Fuck Obama

[82_28]

"You don't want him to be all cheesin' and grinnin' with you. You want him to be a little skeptical about the whole enterprise. So that was a real treat."

What? I don't think dubya even made a more stupid yet telling comment in all his years. Just don't be cheesin' up your March Madness brackets Mr. Prezzz.

[Simulist]

The Case for Liberal Apathy: An Overview of the Enthusiasm Gap

EUGENE, OREGON--Liberal Democrats are twice as likely as conservative Republicans to stay home this November. Establishmentarian liberals are urging left-of-center voters to ignore the President's failure to deliver--and his refusal to try--on the issues they care about.

"The biggest mistake we [Democrats] could make right now," urged Obama last week, "is to let impatience or frustration lead to apathy and indifference--because that guarantees the other side wins."

"Impatience"? That implies there's something to be impatient about. That Obama is moving too slowly. But that's not the case. Liberals don't see a slow process. They see no process.

And what, exactly, is this "other side"? On issue after issue, Obama has cut-and-pasted Bush's Republican policies. Which isn't surprising, given that he didn't appoint a single liberal to his Cabinet.

The real problem for the Dems is a perception gap.

The Democratic Party leadership thinks it deserves credit. They think they've accomplished a lot. "We've done the heavy lifting," bragged Nancy Pelosi, citing passage of the bailout, healthcare and financial regulation bills.

But liberal voters were against the bailout. They see the healthcare and financial reform bills as useless sellouts to corporations.

Loyal Democrats ask: Why are we still in Afghanistan and Iraq? Why is Guantánamo open? How come the President hasn't come up with a robust program to replace the millions of jobs lost during the last two years?

What's the difference between you and the Republicans?

A December 2009 piece by Frank Schaeffer titled "Obama Will Triumph--So Will America" perfectly summarizes the perception gap.

Obama, wrote Schaeffer, "thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices regarding the war in Afghanistan."

"But that wasn't good enough for his critics," he laments.

The best option in Afghanistan (as in Iraq) was and remains immediate withdrawal. But as we've learned from Bob Woodward's latest inside-the-White-House tome "Obama's Wars," getting the hell out was never considered. So no, it's not good enough. Not by half.

Schaeffer notes that Obama "gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights" and "banned torture of American prisoners."

Which is true. Sort of.

But there was no substance behind Obama's rhetoric. He could have signed an executive order abolishing "don't ask, don't tell." The torture "ban" exempts the CIA--the main agency responsible for waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques." Even in the four military branches, Matthew Alexander told The New York Times earlier this year, nothing much has changed: "If I were to return to one of the war zones today--as an Air Force officer, I was sent to Iraq to head an interrogation team in 2006--I would still be allowed to abuse prisoners."

Schaeffer also claimed that Obama "stopped the free fall of the American economy."

Say what? Been to a mall lately? If you're wondering where everyone went, you can find them at the unemployment office.

The thing is, Schaeffer and his fellow Obama apologists believe this stuff. What they don't get is that no one else does.

"We cannot sit this one [election] out," Obama said recently. "We can't let this country fall backward because the rest of us didn't care enough to fight."

Dude, you're the one who didn't fight.

You didn't fight with a 59-41 Democratic Senate or a 255-178 Democratic House.

You didn't promise much--and you didn't even deliver on what you promised.

Remember your promise to stop the NSA's illegal domestic surveillance program? Your promise to end "don't ask, don't tell"? To let the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule?

On that last point: yet another Democratic sellout.

Rather than risk a tight vote before the election, they rescheduled the vote for after the election--after a GOP sweep. Which means the rich will keep their windfall.

Fight?

Mr. President, you don't know the meaning of the word.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/10/05-11

Of course Obama didn't fight — he's on the same "team" as the Republicans in this "game."

And that is nothing worth "fighting for."

[Cosmic Cowbell]

Monday, December 21, 2009
Obama Will Triumph — So Will America
By Frank Schaeffer

Before he’d served even one year President Obama lost the support of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of life and ideological backgrounds -- including this white, straight, 57-year-old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader) this unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our President. Why?-- because he is succeeding.

