I have for President Barack Obama this following title: “The UN Disaster is Obama's Fault". The title belongs to a report ran by Commentary magazine, a mouthpiece of American Likudniks and neocons, holding the U.S. President responsible for the decent performance of President Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly, and for the rumbustious standing ovation given by the member states' delegations to the Palestinian request for membership, while they met Netanyahu's lies and extremism in his speech, a few minutes after Abu Mazen's, with only dead silence. Barack Obama did his best to frustrate the Palestinian bid, and contradicted all his previous positions on reaching out to Arabs and Muslims, and his wish only last year to see Palestine a member the following year, i.e. this year. Yet, Obama did not manage to please Israel and its extremist advocates. Instead, they held him responsible for their extremism and the fact that the whole world hates them. I have said to President Obama time after time that he would not please the Likudniks until he converts to their creed. The article in Commentary is yet another example of their position towards him, and I began with it because I now feel that Barack Obama has finally become convinced that he has lost his liberal base without having won over the extremists. For this reason, he chose confrontation with the Republican Party, where the ultra-supporters of Israel lurk, as the path towards winning a second term next year. Over three years or so in his first term, Obama tried to be a president for all Americans, but failed. I hope that what I have noticed in terms of the change in his way of dealing with the Republicans indeed reflects this failure and signals a new policy on his part. This change began last month, specifically in a speech Obama gave on Labor Day on the 5th of September. President Barack Obama used an aggressive speech to challenge the Republicans in Congress to place the country's interests above all else and said, "Show us what you've got". This attitude by Obama reminded many commentators of a similar speech delivered on the same occasion by Harry Truman in 1948, challenging the Republican back then amid a severe financial crisis. In the end, Truman won the elections even though he was trailing behind his Republican rival, Tom Dewey. Three days later, Obama continued his offensive at a joint session of Congress, and challenged the latter to pass his plan to create new jobs for the American people. He also urged lawmakers to cut Social Security taxes for millions of Americans and businesses, to encourage hiring. He told Congress, "Stop the political circus". Then about two weeks after that, Obama called for higher taxes on rich Americans who each earn more than a million dollars annually. This plan is known as the "Buffett Law”, after the billionaire Warren Buffett, who complained that rich people like him do not pay a tax that is proportional to their high income. This month, Obama continued his campaign against the Republicans, focusing on their obstruction of his economic plans, as though they do not mind that the country's economy collapse as a result of electoral showdown with the Democratic President. Obama addressed people throughout the country, from California to Texas, Washington and elsewhere, and said that it is the right of the Americans to know what the Republicans do not like about his economic plan, which is a 447 billion dollar bill to create 1.9 million new jobs. Unemployment in the United States is in the range of 9.1 percent, a high percentage that means that 14 million Americans are without jobs, with other estimates saying that 40 million Americans live below the poverty line. The Republicans, until further notice, are acting very stubbornly, like someone who takes pride in sin. In the Senate, the Republicans blocked the jobs bill proposed by the President, when Republican Senators unanimously voted against the bill. I believe that they will pay the price for this in the elections. It was a Republican administration that started the American- and then global- financial crisis, while the Republicans in both houses of Congress are determined to blame the Democratic President for this, to the extent at which that they are sabotaging every one of his attempts to push the troubled economy forward. However, the Republicans cannot fool all voters all the time. [email protected]
