(HOST) The list of high priority issues for President- elect Barack Obama is daunting, to say the least. However, commentator Barrie Dunsmore, veteran foreign and diplomatic correspondent for ABC News, tells us this morning there is one problem for Obama that may turn out to be greater than all the rest.
(DUNSMORE) The world economic recession. Two Wars. The health care crisis. The global warming threat. All are huge issues, any one of which would be a major test for an incoming administration. But what I see potentially giving the new administration more trouble than all of the above are the huge expectations that have been inspired by Barack Obama’s election – not just in this country but throughout the world. For example, the American middle class is hanging tenuously on the fervent hope that he will be able to rescue it from financial ruin – while Israelis and Palestinians are counting on him to deliver peace after their sixty years of ruinous wars.
Obviously, neither Obama nor any other human being is going to be able to deliver on all of those expectations – which means there are likely going to be more than a few Americans who will become disillusioned, perhaps to the point of hostility toward the new Presidency. And if world markets don’t get better soon, foreigners may yet want to punish the United States for causing the global economic meltdown.
Some carping on the left and in the news media has already begun over Obama’s choices of a number of people for high office who formerly served in the Clinton administration. That’s not change, they grumble. Would they rather he do what Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton did – bring in people who knew nothing of the ways of Congress or Washington and so condemn themselves to early crippling failures?
There are also growing demands that Obama immediately close Guantanamo and bring those being held as enemy combatants before civilian courts in this country. But do we really want someone such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who brags that he was the man who planned 9/11, have a chance to go free because some of the evidence against him came as the result of torture? I am sure Guantanamo will be closed and its key prisoners put on trial, but before that we have to create a suitable system for such trials that both protects American national security and conforms to international law.
In order to pass significant legislation on the very tough problems facing this country, a President Obama is going to need the votes of Republicans and well as Democrats in Congress. And for legislators to take on such issues, the new President’s public approval rating is going to have to be higher than just the 52% of Americans who voted for him.
In our 24/7 culture one of the major casualties has been the virtue of patience. After the past eight years of failed Presidential leadership, it’s understandable that we all want to have our personal concerns addressed first. But if this nation wants to see changes take place that promise America and the world a better future – it must be prepared to give its new President and his administration continued support and sufficient time to do the job. Otherwise he could fail.