We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us.

Obama’s steady supporters will be proved right. Obama’s critics will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.

The Context of the Obama Presidency

Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe, the Second World War and the Depression has any president faced more adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial integration has any president faced a more consistently short-sighted and willfully ignorant opposition – from both the right and left.

As the President’s poll numbers have fallen so has his support from some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago; all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the 2008 election.

The left’s lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling “prophecy”-- snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and then pretend you didn’t have anything to do with it!

Here is what Obama faced when he took office-- none of which was his fault:

# An ideologically divided country to the point that America was really two countries

# Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that was unnecessary and immoral

# The worst economic crisis since the depression

# America’s standing in the world at the lowest point in history

# A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture of prisoners of war

# A health care system in free fall

# An educational system in free fall

# A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions (about which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done nothing)

# An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left

# A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally irresponsible Bush administration…

And those were only some of the problems sitting on the President’s desk!

“Help” from the Right?

What did the Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and half-baked conspiracy theorists -- that is what the Republicans were reduced to by the time Obama took office -- do to “help” our new president (and our country) succeed? They claimed that he wasn’t a real American, didn’t have an American birth certificate, wasn’t born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating "racist", was secretly a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was a reincarnation of Hitler and wanted “death panels” to kill the elderly!

They not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so-subtle use of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized “tea parties” to sound off against imagined insults and all government in general and gathered to howl at the moon. They were led by insurance industry lobbyists and deranged (but well financed) “commentators” from Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh.

The utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who was trying to actually do something about the poor, the environment, to diminish the number of abortions through compassionate programs to help women and to care for the sick! And in Congress the Republican leadership only knew one word: “No!”

In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American far right,combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative war mongers, religious right shills for big business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies, child-molesting acquiescent “bishops”, frontier loons and evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at all costs!

“Help” from the Left?

What did the left do to help their newly elected president? Some of them excoriated the President because they disagreed with the bad choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan that he’d inherited from the worst president in modern history!

Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that the President’s economic policies had “failed” before the President even instituted them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been fully won within virtually minuets of the President taking office, they’d been “betrayed”! (Never mind that Obama’s vocal support to the gay community is stronger than any other president’s has been. Never that mind he signed a new hate crimes law!)

Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific emotion on election night turned into an angry mob saying how "disappointed" they were that they’d not all immediately been translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House! Where was the “change”? Contrary to their expectations they were still mere mortals!

And the legion of young new supporters was too busy texting to pay attention for longer than a nanosecond… “Governing”?! What the hell does that world, uh, like mean?”

The President’s critics left and right all had one thing in common: impatience laced with little-to-no sense of history (let alone reality) thrown in for good measure. Then of course there were the white, snide know-it-all commentators/talking heads who just couldn’t imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren’t as smart as they thought they were and certainly not as smart as their president. He hadn’t consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong!

The Obama critics' ideological ideas defined their idea of reality rather than reality defining their ideas—say, about what is possible in one year in office after the hand that the President had been dealt by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot nation that voted Bush into office… twice!

Meanwhile back in the reality-based community – in just 12 short months -- President Obama:

#Continued the draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices regarding the war in Afghanistan
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Restored America’s image around the globe
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Banned torture of American prisoners
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Stopped the free fall of the American economy
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort to halt global warming
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Stood up for educational reform
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Won a Nobel peace prize
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial system of checks and balances
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had failed to even begin
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good humor and patience
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Stopped the free fall of job losses
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and dangerous far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the “blood of tyrants” needing to “water the tree of liberty”…
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)

#Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but explain and defend them brilliantly
(But that wasn’t good enough for his critics)


Other than those "disappointing" accomplishments -- IN ONE YEAR -- President Obama “failed”! Other than that he didn’t “live up to expectations”!

Who actually has failed...

...are the Americans that can’t see the beginning of a miracle of national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed are the smart ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for this President to fail so that they could be proved right in their dire and morbid predictions. Who failed are the movers and shakers behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have turned “news” into just more stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted infantile country.

