If You've Lost Tony Norman...

Wake up call:

To say I'm disappointed with Mr. Obama's passivity in the face of this threat to his presidency and the Democratic majority is putting it mildly. I'm appalled by it.

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From its economic policies to Afghanistan to the health care debacle in the Senate, the administration is determined to be the opposite of what many of us believed we were voting for.

I thought when I voted for Barack Obama that he would be a president who would be willing to get his hands dirty and that we would always know where he stood.

He used to speak like someone who had a vision for the country. Now he hedges and parses his words like a lawyer for an insurance firm.

What happened to the man who showed up on the campaign trail with specific promises about how he'd represent the interests of the American people after eight years of incompetence, stupidity and war?

What happened to all those promises of transparency?

Where did the skepticism about Bush-era war policies go?

Each day brings new headlines about the Obama administration siding with its predecessor on civil liberties or our right to know embarrassing things that were done in our name.

Whether or not this is a "center-right" country, whether or not Americans like liberal policies, what is certain is that nobody likes a dissembling weakling.

If Obama thinks his current path is putting him on the way to reelection and a permanent Democratic majority he will be in for a rude surprise November. A Congress, even just one chamber, in which the Republicans have subpoena power will make the 1990's investigations of the Clinton administration look like - if you'll a excuse the expression - a tea party.

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Comments

[Bruce]

The problem is, do we go for something, potentially, worse with the Republicans, or stick with Obama in the hope (there's that word) that he will wake up and be the President we voted for. The alternative, I think, is still worse.

The health bill is a giant CF that will make the insurance cabal very happy. It will not be modified for the better in the future as we are being told. Is Obama playing chess or playing along with the corporate assholes that have a stranglehold on us all? I have no choice but to still think chess! The alternative would ruin my year. Although, it is rapidly heading toward the playing along with corporations.

[spork_incident]

The alternative, I think, is still worse.

No argument here. But this is the thing: While each of the last two Democratic administrations have slowed the gallop to the right neither have stopped it. Moreover, both administrations built on the corrupt and authoritarian measures of their Republican predecessors - Clinton especially on economic measures (the repeal of Glass-Steagall especially but also GATT/WTO and NAFTA, to name a few) and Obama on "national security" (the current administration has repeatedly gone to court to preserve illegal and unConstitutional BushCheney policies - they're under no legal obligation to do so - and while there seems to be a genuine effort to close Guantanamo Bay Obama has increased the secrecy surrounding our prison in Baghram, Afghanistan). In other words, Democratic administrations have been turning controversial rightwing policies into bipartisan consensus. Once that happens, it becomes exponentially more difficult the reverse them.

Is Obama playing chess or playing along with the corporate assholes that have a stranglehold on us all?

Almost as soon as Obama was elected he exiled his relatively progressive economic team and brought in the likes of Geithner and Summers and has renominated Bernanke for another term as Fed chief. And here's a fun fact: In the FBI's intellectual property division the top five spots are occupied by lawyers from the Recording Industry of America Association and the Motion Picture Association of America - the very groups the seek to further restrict our rights to better the profits of corporations.

So if there's any "eleven-dimension chess" going on here it's in favour of big business.

To sum up: I think the increasing viciousness being directed towards the administration from the left is a result of a sense of being sold a bill of goods and frustration over the fact that nobody with any power is attempting to stop the march to corporatism and a surveillance state.

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