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Shirley Rivens Smith, President
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We need to get this message out! Only a few days remain.
Subject: Fwd: St Louis Post dispatch endorses Obama
THIS EDITORIAL IS A MUST READ FROM BEGINNING TO THE VERY END.
Editorial: Obama for president: A second term for a serious man
Four years ago , in
<http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/sunday-editorial-
barack-obama-for-president/article_f2f0a7fc-f839-5bec-89bc-a3964ad28f60.html
> endorsing Democrat Barack Obama for president, we noted his intellect,
his temperament and equanimity under pressure. He was unproven, but we found
him to be presidential, in all that that word implies.
In that, we have not been disappointed. This is a serious man. And now he is
a proven leader. He has earned a second term.
Mr. Obama sees an America where the common good is as important as the
individual good. That is the vision on which the nation was
<http://www.caringtochange.org/index.php/about-the-project/the-common-good-a
-background-essay> founded . It is the vision that has seen America through
its darkest days and illuminated its best days. It is the vision that
underlies the president's greatest achievement, the Affordable Care Act.
Twenty years from now, it will be hard to find anyone who remembers being
opposed to Obamacare.
He continues to steer the nation through the most perilous economic
challenges since the Great Depression. Those who complain that unemployment
remains high, or that economic growth is too slow, either do not understand
the scope of the catastrophe imposed upon the nation by Wall Street and its
enablers, or they are lying about it.
To expect Barack Obama to have repaired, in four years, what took 30 years
to undermine, is simply absurd. He might have gotten further had he not been
saddled with an opposition party, funded by plutocrats, that sneers at the
word compromise. But even if Mr. Obama had had Franklin Roosevelt's
majorities, the economy would still be in peril.
Extraordinary, perhaps existential, economic
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/thefold/explaining-the-fiscal-cliff/201
2/10/05/e00f04d0-0f2f-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_video.html> challenges lie
just beyond Election Day. The nation's $16 trillion debt must be addressed,
but in ways that do not endanger the sick and elderly, or further erode the
middle class or drive the poor deeper into penury.
The social Darwinist solutions put forward by Republican Mitt Romney and his
running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, are not worthy of this nation's history,
except that part of it known as the
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/gildedage.html> Gilded Age .
Mr. Obama has not been everything we expected. In his first weeks in
office,
<http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/lack-of-stimulati
on/article_d5d50af6-e21a-53ce-ab27-daf77dd08542.html> Democrats ran amok
with part of his economic stimulus package. His mortgage relief program was
insufficient. Together with his Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner, the
president has been too
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/21/business/21bank.html?hp> deferential
to the financial industry. The president should have moved to nationalize
troubled banks instead of structuring the bailout to their benefit.
Regulatory agencies and the Justice Department were unable to bring
financial crooks to heel.
We had hoped that Mr. Obama would staff the executive branch with the best
and the brightest. There have been stars, but there have been egregious
failures, too. The
<http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-in-fast
-and-furious-err-on-the-side-of/article_4620711b-2dbb-5e51-b82e-b11d72b55b6b
.html> "Fast and Furious" operation at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms was a disgrace. The vastly expensive and unaccountable intelligence
and <http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/> Homeland
Security agencies need stronger oversight. The now-renamed Minerals
Management Service could have used some best-and-brightest inspectors before
the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.
People who don't understand the word "socialist" accuse Mr. Obama of being
one. But as president he has proven to be pragmatic and conciliatory. He is
not one to tilt at windmills. He did not close Guantanamo. He cut deals with
anyone who'd come to the table. In health care, banking regulation and most
other policy areas, he has practiced the art of the possible.
In foreign policy, after being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing
little more than not being George W. Bush, he has been a centrist. He has
stood with Israel, but not as its surrogate. He brought the last of the U.S.
troops out of Iraq. He began to wind down the war in Afghanistan — too
slowly in our view. He let the nations of the Arab Spring follow their own
course to democracy. He used
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/9305704/Barack-Obama-ordered-Stu
xnet-cyber-attack-on-Iran.html> thumb drives instead of bunker busters in
Iran.
Against the advice of his senior advisers, he approved the SEAL mission that
killed Osama bin Laden. He has been almost ruthless in his pursuit of
terrorists, reserving to himself the right to approve targets. Regretfully,
he
<http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2012/09/obama-us-seeks-due-pr
ocess-in-drone-strikes-134889.html> massaged "due process" to allow
himself to assassinate an al-Qaida leader who was an American citizen.
