There are many issues facing our country and each issue carries varying degrees of significance to each citizen.   It appears that the White House has been able to take these issues, personalize them for a given audience, and acknowledge them in a way that suggests a level of concern and compassion.    There is probably not a day goes by that President Obama isn’t meeting with groups where he speaks on topics specific to the audience rather than the broader issues that are facing our nation.   Examples include speaking to students about loans, to women about contraception or corporate roadblocks, to labor about job creation/protection, to elderly about entitlement programs, to veterans about ending the war, to Latinos about immigration and so on and so forth.   Taken on their own merit every one of these issues is important.  However, the point is not how we feel about a particular issue affecting various segments of our society we know how it feels.   We live it daily.   So is there real empathy and compassion on the part of the President for those in the audience; I would like to believe there is.  Or is this a superficial approach where the real underlying motive is to appeal to the parts?  Remember in mathematics the equation; the sum of the parts equals the whole?   In politics is the hope that appealing to the parts equals re-election?   Is this fragmentation by design?

Let’s step back and think.   We can all agree that each segment of our society has important issues that affect them personally and us as a nation.  In order to become a great nation again every one of these issues need to be taken seriously and addressed over time.    Unfortunately many Americans are frustrated by government infighting while so many issues affecting our lives go unresolved.  It appears that our faith in “hope and change”, as fragile as it was, has been shattered with the reality that the system in place to fix problems is itself broken.  It is a system where ownership of a problem is someone else’s responsibility.  It is a system in which our elected representatives couldn’t even agree on the time of day if they were standing in front of Big Ben.   So is it any wonder that when the President of the United States acknowledges issues, that are important to us personally, that a normal knee-jerk reaction is “wow someone can at least identify that there is a problem”?   Not so fast.   Though identifying the problem is the first step, it’s the easy one.  It, however, gives me no confidence that identifying an issue will result in change if there is no solution offered to at least debate.    A credible approach to problem solving is identification of the issues, prioritization based on importance, bipartisan debate on solutions, and finally implementation for change.   However this approach to problem solving requires strong leadership.   Mr. President that is why we elected you and that is what you promised.   I for one am disappointed as I feel that we are on the great ship USS America with a captain who knows how to align deck chairs but is afraid to take the helm.  It is a little late to tell us that your only experience in a boat was at the amusement park.   My advice Mr. President, standup, be decisive, lead with conviction but for the sake of our nation lead!  If you do, many will get behind you as our gain would be yours.   If the challenge is too great, or you don’t have the skill set, please step aside and exit gracefully this fall for the sake of this nation.  Hint: Start with the economy.