Obama's Missed Opportunity - In 100 Days

[Mosiah]

Check this article. Someone else believes Obama could have done more re Cuba.

http://jamaicaobserver.com/columns/h..._____DAYS_.asp

[Hortical]

I see there is still confusion when it comes to Presidential executive power. There are three co-equal branches of government in the USA, the executive, the judicial and the legislative. Obama could have made promises all day regarding the embargo, but the lifting of the embargo requires legislative action from Congress.

[Mosiah]

President has a big bully pulpit.

[Historian]

Thank You, Hortical

I see there is still confusion when it comes to Presidential executive power. There are three co-equal branches of government in the USA, the executive, the judicial and the legislative. Obama could have made promises all day regarding the embargo, but the lifting of the embargo requires legislative action from Congress.

Thank you, Hortical. You have certainly made a valid point here.

The framers of the US Constitution deliberately created a balance of power between the three branches of government, a balance that, quite frankly, impresses me more than Britain’s (and by extension, the English-speaking Caribbean’s, not including the republics Trinidad and Guyana, of course) Westminster parliamentary system of government.

Both the British Westminster and the American Federal Republic systems of government try to maintain a delicate balance between the executive, legislature and judiciary, but under the Westminster system there are too many loopholes, in my view (for example, no fixed date for general election, etc.).

For a journalist as experienced as he is in the affairs of the Americas, the Guyanese journalist Rickey Singh sometimes surprises me! Or is it that, unbeknownst to us, his expertise is limited to CARICOM and CSME and CARIFORUM affairs? His fellow Guyanese columnist (former diplomat) Sir Ronald Sanders has a much greater grasp on hemispheric issues than Singh, in my opinion.