of personal bankruptcies. 

One would think that a good “Christian” nation would take serious note of that. The American Journal of Medicine recently conducted a study and concluded that 62% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were a result of health care costs.  Let’s contemplate that fact, 62% of all Americans filling bankruptcy in 2007, were a result of medical related expenditures, and three fourths of them had health insurance.   Let’s just go over the numbers, 62% of Americans filing bankruptcy was a result of health care, and 75% of those Americans had health insurance.  If anything needs revamping it is health care.

I subscribe to a conservative e-mail newsletter called “Human Events” because I think it is important to listen to what people who don’t agree with you think. HumanEvents.com is the “Head Quarters of the Conservative Underground,” and home to writers such as the late Robert Novak, Pat Buchannan, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich, and almost every conservative but Rush Limbaugh.   I would like to state that I enjoyed reading the late Robert Novak’s insightful and balanced columns during the 2004 Presidential election, but the rest has been just a lot of ignorant rhetoric.  I would like to share some of the titles of the recent e-mails that I have received and a little snippet of the content.

August 23rd          Join the Conservative COUNTER-Revolution

I'm talking about the surging opposition to President Obama's plans to "remake" America (his word) from an independent republic of freedom-loving, self-reliant citizens into a Euro-socialist nanny state.

August 27th          Obama's 5 Big Lies on Healthcare; Even NY Times Admits the Truth

Sure, they don't call them "death panels" in the legislation, but that's what their job will be. They will decide who lives and who dies. They decide who gets critical procedures and expensive medicines. Instead of getting the heart procedure, you or that loved one could be informed that you are simply too old.

August 27th          Stop the Obama Gun Grab

In fact, the most brutal dictators of the last century were famous for their gun registration and confiscation schemes. When Hitler came to take their guns, he had a list of who owned every gun and where they lived!

September 3rd    America on the Brink

WE ARE ON THE BRINK of becoming a nation where a majority of citizens receive lavish government handouts and benefits but pay no federal income taxes -- while continuing to vote themselves still more benefits from the shrinking minority who do pay taxes (at ever more "progressive" rates)

September 3rd   10 Commandments According to Obama

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, unless it is my face carved on Mt. Rushmore.

IX. Thou shalt not discriminate against thy neighbor unless they are conservative, Caucasian, or Christian.