Via the Wall Street Journal

President Barack Obama, citing the struggling economy, asked the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday to withdraw an air-quality rule that Republicans and business groups said would cost millions of jobs.

I can’t really think of anything that Obama has fought for that’s going to make any real difference in our lives in 10 years. Health care reform was a hand out to the industry. He rolled over on re-regulation of the financial sector. He gave up without a fight on climate change and he will allow the Keystone XL project to proceed. Tax cuts for the wealthy? Sure we’ll extend them until right after the next presidential election, I can’t see any problem with that.

I once read a biography of Franklin Roosevelt. One of the things that really stuck with me was the author’s assessment of his Presidency. During the Great Depression (the first one I mean) the average American revered Roosevelt not because he was making the economy better, because often the economy wasn’t improving, but because he was actually fighting for something, for them.

Regardless of how the Obama Administration’s policies would affect the lives of any given person in this country you can say almost as a rule that he isn’t fighting for what he believes in. His speeches take a professorial tone and he says that the American People just want compromise and for Washington to get something done.

Then he turns around and gives in to whatever the Republicans want. Guess what, the problems we’re facing, even the ones the Media actually talks about like the debt ceiling, have been around for forty years or more. They are problems that are structural to the very functioning of society. They require a little more than compromise to fix.

Most liberals only tacitly support Obama’s policies because he belongs to their team, the Democrats. I’d rather have a Republican in office because then at least people would oppose their policies because it’s the opposing team. That’s how American politics works.

Tell me again why I’m supposed to vote for someone who isn’t willing to support the most basic tenants of his platform? Obama, if he actually has any beliefs beyond his own ambition, needs move past the media and speak to the American People directly. He needs to show that he is actually fighting for them rather than compromising away their future to avoid some bad press. Please give me just one good reason.