"Obama on the eve of....."

Tomorrow night President Obama delivers his jobs creation plan. He has chosen to do so at a joint session of congress as opposed to the oval office or White House press briefing room. Either he decided this had to be done or his advisers told him it had to be done. Will the jobs creation plan include budget cuts, tax increases, neither or both? We will have to wait to see. Here are my thoughts on President Obama on the eve of his speech, but first I have to do a disclaimer: Sometimes if I am critical of Obama some people think I just don't like the guy. If I praise anything he has done, others wonder why in the world do I like the guy. To think either of those two things is to miss the point on how I think about him or any president. I neither like Obama nor dislike him, personally. I don't know him (obviously) and I have no real idea what he is like. All I have to go on are photo's, videos his speeches and what others say. But what others say about him is often determined by whether or not they like him, belong to the same political party, believe in his idealogy or even his faith. My concern with this President is the same concern I have had for all the Presidents before him. 1. What do they say they believe in 2. What do they say they are going to do for the American people 3. How are they / how have they done on the job? 4. As the "leader" of the free world how well are they leading? In other words I care about results not party idealogy. I don't care much about who the person was before them and I don't care about gender, color of skin, tie, whether or not they are the type I'd drink a beer with at a barbeque, or crack peanuts with in Georgia, or oogle women at the water cooler. I want the country to prosper in general, citizens to prosper individually. I want our kids and grandkids to prosper, and to have a hope filled future. I want the "american" brand to stand for good things, be respected around the world, and be based on integrity. I am disappointed with President Obama at least for now. Everyone knows he inherited a mess and it was a big mess already in progress. We know all the reason: the wars, the economic meltdown, housing irregularities and so forth. He inherited all that and more. Still and all he has not delivered on what he promised: For instance: He said financial regulations needed to be put in place immediately to prevent wall street looters and irresponsible greed barons from ever causing the damage done this time.. He said, it would be one of his first priorities. Deregulation of Wall Street began under Clinton, then escalated greatly under Bush to the point where wall streeters virtually had unlimited freedom to do whatever they damn well pleased and boy did they. Some lawmakers and analysts think laws were broken but no one has been held accountable. RESULT: He has never put in place any financial regulations or restrictions. He went the other way, bailed out some of the worst ransackers and looters by giving them countless millions of dollars. What did Goldman Sachs do? What did Bank of America do? They took the money, bought up the companies that failed and many other smaller banks and became richer than ever and awarded their corporate execs millions (I mean many millions of dollars) in bonuses. It's business as usual at Wall Street. In fact, Timothy Geitner is still in charge and remember Geitner was the right hand man of both Hank Paulson (Bush's appointed Secretary of the Treasury, and former president of one of the Corporate raiding companies before that) Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan. Paulson was the thief that pushed for deregulations to begin with. He got what he wanted and the rest is history. Obama said he would end the wars especially in Iraq. Result: While there has been a drawdown (military speak) in some places, the wars go on. Afghanistan had the biggest loss of American military personnel (in a month) just last month. Obama championed his Obama care health plan and one of his important must haves was the single payer option but in the end he gave it up to appease Republicans. Even at that (2) Republicans had to be bought off at the last minute (One was Ben Nelson from my old homestate of Nebraska) to get the necessary votes. So the cornerstone of that plan is/was no more. He championed the need to recind the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy but when it came down to it he allowed them to keep their money. 3 years later the tax cuts are still in place. Even Warren Buffet said, what are you doing, the wealthy should be paying more. Only 8% of his white house staff has any real business background (owned a company, ran a company etc) 8 % when previous administrations averaged 45-50%. The point is he is surrounded by people that don't know much about finances, business, and economics in general at a time when we need the best minds working 24/7. Now to be fair, Under his watch Bin Laden is gone, Al Quada seems to be on the run (at least some) and Michelle Obama has pushed hard for Americans to take their health seriously and stop childhood obesity. Then too he is not a personal embarrassment when he meets foreign delegations. (Bush mangled the English language and even threw up on the Japanese delegation). However, my biggest concern is leadership. Remember Rudy Giuliani walking the streets of New York City calming people, issuing orders, taking charge of that city during September 11. He is widely praised for showing strong leadership, remaining calm under pressure, being with the people, and getting the city back on it's feet.Truman said, "drop the bomb". Rooseveldt calmed americans by saying "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself", Churchill got London through the blitz, Kennedy rolled up his sleeves and got us through the Cuban Missile Crisis (some say his recklessness created as many problems as he solved). Obama seems disconnected. He seems aloof. He cooly walks to the podium with no sense of urgency. He speaks in the same way when he tells us Bin Laden is dead as he does when addressing the debt ceiling. Like it's all academic and theoretical to him. The recent Hurricane that went up the east coast causing an estimated 6-7 billion in damage had many freaked out but we heard nothing from Obama from that Sunday to the following Friday when the Hurricane was bearing down on NYC. Then his people released an announcement that he had decided to cut his vacation at Martha's Vineyard one day short and come back to Washington late Saturday instead of Sunday. Mayor Bloomberg is evacuating much of NYC (unprecedented action) and Obama is apparently sailing on the waters at Martha's Vineyard. This is a critical hour for America and has been for at least 4-5 years: the economy, wars, 1 in 5 kids meeting the definition of being below the poverty line, schools are financially broke and in disarray, prisons so crowded they have to let prisoners go, and the list goes on. I do hope Obama's plan is a good one. I do hope he can rally all of us. I do hope the Republicans will stop their crusade on getting Obama out of office so all americans can benefit. Do what's right for Americans, get people back to work, stop the wars, reduce the insane deficit, get people with money to pay their fair share again, stop selling America to China, stop political partianship and brinkmanship, do what one of our great leaders said (stop asking what this country will do for you and start asking what are you going to do for this country)? It starts with the President and goes down to every person, including me.