On the vicious GOP attack of Obama...

I would be the first to admit, I'm not a fan of Obama. I never was. While I'm an Independent, I voted for Hillary Clinton in 2008. She's a smart woman with proven records. Her positions align closest to what I see as important, not only as an individual, but for the country as whole. I cannot begin to tell how sorely disappointed when Clinton lost the Dem primary. In fact, I was so upset that I voted for John McCain, just to spite this one-term, never-done-anything, senator called Obama. Sure, people love him precisely because he's never done or achieved anything politically. Afterall, he's a clean slate, his rhetoric sounds soaring, and he's even black - alright, half black, if that's black enough - so, anyone can project whatever they want to see or hear to this fresh face. Better yet, he has a young family with two photogenic daughters (although I'm not so sure about Michelle Obama who is fond of flexing her biceps just to show off her youth side of things).

Granted that McCain is a very decent person, I don't think he or the GOP at large has what it takes to change the course that this country has been going down, starting from the first term of George W Bush. The near monopoloy of the neo-con in the Bush administration in shaping the the rhetoric of this country, championing it to go to not just one (the necessary one in Afghanistan), but two (the totally unnecessary one in Iraq) wars along its way. The accountability of government agencies was chipping away rapidly, given all the Bush cronies installed on the top, one of the most notorious ones being the idiotic FEMA head who totally missed the mark in the handling of Katrina. The Fed became completely hands-off to a financial market(s), gone awry and berserk. The list goes on. For all those, I don't think McCain, however decent he might be, is not going to be able to cope.

Some fresh face has to come in, Obama or Clinton. Under the false pretense of Change (remember Yes We Can?) and Reform, the empty rhetoric of Obama that dupes so many a voters at the time, Obama was swept into White House. While we know now, two years into his term, that Obama is mostly doing just doing what Bush has started out, only doubly down the chips in the gamble, including the war efforts, the debt, bailout of markets (not just financial markets, but the mortgage market too, in stupidly trying to keep people in their homes even if they should have default and be foreclosed on their property). He sells voters way short in his promise of what he would do, versus what he has actually done. But one has to acknowledge certain efforts from Obama and his attempt to even try, like the ObamaCare. Don't get me started on ObamaCare though, because it's not at all a universal healthcare system that Obama has championed it to be. All it does is, it forces you to get yourself covered, without the public option passing into the law as well.

Still, one has to look at the bigger picture. Sure, I don't like Obama sitting in White House. But as long as he's sitting in there, I do not want him to fail, for his fate is extricably linked to the fate of this country. For him to fail would mean that America will go down with him. On that alone, I must say, I do hope and pray that he would succeed. He has made some minor and limited efforts in changing the course of this ship of America from capsizing.

One would think, any responsible American should and would think along that line (in hoping that Obama would not fail). That is not the case in reality. In fact, the GOP and Tea Party attacks to Obama are so vicious and personal that I'm pretty sure they want to throw the baby out with the bath water, just to spite the Dem (and Obama) and their supporters. What the GOP and Tea Party fail to see is that, their rage toward Obama has blinded them into a collective failure to see that such attacks do not amount to any meaningful policy.

In fact, the vicious GOP/Tea Party attacks reminds me of the empty and increasingly violent rhetoric by the so-called student leaders in Tiananmen Square in China back in 1984. I remember clearly at the time, of how violent their verbal attacks to the government and Deng Xiaoping (the supreme leader in China at the time), with the constant slogan of "hit the bottle" (because "xiaoping" in Chinese rhymes with "little bottle"). Even in my young mind at the time, I was wondering out loud, of what these students want to achieve by pulling the government down. Unlike the recent Egypt peaceful protests that brought down Mubarak, in which opposition groups have secretly lined up for the aftermath, should the government be toppled. There was nothing like that in the 1984 protests. The picture of one student standing defiantly in front of a tank makes powerful imaginary, but it doesn't help a country of 1.1 billion people when you don't have a Plan B. To me, the attacks of GOP, Sarah Palin and the gang now are exactly like those empty rhetoric of the Chinese students in the 1984 protests. There is no Plan B. To me, it's not good enough to just say no. To be taken seriously, one has to be able to speak and present a constructive plan. I don't see one from the 1984 Chinese student leaders, and I don't see it from GOP now. And, by jove, those students are just a bunch of 20-something, and GOP is supposed to be an organized political party supposedly worthy to rule this country!!! How scary.