Obama is not Weak, He's Conservative, and This is a Gut Punch

I have bristled with rage as I have listened to the news of the health care bill in the Senate. Fucking assholes! They are doing major damage to us, as sure as shootin' with Dick Cheney. Lieberman and his new butt buddy Senator Nelson (the one from Nebraska) have played a Bushian game on the Senate, and they (the Senate Dems) caved like bitches.

And yes, the liberals in the Senate are weak. They are weak because they care about Americans and are letting those who don't hold us hostage. A senator like Bernie Sanders knows how fucked-up this bill is, how it is among the most corrupt enterprises ever foisted on the American people. He also knows it will give health care to about 30 million people who don't have it. This hedges his opposition, he wants so badly to help those people get what they need.

This makes me think of the movie "Speed." When Kianu Reeves' character decides the best way to deal with a hostage delima is to shoot the hostage (just a flesh wound). We need a real liberal who can aim well enough for a flesh wound. We need real liberals to call the bluff, to shoot uninsured Americans in the leg if necessary and learn what Leiberman and Nelson have learned - don't compromise.

But I'm getting off track. My post title is about Obama. Liberal columnists, radio hosts and bloggers have been all over the map this week. The most oft-repeated complaint is the wish that the President would "get tough" with these senators, and join in the fight for the public option. I think that this is horrible analysis. He has gotten tough - too tough.

When you hear criticism of Obama's weakness, you usually hear about his failure to fight for the public option. But make no mistake, Obama has weighed in on the public option at least two times, with great impact. Once with Harry Reid, and once with the Senate Dems. Both times he made it clear - kill the public option.

Shit, Max Baucus and Kent Conrad tried for months to kill the public option, but it was stubborn - the American people wanted it badly. Obama met with the Senate two weeks ago and killed it in half an hour. You think that's not tough? Before that, when Reid asked for help getting the option, Obama made it clear that he was "on his own."

Obama put a serious smack-down on the public option. He was certainly more deft about fucking the American people than Bush was, but no less effective. He still may do this without too much blood on his hands. He also effectively killed Chuck Schumer's Drug Reimportation amendment. All those senators looked butt-sore after that fell down. Obama basically orchestrated a filibuster against a measure that would have greatly lowered drug prices for Americans. He filibustered his own party! He is a Machiavellian badass!

But he sure as hell is not a liberal. Nor is he in favor of the much vaunted "change" (TM Obamacorp). With Wall Street, wars, and in general sucking the chrome off of corporate trailer hitches of the Medical Industrial Complex, he is not much different from Bush/Cheney. And this is what hurts so much.

I was adamant about Obama's election in the primary. I so wanted him to beat Hillary because I did NOT want a right-of-center, DLC corporate shill candidate to win. I really did get sucked in by the "change" mantra. Now we must come to grips with the fact that Obama used the netroots to unseat Hillary as the new master of the Democratic corporate gravy-train. He used us, not to fight the power, but to solidify power for a narrow, non-liberal cadre of Dems who are now loyal to him. And everyone else better get in line or else he won't even throw a bone, like forcing 30 million Americans to buy private insurance from the same companies who shovel campaign money into Democratic coffers.

And this is what would make Tom Delay blush. And why I am so profoundly disappointed. With no anti-trust reinstatement, with no cost controls, and NO PUBLIC OPTION, Democrats will force Americans to buy a product they may not want from companies who give money to Democrats. This is so corrupt it makes a decaying corpse look good by comparison. Obama is using his political muscle for this, not for change. We now know who he is.

And it sucks. It sucks to have a president who will give billions to asshole bankers so they can have more bonuses while there is 10% unemployment. It sucks to know that our president will escalate a war in Afghanistan even though there is no credible partner in the country to work with. It sucks to know that our president cares more about the CEOs of Primera, Wellpoint and Big Pharma than he does about hundreds of millions of people like me.

It sucks to know that I voted for him.