@hawkeye10,
I don't think the curent unrest in the country with respect to the current administration has much to do with President Obama personally or even his supposed race, but rather is traceable to the often discordant voices among the organized constituency groups in the Democrat party, which have vividly revealed themselves during the past year.
Except for the Carter & Clinton interregnums (12 years), Republicans have held the presidency for the past 40 years. During that time they managed to lose their unity, focus, and consistency, and that cost them the last election. Now we are seeing that various powerful organized Democrat constituencies were united primarily by their opposition to Republicans as opposed to unity around any constructive agenda or, more importantly, strategy for dealing with the contemporary world.
It has become clear that the Administration miscalculated when it chose to press ahead immediately with both health care reform and greenhouse gas reduction, despite the economic reverses we and the world are facing. (Interestingly it chose to apply a social welfare model here at a time when - quietly - Europe is discovering that theirs is unsustainable. This itself is an indication of zeal trumping observation and sound judgement.)
The fiasco of the process to date in attempting to enact acceptable health care legislation has revealed to all the discordant, even contradictory themes and elements in the Democrat platform and propaganda. Fiscal discipline is abandoned almost entirely. Ever more transparent deceptions are incorporated into a legislative structure to achieve the President's promised "deficit neutrality " (a typical vaguely defined rhetorical flourish). Grotesque deals and inequities are created to buy needed senatorial votes; buy off major contributors (Labor Unions and trial Lawyers; or pay off key interest groups (AMA, AARP, big Pharma, etc.). Even after all this the outcome remains a bit uncertain.
Cap and Trade legislation to limit GHG emissions appears dead from a legislative perspective, however, the Administration has chosen to proceed by fiat and enact the controls it wished administratively through the EPA's remarkable (and deceptive) finding that the CO2 we exhale is a toxic substance, and therefore subject to the (arbitrarily) selective application of existing laws. The public is only beginning to perceive the many adverse effects of this move.
While many Americans appeared to favor these key elements of the Democrat platform in principle, attempts to enact them have revealed their many flaws and side effects. The pay-offs to special constituencies have dispelled any notion of principled action on the part of the Administration, and aroused fears that enhanced government interference in our lives will make us subject to even more.
The increasingly authoritarian character of the Democrat extablishment - and the President - give the impression of a group desperate to sieze its main chance to enact long-sought preconceived solutions for many disparate elements of our lives and economy - never mind what else is going on in the world and in our economy. This betrays a certain lunacy or lack of common sense that I believe has seriously, if quietly, undermined public confidence in this administration.
