The Aristocrat

President Obama has a lot on his plate. He has acted swiftly to get his agenda passed through Congress. Stimulus, bailouts, bankruptcies, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, DOMA, Green Energy, War in Afghanistan, Healthcare reforom, financial market reforms, and he can still find time to take the First Lady out on dates. What is he, Superman? Hardly, just very intelligent. Even when his most loyal supporters began to question his master plans, he seems to prevail in the end. Polls are showing that the public is beginning to question his spending. And he is spending alot. Still, despite this, people still like him. And what's not to like? The beautiful wife, family, and dog! Of course, I have my opinions on the five problems swimming around the President's head in the picture above. But, I don't feel quite at liberty to share them. However, in my mind, among the easiest things to fix are LGBT issues. It seems crazy that we want people to serve in the armed forces but enforce this silly rule. And then there was that DOJ brief a couple of weeks back using incest citations to support the Defense of Marriage Act. The Department of Justice motioned to have a Federal case thrown out for lack of standing (among other reasoning). I actually read the brief, and it is very well done. The legal reasoning is solid: DOMA must be settled legislatively and the party alleging injury in the case had no standing to bring the case before the Federal Courts. The brief was good, but the writers forgot the "politics" of the situation and used incest citations. Ouch! And the president seems to be feeling the pressure as he made a concession and signed a presidential memo awarding some federal benefits to same-sex partners (although this has been happening in the private sector for a while).

But the War in Afghanistan, Gitmo, Wall Street, the Auto Industry, Healthcare reform, and Green/Energy reform...these are highly complex and politically volatile issues. I am anxious to see how all this will play out.