The Obama Midterm Review...by Jamil Shawwa

Congress passed the Wall Street/Financial Reform bill that the president will sign into law. It is a comprehensive financial package which main purpose is to prevent the sharp fluctuations that lead to the collapse of markets in the past three years; the collapse- in fact- started in the summer of 2007. Previously, Congress passed and the president signed into law the economic recovery package and the health reform bill that ensures coverage for all Americans. Obama is also handling BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Internationally, the president is managing the North Korean nuclear issues, and Iran nuclear threat. He is moving towards stabilizing the situation in both Iraq and Afghanistan; just appointed a new commander for Afghanistan operations and his replacement for the Middle East. As for the Israeli/Palestinian question, Obama is handling as his predecessors did –carefully- the establishment of a Palestinian State in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, side by side the State of Israel. Having said the above as a summary of what Obama has been doing in the past first two years of his presidency, the picture on the ground is different, Every political expert, pundits, every report, even the White House spokesman is pointing out to a big defeat, at least on the House side of Congress, for the president party, the Democrats, in the upcoming midterm election for Congress in November. I am not an expert, but I am shocked as an American at Team Obama, the White House staff, the experts that helped engineering Obama’s historic victory in 2008. Why the polls are showing low rating for the president, why are we not feeling his success and his achievements in such a short time. Historically, the democrats have been put into tests more than the republicans and historically the American people though electing democratic presidents did not really fell in love with them, so Obama here is not an exception, but the president has another burden that no other president ever had to “endure”, he is an African American so it is double jeopardy for him. Any time we elect a democrat president we tell this president, we elect you, now do miracles, fix everything and then once it is fixed we go back to our republicans who will spoil things financially and then we start over again by electing a democrat to fix. As for the republicans, we, it seems, do not expect much from them, we elect them whenever we need to reduce taxes, that the democrats invoked on us or when we feel that we need a hawk in the White House to take care of evil all over the world. We trust the democrats internally and we trust the republicans externally, outside the United States. In 2008, the American people were very excited to see Obama but in the same time the country was in deep financial troubles, housing markets collapsed, unemployment rising, and the Credit markets disappearing, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were not really moving in the right direction, the Middle East stalling, but mainly the internal front and not outside the US that was relevant I might say in the election of Obama. In few words, the picture was bleak. We have been excited about his arrival to the presidency more than we have been in generations and we looked at him as the great savior, imagine, what a burden. Therefore, the bottom line here is that we are very hopeful to have Obama as our president but in the same time, we are telling the president, your burden of proof is higher; the bar is higher for you. Yes, we elected you, but you have to prove yourself everyday that you are up to the responsibility. If we look objectively at the competition, you can very well see that no one so far stands out as a real Competitor to Barack Obama on either side of the Aisle, Democrats or Republicans. Let us for a moment examine the evidence here; on the republican side the only stars, if I can use this term, is Sara Palin, the Tea Party group and some extreme radio and TV commentators, in other words, pinheads, enough said, No brainer, no doubt about it. No program, no traction with the real issues. Obama is confronting serious problems, he is digging deep into America's soil, and in the process of cleaning and reforming, he is getting much dirt thrown at him, and he just needs to keep going; President Obama has no choice but to keep going forward, if he gets angry, they will point and say, look, it is because of who he is, if he keeps blaming Bush for the economy, they will say, look he is not up to the job. If he ever looks in the mirror and say, wow, I'm an African American and I'm the first president and I made history and people for that fact have to elect me again or have to forgive me or have to say let us give him another chance, if he ever does any of the those things I mentioned, then the president will not be reelected in 2012. Obama needs to do one thing, look forward, go back to the tone of 2008 that elected him as president, continue to motivate and inspire the American people. So far, the choice is clear, to me at least, but he must go out, he must campaign relentlessly from now, and he must show how he is succeeding. As the president of the United States, he must be the master salesman of all.