Sunday, November 9, 2008

Give Obama a chance?

We lost.  

They won.  

Barack Obama has been elected not to head the Democratic Party but to be President of the United States.  Come January 20, he will take office as OUR president.  We have to face that fact.  And, as OUR president, Barack Obama deserves the support of all of us.  He deserves our prayer and our well wishes.  And I truly hope that the policies he pushes through work.  I really hope that my doubts about those programs are wrong - for the good of the country.

I heard a story today about a group of ladies sitting around and cutting down the president-elect.  Their comments were so bitter and mean-spirited that one of their number felt so uncomfortable that she had to leave the conversation.  There is no more room for bitter, mean-spirited attacks on the future president than on the current president.

Conservatives must stand firm in opposition to policy - not to personalities.  Whatever Obama, or any other public official for that matter, says, does or proposes be done should be scrutinized.  If it can be supported, wonderful.  And on many issues, agreement should be possible.  If the position or policy can't be supported, then, oppose it, attack it, cut it down and defeat it, by all means.  But it is the idea, not the person, who deserves the criticism.

I want to think that I will be able to support President Obama often.  (Hope springs eternal.)  But I'm already troubled by what I'm seeing.  The Associated Press reported today that "Obama plans to use his executive powers to make an immediate impact when he takes office, perhaps reversing Bush administration policies on stem cell research and domestic drilling for oil and natural gas."

If Obama follows through on these plans, he'll certainly make an immediate impact . . . two immediate mistakes . . . I only wish I was wrong.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's probably going to get pretty scary and our "cushy" life as we now know it could dissipate rather quickly. . . .BUT, God is still the author of life and with our continued prayers and sacrifices (and I'm SURE persecutions) we can only hope that Christianity will pull through this awful mess our country has gotten into and be even stronger!

St. Louis Conservative said...

Emphasis on the word "probably" a.k.a. we don't know. So rather than worry about what might (or, by definition, might not happen) we'll wait and see.