Okay, raise your hands… how many of you voted for/supported BH Obama because of the obvious brilliance of his oratory, the superlative managerial success of his campaign and his demonstrated intellect in the age of The Bush?
Yeah, me too.
But not without reservations; there were those and I agreed with them that Obama was a bit of an empty suit with respect to policy and his real politics were probably somewhere closer to the "center" of the political spectrum. Now we’re finding out that that’s not just true, but painfully true.
Obama has not demonstrated much leadership on his "signature" issue, allegedly healthcare. We (the progressive Democrats) worked our asses off to deliver both houses of Congress and the White House after six and eight solid years respectively, of iron-fisted republican rule to a party and a man we thought would at least pretend to uphold an agenda we could live with. Apparently not.
Obama needs to understand, and perhaps now he’s beginning to get there, that NO republican will either support him publically or privately on any single issue he brings up. Whether it’s because of their own ideology or if it’s just to embarrass him by acting amenable and then dumping him like the cute girl punking the class nerd (and the republicans are just that high-school), their mantra is still that bi-partisanship is still akin to date rape.
If LBJ had approached civil rights legislation the way Obama is approaching his "signature" issue of Health Care we would today be parsing Jim Crow laws to find parts that give the least offense to white southerners and anti-miscegenation laws would still be on the books in plenty of states.
An incrementalist approach to health care is not going to work, Obama either needs to lead and do the right thing or just admit that he’s a highly-paid corporate lackey and enjoy his next three years of rent-free living in DC before he goes off to serve on the boards of 40 of the Fortune 50 companies and become obscenely rich and join the beltway elite for the 21st Century.
Obama’s place in history is already assured, maybe that’s all he ever wanted. Because his drive to succeed seems tempered by this whole addiction to "bi-partisanship" thing which is killing the rest of us.
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OK, I agree.
But what do you want to do?
Take on the system? The system that is designed to screw you?
I love this place. The system sucks. Take it on.
What mystifies and upsets me greatly is that Obama watched his own dying mother fight with her insurance company — and he is doing nothing, so far, to prevent any other American’s having to do the same thing.
HE KNOWS. And it is becoming painfully obvious that he can say the words without any heart behind them.
Michele was, I fear, right about him the first time.
Yes, of course, I hope that he’ll nonetheless come out on Wednesday for the single-payer health care that we must and will have in the end. For we will eventually have it. Nothing else is sustainable.
It would, however, be better to get it without all those human sacrifices to the insurance companies that Americans now must make each year.
Hes just not as hip as we thought he was. I think the WH is listening to a lot of Clinton era LOSERS who are stuck in 1993. they “have learned well the lesons of 1993″ that was VERY important in 1994, now? not so much. this is a MOVEMENT no doubt. The country in electoral terms faulted to left this election and I dont think they even KNOW it.
I didn’t vote for Obama but he is much worse than even I thought he would be.
Me also…Nader, just to vote my conscience.
When I pointed out to friends that Obama wasn’t actually saying anything in his speeches, they still didn’t hear it. They wanted him to be MLK. When I asked them to name a specific issue that was important to them (and some had to think about that) and then pointed out that Obama was not in favor of their position (Afghanistan, Cuba, for example), they didn’t believe me. I was glad he won — for about five seconds. Then I was sad. He had built up hope. He had made people believe they could change things, or that things would change. And so many people, all over the world, were going to be so profoundly disappointed. Some of these friends, however, are not disappointed at all. They refuse to be disillusioned.
I also voted my conscience — for Nader. But maybe it’s time for people to stop being so hung up about presidents and parties and presidential campaigns. It’s a meaningless rush and it’s a purposeful distraction from organizing around issues, which is where the real power lies.
Jo, one of the most eloquent and concise critiques I have read. You nail it!