Promises, Promises

When I was a young lad of eleven years, there was something that I wished to do that my mother was against. That was not an uncommon situation in our house. I was a typical boy and my mother was very overprotective. She was also extremely controlling and manipulative. She knew how to push all the right buttons. In those days few women worked outside the home. It was common for a woman to get dressed up and take the bus downtown and go "shopping". In the midst of our mental tug of war, that is exactly what my mother did. She arrived home toting a bunch of bags from various downtown stores shortly after I got home from school.

As she entered the house she cried out in a cheery voice, "I bought you something". I was a little kid. I liked it when people bought me things. So my immediate response was "What?".
"I'm not going to tell you, but it is really nice" was her answer. "It's something you are going to love." Suddenly I realized this was not a loving gift from Mom. Instead, we were in negotiations. "Give up that idea we discussed and you can have it." she said. To make a very long story short, she won. She made that gift sound as if it were a bag of gold coins. It was a wallet. I didn't need a wallet. I didn't even want a wallet. I got conned. Hey, I was only eleven. I agreed, I was told, and you can't go back on an agreement. Game, set, match. I lost.

So here we sit, four years into the Obama administration. Four years ago we were given a whole bunch of promises. Peace would reign in the middle east, unemployment would be down to six percent, there would be no lobbyists in the administration, politics would be transparent, this would be a post racial administration, that the deficit would be reduced and on and on. Just how many of those promises have been brought to fruition. By my count, that would be exactly none.

Then we have been through the last two years of campaigning (actually, I think it is four years) interspersed with rounds of golf, expensive vacations, and campaign trips on Air Force One. We have listened to endless speeches about how difficult the job is, how his inability to achieve results toward keeping any of his promises is someone else's fault, usually George Bush, and how, in spite of what we see with our own eyes, the future is bright. Really folks, just another four years and another five hundred billion dollars and you can have it all.

Just let him keep borrowing money that we have to borrow to pour into bottomless rat holes, keep covering up for terrorists, keep governing like a despot with no respect for the rule of law or the constitution, and keep destroying what little energy base that we have left. Just do that and the promised land will be ours. Promises, promises. Your trying to press our buttons Mr. President, but we are not eleven years old. And frankly you're not as good at it as my mother.