People, Why can't we all work together?

You know I have been listening and watching with interest all the latest hoo-ha about the economy, the Obama administration, and health care reform among other things.  The first thing that I find to be really surprising is how quickly many of us have decided to leave Obama out to dry when it comes to the policies he is trying to establish.  Now this is politics and I realize that a lot of crap slops both sides of the aisle.  But what I see as the main issue now is how the Republican party has decided to simply be a party of obstructionism.  Rather than actually work with the Democratic party to try to make good policy the GOP has figured it will do anything it can to crush the opposition and get back into control.  And to really top it all off, people are buying into the rhetoric!  So if the Democratic Party loses in 2010 and Obama loses in 2012 I will be convinced that something is wrong with the average American voter.  People complaining about the President and his policies right now have apparently forgotten that over the last eight years the Republican party had control of  everything for 6 of them.  They generated a huge huge deficit that Obama inherited.  Now generating a deficit is not necessarily a bad thing.  What really makes the difference is what you spent the money on.  For us over the years of the Bush Administration that meant creating this deficit to fund two wars.  What the money should have been spent on are things like infrastructure, education and social security just for starters.

Wait a minute, you say! What about all the necessary things we had to do to keep us safe?   Well consider this.  Before 9/11 we actually had all the information we needed to prevent the attack.  The information was simply ignored, not so much at the bottom level but certainly at the top on down.  Presidential Bulletin was ignored, The National Security Advisor ignored her meetings about potential attacks.  It seems to me that if the information we had had been acted on we may have prevented it.  The same is true for the recent attempt by the Nigerian kid. We had information but didn't act on it.  So apparently all of the money we have spent on keeping us 'safe' is kind of moot.  Maybe we should publish the act or people we have prevented from blowing up things or whatever.  Then we would all have some idea how well any preventative measures are doing.  Alas too much secrecy. 

The thing I find really annoying and I alluded to it before is the lack of willingness of the Republican party to work with the Party in control.  Joe Wilson's cry of  "You Lie!" is Republican attitude in a nutshell.  This is not the Republican party of my childhood.  The party has been taken over by extremists it appears.  By the way Mr. Wilson was wrong the President wasn't lying.  I remember when I was young President Nixon, a Republican, placing price controls on beef.  Can you imagine that happening today?!  By a Republican?!   I believe most of us want these fools to work together.  Most of us would really like a single payer health care system.  Most of us feel a little angry at the wall street executives and their multi-million dollar salaries.  Most of us would like to feel that our elected officials are at least trying to work together.  I don't know about anyone else but I don't feel that way. Especially when it comes to the GOP.