Monday, February 09, 2009

Under Pressure

I don't handle stress all that well. It's one of the reasons I could probably never run for public office. How Barack Obama manages to stay cool during times of pressure like this is beyond me. And actually, I think it's time for him to show some of his inner strength and get tough!

After all, he's played nice by extending more than a willingness to work with those across the aisle, and he's shown some humility with his mea culpa in regard to Tom Daschle. Now is the time for him to get tough.

Tonight, Obama will hold his first press conference as President Obama, and it's time to stand up for the people who overwhelmingly voted for change in this election. Eight years of Bush tax cuts did nothing to help us. Eight years of Bush deregulation messed up the banking system. Eight years of Bush war-mongering spent more money than all the previous presidents combined and took the surplus President Clinton left and turned it into the biggest deficit in history.

We've had enough of Republican policies. The Democrats won control of both houses of Congress and the White House. Now is the time for President Obama to effectively take control and tell the Republicans they can come along for the ride or play obstructionist games, but that he will do what the people of the US elected him to do, and that is most certainly a change in direction.

No more Mr. Nice Guy. Now it's time to play tough!

On today's Radio or Not podcast, I speak with David Swanson of afterdowningstreet.org about a post he wrote over the weekend suggesting we do away with the filibuster. After all, it's this ridiculous rule in the Senate that's even allowing them to play politics at such a critical time in our nation's history. And, as we usually do when we speak, David and I went on to talk about the bigger picture of the Obama administration and where it's heading.

And a quick postscript to Friday's show.... This article from the AP suggests that Barack Obama is ready to move beyond the decriminalization of (at least medical) marijuana.

And this was one of the few shining moments from this weekend's SNL:



Hear today's Radio or Not Podcast here (runtime 35:48)

2 comments:

elkojohn said...

I give Mr.O and A for the press confernce. Didn't like his ''don't want to look backward'' stance, but he did say no one is above the law -- which means he is open to being ''forced'' into looking into wrong-doing. The majority of Democrats, in general, continue their stance of ''Deficits Don't Matter'' which pisses me off, bc i don't want my grandchildren stuck with the tab. If the Democrats would acknowledge that the Chinese may stop lending us money someday. . . and then tell me what Plan-B is, when & if that happens, I would have more confidence in the Democratic leadership.

Unknown said...

Hi, Nicole! This is unrelated to the topic of your show, but I just read that your former station WINZ is going to be changing to an all-sports formamt in March. Losing you to the sleep-inducing Imus was bad enough, but now it looks like Miami will be losing Stephanie, Thom, Randi, and the rest, too! Could you let us know if you find out anything more about this? Thanks!

Kim