Here’s the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the help of his lefty “supporters” or hate-filled Republican detractors!

The Future Looks Good

After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on all fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries are burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proved not just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all Americans were panicked into thinking the sky was falling.

Just because we didn’t get everything we wanted in the first short and fraught year Obama was in office not all of us gave up. Some of us stayed the course. And we will be proved right.

Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays, depending on your point of view) to everyone!

PS. if you agree that Obama is shaping up to be a great president please pass this on and hang in there!

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of “Patience With God – Faith For People Who Don’t Like Religion (Or Atheism).”

http://frank-schaeffer.blogspot.com/200 ... erica.html

[Simulist]

That whiny Frank Schaeffer piece was bullshit back when it was first written in 2009. Since then it has become even more acutely obvious that Obama is, at best, a slightly more polished edition of Bush on a whole range of issues.

That's nothing worth fighting for.

That is something worth fighting against.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

That whiny Frank Schaeffer piece was bullshit back when it was first written in 2009. Since then it has become even more acutely obvious that Obama is, at best, a slightly more polished edition of Bush on a whole range of issues.

That's nothing worth fighting for.

That is something worth fighting against.

Knock yerself out then...

[Pele'sDaughter]

Continued the draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq

Just moved some of the troops to Afghanistan and filled in the rest with contractors. What we expected was an end to that war and prosecution of our war criminals. I notice that last part is conspiculously missing from the list.

Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices regarding the war in Afghanistan

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I usually pass over bad choices when thoughtfully and decisively picking. It's called integrity.

Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights

Precedent-setting?!? Which precedents would those be? How have gay rights changed? It certainly didn't make a difference to the ones who've become so sick of abuse they've killed themselves.

Restored America’s image around the globe

By continuing to kill civilians in other countries with drone strikes? The rest of the world is just as disappointed as I am that he didn't change the policies which hurt America's image.

Banned torture of American prisoners

I have a bridge to sell to anyone who believes torture was discontinued. His lip service isn't worth shit to me or to anyone being tortured at Gitmo or black sites.

Stopped the free fall of the American economy

No, he stopped the free fall of the firms who caused the catastrophe. The economy is still looking for the bottom.

Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community

I need a definition of "bilateral international community" before I comment on this one.

Stood up for educational reform

Great! Now let's see him actually accomplish something there.

Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort to halt global warming

Well, we wouldn't want any of his benefactors to miss opportunities for more carbon trading. I haven't seen any substance to stopping dirty industrial practices. If he was serious, he'd stop our military actions and close military bases. The US military is the most ecologically dangerous organization on the planet.

Won a Nobel peace prize

But he didn't bring peace! Absurd!

Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial system of checks and balances

And we all know how much justice is dispensed in the American system, hah. The military trials are still ongoing, and Gitmo is still full. And judges have said confessions extracted by threatening rape is A-okay. Hooray for American justice!

Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had failed to even begin

He refused to even mouth the words "single payer" which odd since that's what most of us wanted. He was more than happy to work hard with the insurance companies who wrote the fucking bill however.

Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good humor and patience

How wonderful that he has a sunny disposition. I could care less. He should fight for what is right for the people not try to keep peace with corporate sponsored legislators. Of course, he's one of them so it's not surprising.

Stopped the free fall of job losses

That was pulled right out of someone's ass and couldn't be farther from the truth.

Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and dangerous far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the “blood of tyrants” needing to “water the tree of liberty”…

He knows who has to keep happy to keep his life. As long as he keeps his sponsors happy, the Secret Service will continue to protect him successfully.

Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but explain and defend them brilliantly

I'd like to know which they're talking about. He is a cunning linguist.

I'm not rooting for anyone to fail and I'm quite sure his sponsors consider him a success at the moment, but he hasn't kept his word to WTP.

[Simulist]

For a while there it seemed that Frank Schaeffer was more honest than his father.

As it turns out, he's just like him — the lies he promotes are just different ones.