He is not a happy warrior, literally or figuratively. He is careful,
cautious, private and deeply thoughtful, almost introverted. His rhetoric
soars because he is a good writer, and good writers tend to be solitary
souls. He is not as good working off the cuff, as was demonstrated in
Wednesday's debate with Mr. Romney. But being careful and thoughtful is a
good thing in a president.
As to Mr. Romney , we are puzzled. Which Mitt Romney are we talking about?
The one who
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=10&ved=0CGEQFj
AJ&url=http://hillbuzz.org/im-not-a-partisan-republican-im-someone-who-is-mo
derate-and-that-my-views-are-progressive-27075&ei=BGZvUO3HCYa69QTcroHYBw&usg
=AFQjCNFK8_F9-8XN2uKMgJBMKZ707ygzLw&sig2=OUwh2Fgg3IOIBNq10-n_sQ> said of
himself , in 2002, "I'm not a partisan Republican. I'm someone who is
moderate and ... my views are progressive."
Or is it the Mitt Romney who posed as a "
<http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CC0QFjA
C&url=http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romney-reframes-himself-as
-a-severely-conservative-governor/2012/02/14/gIQAaMiqHR_story.html&ei=PGZvUJ
q-Joby9gSFioCIBA&usg=AFQjCNEGTqyTQCrjE_CYgXtwLWClVL5--Q&sig2=JM2FtikS-DnfREJ
2wBnvCQ> severely conservative " primary candidate? Is it the Mitt Romney
who supported abortion rights and public health care subsidies in
Massachusetts or the one who is pro-life and anti-Obamacare now?
Is it the Mitt Romney who wants to cut taxes by
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/leonardburman/2012/10/04/about-mitt-romneys-5-t
rillion-tax-cut/> $5 trillion or the one who can't remember saying that
now? Is it the Mitt Romney who said in May that 47 percent of Americans are
moochers or the one who
<http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/Decoder-Wire/2012/1005/Mitt-Romney-
repudiates-47-percent-remarks.-Why-now> said last week that's not what he
believes?
Mr. Romney apparently will say anything that will help him win an election.
As a president, he might well govern as a pragmatic chief executive, or he
might sell himself to the plutocrats and the crazies who have taken over his
party. He is asking Americans to take a lot on faith — there's nothing to
see in his tax returns; he can cut taxes and whack away debt while trimming
deductions he will not specify.
Mr. Romney's
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/greed-and-debt-the-true-story-of-
mitt-romney-and-bain-capital-20120829> business career is the only way to
judge his foundational beliefs: He did not run a company that built things
and created jobs and strong communities. He became fabulously wealthy by
loading up companies with tax-deductible debt, taking millions out up front
along with big management fees. Some companies were saved. Others went
bankrupt. Mr. Romney's firm always got out before the bills came due, either
in lost jobs, bankruptcies or both.
If the nation's most pressing issue is debt, why elect a president whose
entire business career was based on loading up companies with debt?
In picking Mr. Ryan as his running mate, Mr. Romney signaled that he's ready
to perpetuate that model in public office. The middle class hasn't had a
raise in 20 years. Income inequality has reached record heights. Mr. Romney
is the very embodiment of what's gone wrong with the economy: Too many
people at the top create vast wealth that they do not share, either by
creating jobs or by paying fair tax rates.
If more Americans were paying attention, this election would not be close.
Barack Obama would win going away, at least 53 to 47, perhaps even 99 to 1.
But the atmosphere has been polluted by lies, distortion,
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-21/republicans-voter-suppression-proj
ect-grinds-on.html> voter suppression and spending by desperate
plutocrats who see the nation's
<http://www.talkradionews.com/news/2012/10/03/jon-huntsman-urges-gop-to-ackn
owledge-changing-demographics.html> changing demographics and fear that
their time is almost up. They've had the help of a partisan Supreme Court.
The question for voters is actually very simple. The nation has wrestled
with it since its founding: Will this be government for the many or the few?
Choose the many. Choose Barack Obama.
<http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_c5371a41-ab43-5724-96e2-2d
23eaa56589.html#.UHAwxdV1F8M.twitter>
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/article_c5371a41-ab43-5724-96e2-2d2
3eaa56589.html#.UHAwxdV1F8M.twitter
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<http://www.mahoganyheritage.org/> http://www.mahoganyheritage.org
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Judge Ellar Duff, retired
P.O. Box 658
Alton, IL 62002-0658
618 462-0249
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