Thanks, President Obama
By Dayne Sherman
Talk About the South Column
Hammond Sunday Star, 4A-5A
Dear
President Obama,
The
Democratic National Convention is over, and the Republican National Convention
fell apart at the seams just like an old set of retread tires unraveling shortly
after leaving the discount auto store.
You’ve
got to be smiling. How anyone making under $250,000 a year could vote for Mitt
Romney after hearing former President Bill Clinton’s masterful speech on
Wednesday night in Charlotte,
I’ll never know. And people making the big bucks who care about the
commonwealth, care about being “all in it together” wouldn’t go down the
Romney-Ryan rabbit hole either.
It’s
sweet success.
But
I have a quick reminder. Have you invited Clint Eastwood over to thank him? A good
deed left unthanked is soon forgotten. Be sure to offer to let him take home a
White House chair as a souvenir. He had your back when you needed it the most.
Don’t let him leave empty handed.
How
about the news this week of 30 months in a row of job growth and the highest
stock market in five years? President Obama, you may not have ever run a
lemonade stand, but considering the disaster that George W. Bush gave you, it’s
hard to believe the progress you’ve made in three and half years: The War in Iraq is over,
Afghanistan is coming to a close, General Motors is thriving, and Osama bin
Laden is fish bait. Did I mention the Affordable Care Act? All of this was
achieved while fighting the stated goal of the opposition party, which was to
stop you from succeeding.
That’s
some list of accomplishments for a poor African-American man whose family was
on food stamps for a time, a man whose father abandoned the family, and a man
who went onto graduate from Harvard Law School
with a student loan debt bigger than his Chicago
home mortgage.
Only
in America.
I
know you are concerned about the national debt. But please remind people that
the day you took office, as the country was in the throws of the worst economic
catastrophe since the Great Depression, that three Republican Presidents had
accumulated 80 percent of the national debt. Their names are Reagan, Bush, and
Bush. These three CONservatives created 80 percent of the national debt from Washington to Bush Jr.
People won’t hear this on Fox News or the mainstream “liberal” media. Remind
the country, will you? It’s “arithmetic,” as Clinton called it.
Be
sure to let everyone know the details about vulture capitalist Romney and Ayn
Rand disciple Ryan’s cruel plans for economic growth: Funny numbers, tax cuts
for millionaires and billionaires, and cuts to every social program helping the
young, poor, old, and struggling college students. Don’t let the Romney camp
get away with the constant barrage of lies.
But
all the good news about your upcoming second term aside, I want to thank you
for visiting Louisiana last Monday for Hurricane Isaac and for getting things done in the form of
federal aid. It was nice to see Gov. Jindal, Sen. Vitter, Rep. Landry, and both Landrieus acting like your old buddies in the photos taken at Louis Armstrong
Airport. Funny how
federal disaster money can bring together all sorts of political ideologies. It
looked like one big happy family.
There
are pundits saying the rest of the nation should give up on the Gulf Coast,
particularly Louisiana.
These people just don’t get it. Not only are we a significant culture, but we
enable our country to prosper through our fisheries, our ports, and our oil
refining industries. Please help us rebuild our wetlands, diverting Mississippi River silt, protect coastal communities like
Plaquemines Parish through good levees, and assist us in solving the
overwhelming insurance fiasco that could kill our rebuilding efforts. If people
can’t afford the homeowner’s insurance or if the policies don’t cover anything,
they will have to move elsewhere.
As
Louisiana
goes, so goes the nation. We are the canary in the coal mine, and if we can’t
prosper and become a sustainable environment, I sense that it can’t be done
anywhere else.
I’m
going to be straight with you, Mr. President. Louisiana has a political mess as bad or
worse than our coastline. The U.S. Attorney seems to be unable to file
indictments of our politicians as fast as he can uncover new criminals
currently in office.
And
our little governor is so bad I wish you would take him off our hands. Is there
a place in the federal government where he can’t harm anything? Could you
appoint him to an ambassadorship to Mars? Think about it. It could be a
win-win. And Louisiana
would get Republican Jay Dardenne as governor. He seems like a decent human
being, and he cares about the state.
There
are times when I wonder if the feds shouldn’t build a border fence around Louisiana and let no one
in our out. But the American experience is not built on logic but on a sincere
faith in a better tomorrow. We believe we can work together to solve our
state’s and our nation’s problems if we are willing to keep the faith and keep
trying. That’s the American philosophy, and it’s a good one.
I’m
counting on you to lead America and Louisiana into the future. Let me know your plans for Louisiana during the next four years. I suspect you don’t
have anything to worry about when it comes to a change of address. Good luck
planning the inauguration. Please give your wife
a speaking slot. She’s quite a gem.
Sincerely,
Dayne
======================
Dayne Sherman lives in Ponchatoula and is the author
of Welcome to the Fallen Paradise: A Novel. His website at daynesherman.com.
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