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An open letter to President Obama

America the Beautiful. Ain’t she great!

Sure, she’s a little bruised right now, and from the outside looking in she might not look so great. But then perception isn’t necessarily reality, regardless of how it looks at first blush.

She might not be perfect, but from an internal perspective she is the best of the choices available.

One of the things that make her great is that we have a right to criticize our leaders. In fact, it is our duty. We don’t need to be told this, we exercise that right everyday with our friends, family and co-workers. Our opinion might not be educated, it might not be politically correct, it might be laced with partisanship, but by George it’s ours!

So let’s be critical.

Mr. Obama, some of us didn’t vote for you, and were praying on November 5, 2008 that you wouldn’t throw this country under the bus, at least. The Presidency doesn’t lend itself well to on-the-job training. Yet, the time for an African-American President had come in this country. Perhaps this caused some healing and this is good.

In tallying up what you have accomplished to date, you have done some pretty neat things. You won the Noble Peace Prize. You got to go to Copenhagen and Paris, you lucky dawg. You kept your promise to take Michelle to a Broadway show, and to get Malia and Sasha a dog.

As you have reminded us repeatedly, you inherited a heck of a mess. In some respects you have done well, but your report card isn’t anywhere near the example you set in school or on the campaign trail.

You appear to have turned the corner on the recession. You have the economy on the comeback. Slow as molasses in January, but coming back none-the-less. Besides when it comes to the economy, slow and steady is probably the best way anyway, rather than see run away inflation or something like that as a rebound.

You promised healthcare reform, necessary and from some perspectives vital to our way of life at this point. To your credit you are sticking to your guns.

But Sir, you promised change! You are the Chief Executive and de facto leader of your party, which is the majority party in Congress. At least for a little while longer anyway, so how about some party leadership?

The current partisan wrangling is the worst in modern memory. Sure the opposition party is being a bit much, but that is why we have a two party system and the same thing that all 43 of your predecessors have had to deal with.

Why not change focus? Why not start to work on double-digit unemployment, something you promised would never happen? Sure you inherited a mess, but this happened on your watch!

You are pushing a healthcare reform proposition that will require and allow for everyone in America to have healthcare. How do those millions of unemployed folks pay for it or the fines for not having it?

Doesn’t it make sense to get America back to work, an agenda that perhaps both parties can agree on and then once you get that taken care of perhaps you can get more cooperation from both sides of the aisle on healthcare reform?

You are reminiscent of another President who said he was going to reform Social Security.  He at least saw it was useless and gave up.

Don’t take that as a suggestion to give up on healthcare reform. But maybe our priorities are a little screwed up and need rethinking?