No president in over 70 years has inherited such a mess.

[cali]

We are in an economic crisis.
We are in a dire foreign policy mess.
Our military is broken.
Our health care system is broken.
our justice system is a fucking mess.

It's going to take herculean efforts and incredible skill at coalition building to address any one of these crises, let alone all all of them.

President Obama will be attacked and undermined by repubs and dems, by the wingnut right and certain factions of the left.

I wish him all the luck in the world. He's going to need it.

[HughBeaumont]

1. I'm especially angry about the economic debacle, as this is the central flu virus . . .

. . . that affects ALL of what he said in his campaign. I am SO unbelievably pissed off that the middle/working/poor classes fell for years of disaster capitalism, laissez-FAIL, Friedman/Feldstein brand of "survival of the greatest" Republinomics for 2 decades and 8 years enacted through the policies of both parties (but mostly by that of Republicans) and did absolutely nothing but keep on electing these idiots to office.

You know, I'm not getting where all of the believers of the Reagan/Bewsh rhetoric got it etched in their microscopic minds that having decades of lower and lower taxation and all of this printing of funny money in order to "stimulate the economy" would never lead to having a giant Bill of Stark Reality come due. What we're experiencing now (which is bound to get worse before it gets better) is the result of years of shifting and concentrating the wealth from the poor to the rich and subsequently shifting the risk, loss and blame to the poor/working/middle classes. Now a real leader like Barack Obama comes along and has the unenviable, and sorry to say, insurmountable task of cleaning this crapcake up.

I'm afraid, though, that despite the rest of the planet suffering under the weight of a high cost of living, no liquidity, no money for higher education, no health insurance and massive layoffs, the rampant and brazen greed of the wealthy is going to continue on unabated; as the Nardellis, Welches, Fiorinas and Raymonds of the world still think that us oxygen thieves should bow down and serve them and never ever EVER expect them to make even one iota of sacrifice to change their needs and lifestyles. And these jokers will do everything to be a drag on the new world the rest of us face.

[Greyhound]

2. He's going to have to take a page from Raygun's playbook and go

around DC directly to the people with genuinely new ideas. Otherwise we will have four years of nothing being accomplished except more facades and half measures that do nothing, followed by who knows what? Another Republik administration? A nation in flames?

One thing that's sure, is that the parasites in DC are gearing up to get theirs at our expense and will not allow any break with the status quo. The 'solutions' of yesterday will not solve the problems and we are out of time.

[LiberalEsto]

3. We need to do more than wish him luck

We need to pitch in and help any way we can.