The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations.

By the New York Times editors.

The speech was, of course, a summary of his accomplishments, but more important, a reminder that the optimism that made him the first African-American president and then the resilience that helped the nation weather economic and global crises over the past seven years are what position it best for the future.

Clearly, Senator Obama was not fully prepared for the hard-knocks environment of real politics, once he made it off the campaign trail into the executive offices.

Nothing in his background as an academic in a more rarified world, or as a community organizer on Chicago's South and West Sides, prepared him to compete hard in his daily work, making no excuses about the quality of the opposition.

He simply never learned to negotiate with others different than him:  He really thought it would be gifted him, I think. And he could again walk away, as he has done throughout his career climbings, with people cheering him even as his work results remained inconclusive.

While acknowledging the Republicans’ determination to block most, if not all, of his initiatives, Mr. Obama noted some accomplishments that got through in the past year...

But so much remains to be done, obstructed by a Republican leadership implacable in its hostility to Mr. Obama, determined to oppose just about everything he proposed from the day he entered office.

The worst part is, the Democrats seem to have accepted that there is no way to end America'a ongoing involvement in these foreign wars, and our military men of might (here at home too) have convinced many that guns are more powerful than diplomacy, negotiations or standing up to unearned corporate wealth.

I wish him no ill will.
I'm sure the president, once again, will have a soft landing...
Aloha, in advance.

ADDED:  We've written off Detroit, but oh!, the good things we'll do one day in Ramadi!  #winning?

Some teachers have taken to social media this past week to plead their cases. Pamela Namyslowski ... teaches fourth grade at Mann Elementary School in Detroit...

"These deplorable learning conditions happen to also be the teachers' working conditions," she wrote. "We deal with unsafe environments -- both in the neighborhoods surrounding our schools and often within the schools themselves. Unlike you, students and teachers do not have a driver and security guards."

(I wonder if Sasha and Malia have ever visited Detroit in their travels? I wonder how much of America they have seen. I'm sure they are well traveled, like Rahm's children, but I wonder if they have ever shown interest in a locale of their own choosing, seeing their own country with their own eyes. 

That was a pretty big outreach deal in both FDR and JFK's campaigns, but I don't think the Clintons or Obamas focused their Democratic campaigns much on exposing the everyday lives of America's poorer communities to the light.  Sadly, it often takes a national disaster like a Hurricane Katrina to drag the media into the light... into a world where "happy days" are not really here again, nor does the inherent optimism of the first African-American president make any systematic fixes to truly change things. 

We've just penalized the healthy, and stocked up provisions for the sickly, it seems.  And written off places like Detroit, as we celebrate our successes in the world...)