My Response to Blanchard's op-ed

In reading Dr. Blanchard's most recent op-ed in the American News, I am a little bit surprised that people actually believed Obama's rhetoric of "hope and change." Maybe since I voted for the other guy in the last election because I did not like Obama, does not allow me to be stuck in the mindset of an Obama voter who wanted to rid the United States of anything that resembled George W Bush's work.
Nevertheless, anybody expecting to see radical changes within the first year of the Obama Administration would most definitely be disappointed by how this presidency has shaped up. Most of Obama's appointments have been either part of the Clinton White House (especially Hillary) and/or tax cheats. The Secretary of the Treasury owed tens of thousands of dollars to the IRS even though he was part of the Federal Reserve and now responsible for the $350 billion part of the Bail-Out approved last fall.

Dr. Blanchard stated that the Obama presidency is looking like a third Bush term. Isn't that what Obama tried to pin to McCain during the election? Besides, I don't see Obama as a mythical third Bush term. I see Obama as a second term that Jimmy Carter never got. America is going back on the defensive, trying to refocus our efforts on reclaiming our moral authority. By releasing the "torture" memos and other actions, Obama is trying to distance himself from the past and trying to reboot our relations with the rest of the world.

However, those on the far left want Bush hung upside down for his "crimes" that occurred during his presidency. Those are the people Dr. Blanchard refers to that expected a different Obama presidency. They will get what they want in time, just not as fast as they wanted.

The problem with any changes Obama makes is that the massive executive bureaucracy in place follows Newton's first law of motion: An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless an external force changes the motion. The bureaucracy is huge and slow-moving. Any changes Obama makes have to be massive and fast paced to have any effect on the bureaucracy.

As we get deeper into his presidency, Obama will make decisions that in time will reverse the Bush policies in matters of foreign policy and we will see the distinction between the two. For now, the decisions of the previous president are in effect until Obama has time to reverse it.


Dr. Blanchard's Opinion-Editorial in the American News:
http://www.aberdeennews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090520/OPINION02/905200316/-1/opinion