Employment | Saving Private Mommy

Scolding at the Rose Garden: Obama tells GOP to Behave

July 19th, 2010 | Author: Greta

: Image via Wikipedia

I am a registered Independent, and I did not vote for Barack Obama. I did not agree with him on a number of issues. And I really did not agree with the fiercely anti-Bush sentiment in the country at the time, a sentiment held by some of the population via a vehement eighth-grade rationale: he’s dumb, he’s a cowboy, he’s killing Iraqis to impress his Daddy, America Sucks Balls, and Michael Moore. Even my mom’s Bavarian cousin referred to our 47th president as ‘zat cowboy.’ Yes, even a senior Heidi weighed in. I imagine her goat bleated for the cause, too.

And despite the awesomeness of Obama’s election being a boon to better race relations in this country, I was still sad on election eve. And it’s not that I don’t like hope and change, but being a pessimist, the ideas make me very uncomfortable.

In Obama’s acceptance speech, however, I was struck by one glorious thread of rhetoric:

To those Americans whose support I have yet to earn,
I may not have won your vote tonight,
But I hear your voices.
I need your help,
And I will be your president, too.

And you should watch the video here. The delivery could make reactionaries weep, and I’m certain it makes even Rush Limbaugh want to do one thing liberal like eat a Boca Burger. Just once, anyway.

And today it turns out that Barack Obama is being my president. Mine personally. He’s speaking on behalf of the 2.5 million jobless Americans, many if not most of whom have for weeks and months applied for numerous jobs, only to be among legions of applicants who receive those courteous emails thanking them for their interest. Not that I don’t appreciate those emails. They make the day pass so much more pleasantly.

But don’t cry for me, Argentina, America, or even Great Britain. Thankfully, my husband has a job. (Excuse me while I spend the next four hours knocking on every wood surface in the house, and I hope to God laminate counts. I’m thinking wood decal does not, so I will avoid the kitchen cabinets.) Though when you start worrying about how many boxes of noodles you are cooking because each pack costs a buck, it’s fair to say that things are…tight? Stressful? Unstable?

Suffice to say, the impact of the Senate’s decision will have far-reaching effects. I know. I blog.

Even if you are unemployed and desiring to work at Starbucks for $10 per hour, which after daycare costs would earn you a loss of only $5 per hour before taxes, you can’t even get that job, because they need to hire the person with the nipple piercings because nipple piercings rule and she graduated from Colgate. What does a citizen do when they aren’t even worth $-5 per hour? Rejoice that they aren’t worth $-100 per hour?

But in the Rose Garden today, Obama said things that are quite pleasing to conservative ears: We need to take new, common sense steps to help small businesses grow our economy and create jobs. And things that are pleasing to working class ears: [No more] tax breaks for folks at the top who don’t need them and don’t even ask for them. And things that are pleasing to moral ears: We don’t desert our fellow Americans when they fall on hard times. I love it when he gets multi-partisan like that.

And I’m thinking that Barack Obama might be the cutest president that ever existed, because while my voice is small, unfunded, and invalidated in many circles, Obama is speaking for me, and for people who have it FAR (I repeat) FAR WORSE THAN I DO.

And that is being my president. Now Republican senators, be those other state’s Repulican senators since my state doesn’t have Republican senators, and stop reading the phone book to prevent the passage of this bill. Or at the very least, filibuster with something interesting, like dialogue from a Phineas and Ferb episode.

And while you’re hashing it out tomorrow, I’ll be on a job interview. Seriously. My first one in over forty weeks on unemployment. Wish me luck.

Obama’s radio address.

Obama’s Rose Garden speech.