First it was black people, and now the fawning celebrities have turned their backs on U.S. President Barack Obama. Actor Matt Damon is at the forefront of celebrities voicing their opinions on Obama’s dismal track record of keeping his promises.
“I no longer hope for audacity,” said Damon, who was one of the President’s earliest and best-known celebrity supporters during his 2008 campaign. Damon expressed his disappointment in the way the country was being run on CNN’s Piers Morgan Show on Mar. 3.
He also slammed the President for failing to follow through on many of his campaign promises, particularly on education.
“I really think he misinterpreted his mandate and has doubled down on a lot of things. The idea that we’re testing kids and we’re tying teachers salaries to how kids are performing on tests, that kind of mechanized thinking has nothing to do with higher order. We’re training them, not teaching them.”
Other A-list celebs who threw their full support behind Obama in 2008 are now speaking out against his policies.
Barbra Streisand told Larry King last year that she thought the President should have been more aggressive on certain issues, like overturning the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ ban on gay people serving in the military.
Even though the measure was eventually overturned, Glee’s Jane Lynch criticised Obama’s handling of gay rights issues in general, calling him a “huge disappointment”.
“We thought the great hope of Obama was going to magically change all that,” she said. “He’s just nicely walking the middle.”
Obama can’t please everyone, but he should at least try and appease the people who helped him win the election.
