Obama Inching Forward towards Recovery from Bush Missteps

by Philip Fernando

(November 07, Los Angeles. Sri Lanka Guardian) "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves." Realism arrived for the Americans in the form of an unfettered spending spree that went bust under George W Bush. The pumped up optimism predicted when invading Iraq burst like an over-inflated balloon. Still, the party remained in denial, refusing to come to terms with the causes of its misfortune. One expects they will be given the time and opportunity for reflection soon. Barack Obama has to start from scratch. The failed policies must be discarded. It is a block by block and callused hand to the wheel approach. Obama made it clear in his acceptance speech in Chicago.

Obama got the luxury of having the Congress with increased majorities on his side. The optimism generated by the Obama win may give some breathing room. Obama carried 26 states: all 19 won by the 2004 Democratic candidate John Kerry and seven states won by Bush in that election--Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada. He was leading in three more states won by Bush in 2004--Indiana, North Carolina and Montana. Obama's national margin in the popular vote will approach ten million. He has won by the largest margin for a non-incumbent candidate for president since Eisenhower in 1952.

The election's outcome help dispel somewhat the claim that the United States is racist to the core. It was evident that irrational racial animosities did not trump all other issues. According to exit polls, only a very small percentage of voters stated that the issue of race exerted any influence on their vote. Instead, under the impact of war, financial crisis and deepening recession, tens of millions, in a completely rational manner, voted to express their democratic and essentially egalitarian aspirations—although, given the distorted and limiting framework of official politics, the only outlet for their sentiments was a vote for the Democrats. Polls also show that two-thirds of the immense youth vote went to Obama.

It is obvious that Republicans faced a shipwreck with its presidential base reduced to a regional rump, consisting of the Deep South and the largely rural states of the interior West. Obama swept the East Coast from Maine down to Florida, the industrial Midwest, the entire Pacific Coast and much of the Mountain West.

Americans came to the realization that America must not let the super power mindset lead them to false hopes. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who threw his support to Obama during the Democratic primary contest, cautioned Tuesday night that the Democrats should "be modest" and "seek alliances." Georgia Congressman John Lewis echoed these remarks, saying the Democrats had to "go slowly" and pursue a "bipartisan" course.

On top of all that unfettered capitalism died a natural death under 8 years of Bush governance. Now US government has a stake in ownership of banks, insurance companies and finance corporations. There are no more coddled monopolies and no more free wheeling or deregulated version of market economy, brokerages, hedge funds and non-banks. The stake on healthcare, education and infra-structure now dominates the political scene.

Two-thirds of Americans now believe the Iraq war a mistake. Yet, all but a few Republicans backed the war. At the time of "Mission Accomplished!" in May 2003, the nation gave Bush a 90 percent approval rating, as his father had after Desert Storm. Then came the long, bloody slog, the five-year war, with nearly 5,000 dead that Iraq became. It was not the lightning war of Tommy Franks, with journalists riding tanks into Baghdad, that soured America, but the unanticipated duration and cost of the war.

Americans no longer believe that Iraq invasion was right. In Afghanistan, we are entering the eighth year of war with victory further away than ever. U.S. casualties are surging. Opium exports are breaking records. NATO allies are growing weary. Even the Brits are talking of reconciliation with the Taliban, perhaps accepting a dictator. Obama administration has to take a look at the Bush predator strikes in Pakistan that have inflamed the people or the helicopter raid into Syria that humiliated Damascus and enraged them. Those hawkish pronouncements about the Georgia situation has end.

The Americans needs to confront the truth: The failure of the Bush presidency lies not in a failed execution of policy but in the policies themselves and the neoconservative ideology that informed them. Obama has his work cut out. - Sri Lanka Guardian