Millions Suffering, Obama Fails to Act

President Obama made many promises during his presidential campaign, but to me there were none more important than his promise to relieve the physical suffering of Americans. On this front, his two biggest promises were to create a universal health care system and to overturn George Bush's misguided executive order restricting stem cell research.

I'm disappointed that Obama has yet to begin addressing our nation's health care crisis. The delay in naming a new HHS Secretary and/or health care czar could set back much needed reforms by months or even years. But I understand that necessary reform will be a serious and time consuming political fight.

What is unconscionable is Obama's failure to fulfill his promise on stem cell research. The Obama campaign promised to immediately overturn Bush's order restricting research. Unlike with legislation, there is nothing preventing Obama from taking action on an executive order. The stem cell research ban could literally be overturned in a matter of hours.

Stem cell research holds the possibility of finding a treatment for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes, and a host of physical disabilities. It may eventually improve the lives of millions of Americans who suffer from debilitating illnesses. Some may say that it has "only" been a month and we should be patient. But if it is you, your parents, or your children suffering, a month can be a very long time.

Phelps, Clinton, Bush, Obama

What do these four men have in common? They are all very successful, and they all used illegal drugs while in their twenties. We now have our third straight president with past drug use. If they had been arrested, their criminal records could have prevented them from civil service work. However, drug use did not prevent them from becoming the head of that same government that would have incarcerated them.

Even though we have been led for 17 years by former drug users, there has been unfortunately little change to our insane drug laws. Hopefully, this country will use our current economic crisis to reevaluate our war on drugs. While many Democrats are still focused on the cost of the war in Iraq, they seem to ignore the far more expensive war at home. The cost of DEA agents, SWAT teams, millions of prisoners, lost wages, and international eradication programs easily dwarfs the cost of the trillion dollar economic stimulus package.

A New Face, An Old Dream

George W. Bush's attempt to spread democracy across the world has been a failure. Besides a few notable exceptions, democracy has not been on the march for the past eight years. Afghanistan is a total mess. After several years, thousands dead, millions displaced, and a trillion dollars spent, Iraq is emerging as a very fragile democracy. At this rate we would need to spend , quadrillion dollars on continuous war to make the whole world free by 2418.

It is not the product which is flawed but the marketing. George W. Bush was never a good poster child for democracy. He became president despite not receiving the most votes. His first election was mired in controversy and was decided eventually be the Supreme Court. He is a child of privilege and the son of a former president. He is an example of the worst trends of nepotism which have infected our democracy. Most devastatingly, he managed to taint his efforts to spread freedom with unnecessary and unprovoked war.

Barack Obama is quite possibly the best advertisement for American-style democracy around the world. He was raised by a single mother and climbed to success by his own talents. He is the ultimate self made man. Not only is he the first minority president, but he also has a personal understanding of the third world. His father was from Kenya, and he spent some of his childhood living in Indonesia. He won a landslide election with a campaign of lofty rhetoric instead of divisive wedge issues.

Obama shatters the image that America is simply the byproduct of a white vs brown colonialism. He is now uniquely positioned to promote freedom through soft and hard power. He should use his power to prop up new and struggling democracies instead of attempting to overthrow despots. He could try the bold and novel move to increase democracy around the globe. Most importantly, he needs to remember that new and weak democracies are like alcoholics: you can't help them unless they want to be helped.