[Cosmic Cowbell]

You forgot one...

After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will)

[Simulist]

You forgot one...

After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will)

I'm sure you're right about that.

(Yet another of the many similarities with George W. Bush.)

[Cosmic Cowbell]

I'm sure you're right about that.

I've decided to quit while I'm ahead....



Seriously.

(I find myself a bit too trollish here today, posting just to piss some of my RI fellows off - and so I'll giver er a rest for awhile)

Until next time...

[Simulist]

Bob Woodward Revives Obama-Clinton 2012 Murmurs

They could team Obama up with Ralph Nader's younger, more "unreasonable" clone, and I still wouldn't consider voting for him.

(Or for anyone who still supports Obama's Bush-friendly administration, for that matter.)

But yeah, he'll probably "win" in 2012.

[Sounder]

Cowbell wrote…

I've decided to quit while I'm ahead....

It’s hard to believe that anyone could believe that they are ‘ahead’ after posting that lame Frank whats his name drivel.

But then again one should never be surprised about the beliefs of delusional people.

Thanks for breaking down Franks article, Pele’s Daughter. I could not get past my gag reflex far enough to even read the thing.


CC wrote...

(I find myself a bit too trollish here today, posting just to piss some of my RI fellows off - and so I'll giver er a rest for awhile)

CC, you flatter yourself if you think you are pissing anyone off. I for one always like to hear about where others consider rationality to lie.

[Pele'sDaughter]

Daschle Admits -- Then Denies -- That White House Agreed With Industry To Scrap Public Option

In a candid interview with the Center for American Progress this afternoon, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle acknowledged that the public option didn't survive the health care debate because of a "understanding" that the White House reached with health care industry stakeholders -- particularly with hospital and insurance company trade associations. But the White House has long denied this suggestion -- which was, until now, based mostly on speculation -- and within hours of the report's initial publication, Daschle, a close White House ally, retracted his statement entirely.

"I don't think it was taken off the table completely. It was taken off the table as a result of the understanding that people had with the hospital association, with the insurance (AHIP), and others," Daschle told Wonk Room's Igor Volsky. "I mean I think that part of the whole effort was based on a premise. That premise was, you had to have the stakeholders in the room and at the table. Lessons learned in past efforts is that without the stakeholders' active support rather than active opposition, it's almost impossible to get this job done. They wanted to keep those stakeholders in the room and [the public option] was the price some thought they had to pay."

That rendering flies in the face of the White House's narrative, so TPM emailed Daschle to ask whether his statement reflected first-hand knowledge of the stakeholder negotiations, or was a conclusion he'd drawn independently. In response, he walked back the entire claim.

"In describing some of the challenges to passage of the public option in the health reform bill, I did not mean to suggest in any way that the President was not committed to it," Daschle emails. "The President fought for the public option just as he did for affordable health care for all Americans. The public option was dropped only when it was no longer viable in Congress, not as a result of any deal cut by the White House. While I was disappointed that the public option was not included in the final legislation, the Affordable Care Act remains a tremendous achievement for the President and the nation."

And so the game of whodunnit continues.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010 ... hp?ref=fpb

[Cosmic Cowbell]

I get the feeling that what most wish for here when it comes to politics and governance is simply a dictatorship. That with a wave of his hand, a President may simply, by decree, make things so.

Politics is kludgy, a game of compromise, feints, deals and if necessary for the longer term greater good, capitulation.

For an outstanding example of this, you might check out Ryan Lizza's excellent New Yorker article on the failure of the government wrt to climate change legislation.

As The World Burns

This is the Game. Like it or not. Messy, kludgy and sometimes, full of disappointment. For those who desire a dictatorship, whereby with the sweep of the hand, the POTUS may simply withdraw troops, implement socialized medicine, prosecute the past and so on, I would only suggest that you be ready for the shoe to be on the other foot. War at the whim of a dictator, the instantaneous removal of a woman's right to choose and on and on.

I'll take the kludge over the alternative any day.

[Luther Blissett]

I wonder what they threatened Daschle with after he accidentally made the first comment.