BY SHARON MARTIN

The day before Thanksgiving, the road to Stillwater buzzed with working people, thanks to an economy that has steadily improved since 2008. I got behind a tanker truck with a sign on the back: Impeach Barry Obama.

I’ve seen similar signs before, and for the life of me, I don’t understand why anyone thinks it is even a possibility. You can’t just dislike the man; you have to have a legitimate reason to impeach. Or an illegitimate reason, like lying about sex.

What has Barack Obama done to deserve such scorn? Is it his policies or his skin color? Or is it that those out of power will do anything to be back in power?

Let’s weigh what he has done.

– His education policy has some holes in it, but even Arne Duncan isn’t an impeachable offense.

– He promised to close Guantanamo. The people who call loudest for impeachment are the ones who put up the roadblocks on this.

– Fifty-seven percent of our federal budget is for military spending, but it is Congress, not the president, that controls federal spending.

– He inherited an economy in shambles. The Republicans and their buyers have done everything possible to bring down President Obama. Perhaps if they helped him rather than stymied him, the recovery might have been swifter. But it has been a recovery.

– When he took office, the country was at war on two fronts. We have left Iraq, we are winding down in Afghanistan, and we haven’t started a conflict anywhere else despite several calls for us to “get tough” on one despot or another.

– There is that pesky Patriot Act. Those who lock arms against anything else President Obama attempts seem to defend the NSA and intrusions on our privacy.

– You must give him credit for his disaster responses. When bad things happen, President Obama and FEMA have our back.

– Despite every trick in the book to stop the Affordable Care Act, his namesake healthcare law will make sure that many more people are insurable and insured. The rollout may not have been perfect, but it’s on track. Talk to Apple or Microsoft about perfect rollouts.

– President Obama continues to speak for the people – the hungry, the uninsured, the unemployed. His distractors continue to trash talk him.

If only the naysayers could live long enough to see what history has to say about Barack Obama’s presidency. I believe he will fare much better in hindsight than they do.

– Sharon Martin lives in Oilton, OK and is a regular contributor to The Oklahoma Observer