The writing of a truly dedicated born-to-write journalist leaves a haunting record on the souls of those it reaches. Here McClatchy’s Joe Galloway is certainly speaking for me:
By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers
Who stole our change?
Who hijacked a popular uprising that was going to put a stop to business as usual in Washington, D.C.?
What happened to Barack Obama on his way to the White House?
The Republicans have been so busy trying to paint President Obama as a socialist, as a radical, as a Marxist, as a Muslim, as the Devil, that they haven’t even noticed that he has become one of them.
What a difference a year can make. A year ago Barack Obama was on the campaign trail, promising an American electorate disheartened and disgusted by eight years of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney that he was going to change everything if he was elected President.
He would be the new broom, sweeping out the dirt, collecting the trash, and fixing everything that was broken and tarnished and perverted in our government, in our nation’s capital, in our White House.
He swept into office on a high tide of good will and anticipation. He was going to fix Wall Street. He was going to end the war in Iraq. He was going to bring a new era of transparency to government. He was going to stimulate a faltering economy and give new hope to a shrinking, frightened middle class. He was going to close the prison at Guantanamo and end the torture policies of his predecessors. There was even a hope that we would investigate how we went wrong and who ordered it.
He came to town on a white horse, riding a staggering wave of popular approval in the polls, a golden leader in a golden moment with a golden opportunity, and then he did what? Nothing much. Nothing different.
Oh, he can still talk the talk and he does that incessantly. But he seemingly can’t walk the walk. He may still sound like a revolutionary but more and more he looks and acts like George W. Bush, albeit a George W. Bush who can speak a complete sentence in the English language.
Obama’s approval ratings are beginning to unwind and begin a long downward spiral among those who had believed in the promises of change. There was a golden moment when change was possible, but it is gone now.
There was one thing Obama absolutely had to do, even before tackling an economic meltdown and the Wall Street and big bank rip-offs:
He had to reassure Americans that we all live under the rule of law; that no one by virtue of holding the highest offices in the land, or having the biggest bank account, is above the law.
It was incumbent on new President Obama to step back and let justice be done. Let the investigators do their job, Not only to let justice be done but let justice be seen to be done.
[I could not bear to separate this masterpiece.]
10 Comments
Spotlight
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About The Seminal
Advanced search
He does relate the heartbreaking chronicle of disappointments so well. Thanks, Acquarius.
Made me think of what Wes Clark said in interview with Amy Goodman a while back BB referenced:
He was referring to John Negroponte, but it can apply to our big-jobbrd president, too.
Hi Libby. You know after I read BB’s comment about that at The Dog’s diary, I thought, “That job’s too big for Obama.” He tries to please everybody; probably developed that early in his life. Does he realize that he is determining the world that his daughters will inhabit?
I thought to send this article to Obama, then figured that his screeners would never allow him to see it. Maybe other blogsites will pick it up.
Here is the link to Amy Goodman’s interview on DemocracyNow with John Perkins, The Economic Hitman (05/08/08). The chilling thing about that is he was recruited for that program back in 1965; was on paper an employee of a bank in Boston but was actually paid by the US Treasury. CIA’s funding is drawn from State, Defense and Treasury. I don’t think Kennedy would have had anything to do with such a program, but dirty deals Lyndon would have. I’ll find the link to the YouTube interview with JP and post later.
~~~
Who will follow Obama?
A gifted politician who promises a return to the past — Clinton, Reagan, whoever?
A gifted politician who promises change and a better future?
I think neither.
I think it will be a gifted politician who promises a hard run to the right.
By 2016 (or perhaps 2012), if America’s currency is devalued and the wars (if we can call them that) in Iraq and Afghanistan have not gone well, this country may be as ripe for a rightwing fanatic as Germany was in 1932.
acquarius, I had to truncate the article for copyright reasons. I hope you understand.
thanks for sharing it with us.
Sorry you got only a few comments.
Joe Galloway was present during the big battle between the 1st Cav and the NVA in the Ia Drang Valley in 1965.
Galloway tells the truth as he knows it.
Wow, this is hard to read.
I’m still so relieved Bush isn’t in office that Obama can do a lot of dirt and it will get by me; I wonder if Bush wouldn’t have screwed up the uproar in Iran by now, whereas Obama keeps a distance and a cool tone.
But there’s enough truth in what Galloway writes that it’s a painful read.
Obama’s financial advisors are turning out to be disastrous.
He won’t fulfill my dreams and appoint Nomi Prins and Robert Reich by July, but I wonder how long his economic team will last.
Bush was catastrophically irresponsible, but the core of much of the disaster appears to be criminal. So until that aspect is cleaned up, it looks to me as if we’re hosed.
Acquarius did not violate fair use or copyright rules. This is how one other site discusses the rules. Many of the top progressives sites use the whole article, always, and attribute the author. If we were selling the information it would be a different situation. I know of only one case in the US where an internet site was found guilty of copyright infringement and that was because they were actually selling the work of others. Opednews.com is one site that uses whole articles frequently.
http://opednews.com/
************
“FAIR USE NOTICE:: This site contains images and excerpts the use of which have not been pre-authorized. This material is made available for the purpose of analysis and critique, as well as to advance the understanding of political, media and cultural issues.
The ‘fair use’ of such material is provided for under U.S. Copyright Law. In accordance with U.S. Code Title 17, Section 107, material on this site (along with credit links and attributions to original sources) is viewable for educational and intellectual purposes. “
http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/
§ 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors. “
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
Your link focused on John Perkins and the Panama Canal. This one focused on him discussing ‘Hitman’.
**********
http://www.democracynow.org/20…..ic_hit_man
Youtube.. Amy and John.
**********
http://www.youtube.com/v/fDf-rwrCnkI
“Confessions of an Economic Hitman” is available to read for free at Scribd.
**********
http://www.scribd.com/doc/1470…..ic-Hit-Man
The CIA was meddling in Chile in the late 1950’s. A link at the site will take you to that information. They went in to destabilize ‘leftist’ groups.
**********
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20000919/
I can’t think of a more depressing message, and the worst thing about it is I can’t disagree with a thing that Galloway has written.
It sure seems as if darkness is falling.
It’s a strange coincidence that the proper response to Obama’s failure to follow through on the agenda he campaigned on is the same whether you’re really pissed off at him (as I am) or you consider him to be some sort of FDR chess master who wants us to make him do it. In either case the right thing is to get in his face, big time. And I’m impressed with how well Galloway does that.
Obama’s big fan Bob Herbert also did a good job yesterday. And LeftCoaster had some excellent commentary on Herbert’s remarks.
So, let’s “make him do it” and get in his face until he does it.