Have I mellowed?

It was only a short time ago that political news of any kind would get me in an uproar.  The likes of Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, or, heaven forbid, Ann Coulter opening their traps was enough to send me off the edge and I wouldn't come back until I'd gotten all of the vitriol out of my system.  Sometimes I would fume for days over some new policy or decision that the Bush administration made, and I would let the few paltry readers I had suffer more anger and outrage at this issue or that.

Then it happened...the seemingly interminable and outrageous presidency of Dubya was over and in a stunning election, Obama overcame the challenge from McCain and Caribou Barbie to become the 44th President and the first of African American descent.  It was a huge triumph for those who believed that Obama would be that change that we wanted to see in the world.

I have to say that I felt awash in political pride.  My candidate had beaten the odds and won.  There was a mandate for change, for the razing of the policies of the past eight years, for the end of politics as usual in Washington.  It's been nearly a year since Obama was inaugurated, and so far, I'm less than blown over by his first 11 or so months.

Universal Healthcare was finally just passed in the Senate, but former Democrat Joe Lieberman stomped around getting his way first with the elimination of the public option, and now seemingly getting the Medicare buy-in removed from the plan, two moves which, in essence, take all of the teeth out of the bite that the bill could take out of our healthcare woes in this country.  Also, the plan was to have no increase on middle class taxes.  It was one of the cornerstones of Obama's whole campaign.  I haven't seen how they plan to pay for this whopper of a healthcare bill, but frankly, I'm getting worried.

Instead of getting troops out of the Middle East, Obama just announced another surge of troops to Afghanistan in order to combat the growing insurgency.  While there are myriad differences between Iraq and Afghanistan's turmoil, it seems as if this is strikingly similar to the morass we faced which necessitated the surge in Iraq.  I firmly believe, in this case, that the troops are necessary in Afghanistan, because, let's be honest...that's where they were needed in the first place.

Our economy is still pretty much in the shitter. We're seeing signs of recovery, but it's still touch and go.  Of course, I don't even close to blame Obama for the state of the economy.  He was saddled with not only a fiscal disaster of a deficit, but also the aftermath of bail-out-apalooza.

I find myself hardpressed to decide where to rate Obama's first year.  As with every presidential candidate, Obama promised a lot of things to a lot of people.  While it's virtually impossible for him to get every one of those things accomplished, let alone in his first year, it seems that even the most rudimentary have fallen by the wayside.  I don't completely blame Obama, because it seems that the very tenets of our government, as well as the people we elect to "represent" us in Congress have done a wonderful job of tripping over themselves and allowing us to fall back into political infighting and turmoil, even within the Democratic party.

I'm starting to wonder if this whole democracy thing is going to turn out to be a failed 234 year old experiment.