"Do-Nothing Congress"

For this entry, I will be critiquing the opinion of Michael Bowen's piece " Obama can't blame the do-nothing Congress"  The Christian Monitor- Obama can't blame the do-nothing Congress (opinion section) September 28, 2011 issue.

It became painfully obvious that the history professor of West Minster writes as if only conservative college students will read his work, which would have served readers best in a West Minster's news letter instead of a international magazine such as The Christian Monitor. Although it was his opinion, one simply should not write an article on national issues from a biased standpoint and make it count as an objective argument. Being that Mr. Bowen is the author of "The Roots of Modern Conservatism: Dewey, Taft, and the Battle for the Soul of the Republican Party," I would say that this article gave you more of a synopsis of his book rather than what is going on with our nation's government.

Mr. Bowen is arguing that our current president can not blame congress for the political climate at hand, he referenced the year 1948, when Harry Truman campaigned against the "do-nothing" 80th Congress. Citing several issues that Truman was able to lean on, Mr. Bowen said "the political climate is different today than it was in 1948" (I beg to defer). In 1948 we were dealing with inflation caused by the demobilization from WWII, today we are still dealing with demobilizing effects stemming from the War in Iraq, except it seems to be much worse with the torture issues coming to light. In 1948 there was a housing shortage, today we are still dealing with major housing issues, and in 1948 there was the rampant labor unrest, today unemployment is almost at " The Great Depression" status. So why would the president not blame Congress? Why would he not demand action from both sides of the house? Something has to be done and if that means reaching back and gleaning from your predecessors' success then so be it.

There was really no logic to what Mr. Bowen wrote in his article. It never once made me rethink any of my current concerns differently, never made me think that our president would not succeed nor that history could not repeat itself in a number of ways within the next few months. It is all prospective, some see the glass half empty, others see the glass half full. The points that were raised about the Democratic and Republican parties are pretty much still true today except for the Democratic party being in shambles, nevertheless, I felt that the lack of evidence in this article made most of the political implications seem very shady and if this is how our government is ran then again I ask what is the point of making our voices heard? If orders continue to be passed down but our United States Congress is hell bent on fighting, blaming and bickering to the point that nothing gets done while the people continue to suffer then what is the point?