We Got Obama Back!

The Republicans spent hundreds of millions of dollars but, on this Martin Luther King holiday, it’s Barack H. Obama and not their candidate, Mitt Romney, who took the oath on the Bible in front of ultra-conservative Chief Justice John C. Roberts. It’s a moment to savor. Hopefully, Hillary Clinton will take the oath in front of the Chief Justice in four years.

Many would have bet that the 44th would only be president for one term. When he came to the White House in January 2009 after his inauguration, he found a country ravaged by eight years of George W. Bush. America, bogged down in two useless and ruinous wars, is on the edge of financial collapse. In spite of the Republican’s systematic obstruction, due in great part to the new president’s skin color, Obama put the country back on the right track. Today, according to the Pew Center, 59 percent of Americans have a positive opinion of him and 52 percent approve of his policies. According to the same survey, barely 33 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Republican party. Within the past four years, Wall Street, which did everything it could to take down Barack Obama, has seen its profits take off. In the fourth quarter, profits from Goldman Sachs were $2.89 billion, while those of JP Morgan, the other giant of Wall Street, were $5.7 billion, a progression of 53 percent in one year. For Wall Street, business is working.

The president is about to put a final stop to military engagement in Afghanistan after Iraq. After having finished these Herculean tasks, Obama can refocus on his values. That’s the meaning of his inauguration speech. Freed from the preoccupation of his reelection, he mentioned not only the importance of the middle class and not the rich clientele of the Republicans, but also the necessity to grant the same rights to gays as to other citizens, the need to fight against climate change (considered as a U.N. plot by the lunatic Tea Party) and the imperative to help the poorest cope. Barack Obama’s program for the second term will be released soon in his State of the Union speech. The president who was always looking to compromise with the Republicans, guided by one goal – his defeat— has been replaced by a White House occupant committed to going round for round. Finally!