Ladies and gentleman, if you wanted to know the secret to why nothing ever gets done in Washington, you need to look no further than the small-minded debate between these two “educated” men.

Instead, why don’t we take an unbiased look at what the Obama administration has done throughout the past year.

He has brought the United States back from the brink of international isolation by opening diplomacy with longtime U.S. adversaries around
the world.

He has taken a firm stance against the atrocities of Guantanamo Bay and vowed to shut its doors.

He has vowed to increase funding for education by increasing Pell Grants and statewide aid to support higher education funding.
On the other hand, he has spent billions of dollars on bailouts and economic recovery packages that seemingly have failed to produce any job growth.

After vowing to hold transparent talks on health care reform, he shut out the media, leading to questionable closed-door deals like the “cornhusker kickback” and the “Louisiana purchase.”

He also has the lowest approval rating of any president following his first year in office.

This is what we in the business of unbiased political observation call “undisputable facts.” What we seem to forget as we attempt to point fingers at why the United States is in the trouble it is in is that we are all in this together.

I’ll be the first one to admit that I wasn’t “cool” enough to vote for a candidate like Barack Obama, but he’s our president, and seeing as I’m going to be looking for a job next year, I would really like for him to succeed in fixing our economy.

Tibergien and Thieleman serve as a shining example to the lack of knowledge between those on both sides of the aisle. Shape up, America. Get informed or stay home.

Michael Lipphardt

economics and public administration and public policy junior