Dear Mr. President, Try Harder and Do Better

Dear President Obama:

It has been long enough for you to demonstrate courage
and wisdom in many areas. So far
rhetoric has been your saving grace, but beyond that I remain hopeful but
disappointed.

I suppose all elected officials - particularly at the
federal level -- are by the very nature of those positions, incompetent in most
areas they must address. One would
hope they realize this and would surround themselves with experts in areas where
they are not expert themselves. You
have failed to do that in all too many instances.

Your education policy, an area about which I know quite a
bit, is wrapped in popular but terribly unenlightened principles. Charter
schools have a place, but not the one you have chosen for them. Standards will
have exactly the opposite impact of what you hope for and is based on several
myths. And individual performance pay for teachers will be both unsustainable
and counterproductive - guaranteed.

Your pursuit of military answers in Afghanistan is
terribly foolish. Further,
listening to military leaders on the strategic level is misguided. Their
expertise is on the operational level alone. Unfortunately, our nation has allowed
them to evolve into strategic policy leaders - something our Constitution
rightly left at your feet and not at theirs. Military leaders will answer every
problem with military answers. As any student of history should recognize, this
has more often than not been a disastrous development.

Your fiscal policy, admittedly in the midst of a crisis
you did not create, while necessary in some regards, has largely ignored the
middle and lower class workers of our nation. And any coddling of the
financial-investment-insurance sectors is inexcusable. How could you not see this?

And then there is the Patriot Act and all that it has
done to violate our traditional rights -- not to mention the evilness of
Guantanamo and extraordinary rendition.
Can you not bring yourself to right that ship at least? It seems to me
you've broken your promise here.

The health care/insurance issue speaks for itself. Your leadership has been seriously
lacking on this topic, and your hopes for bipartisanship are surprisingly
naive. There will be minimal
progress at a time when there could have been huge progress had you inserted
yourself forcefully. You did not -
at least thus far. That's inexcusable.

Your failure to openly and strongly take on the
stranglehold of corporate demagoguery has been a great disappointment and will
have unnecessary consequences for your continuation in office. I still have my yard sign supporting
your election, but while I may vote for you again, thus far it will not be with
the same enthusiasm or with that sign in my yard again.

All that said, I continue to prefer your level of
incompetence much more than that of your predecessors or your opponents. Please
try harder.

Sincerely,

Robert Barkley, Jr.