DEAR EDITOR:
How is it that a health bill can pass both houses of Congress, be signed by the president and end up in the United States Supreme Court for judicial review? There is no record of anything similar happening in the history of this nation.
Against a background of slavery and injustice, you would have thought that the Barack Obama presidency was a good thing for America. It said something very powerful to the world about our democracy. On the other hand, it exposed a lot of people who yet have deep rooted fears and insecurities about people of color.
The judicial review of the Affordable Health Care Law is but another strategy by the right to taint the Obama presidency. An interesting comment was published in the April 16 edition of Time Magazine by Renee Farrar. "The Republican mantra from the day the president was elected has been that Barack Obama was to be a one-term president. Gridlock has been the legislative strategy. Obama is not God - just the president."
In other words, Obama was not supposed to be the president. Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and former Ambassador to the UN under Jimmy Carter, Andrew Young, didn't foresee the Obama presidency even as it was unfolding before their eyes. Like poet Mayo Angelou, many blacks at that time were braced to support Hillary Clinton. But Obama won fairly and squarely. So, why the gridlock? This strategy by the Republicans not only affects the president, it affects everybody. The president's infrastructure idea could have put a lot of people to work. The American people are not behind this nonsense.
When Hitler and the Nazi Party decided that Jews were bad and that war would solve Germany's problems, the German people followed. Without any regard for the national image and without any regard for this economy, the Republicans want the American electorate to follow. Why would you want someone to follow you when you know that what you're doing is wrong?
On April 2 an article appeared in the Opinion section of the Tribune Chronicle by 21-year-old Abigail Borah. She recently spoke at a climate control conference in Durban, South Africa. "The obstructionist Congress has shackled injustice and delayed ambition for far too long. I am scared for my future. You must take responsibility to act now or you will threaten the lives of youth and the world's most vulnerable."
Our youth see what is going on and they don't like it. The public is not buying into this Republican mantra idea. Congress' gridlock tactics have grown trite with the American people. The Judicial Review of the health law is wrong. Incidents that we have witnessed in the past three years can be best explained as an overreaction to the Obama presidency. The Republicans need to relax and refocus their energy. Should Obama win in November, what do you do? Obama is not God. He's just the president.
Alfred Spencer
Warren