I commute, and I flip channels. I love politics, and football news. But listening to Stephanie Miller has been painful these last few days. I disagree so, so much.
She, along with Randi Rhodes are backing Obama with full throats. I don't get why they don't get it. He will never be reelected. He's done. He has moved his economic position way, way to the right of Ronald Reagan. Jesus, Bush would have been embarrassed to have ASKED for a deal like this. He is now campaigning for the Republican position, and this does tremendous harm to our nation.
Obama has just taken the political center, already way, way to the right of where Bill Clinton left it, and now has pushed it even further right. We have had to fight our own president these last two years, and he has dragged us right every time. Now, he has leaped to the right with this deal. Combine it with the cat food commission, and he has facilitated the destruction of the American middle class.
We have been holding at about our own 20 yard line, and Obama has just moved it back to the 10. Now we have 90 yards to go, instead of 80. That payroll deduction he is giving everyone - for one year - will be all but impossible for this president to remove. It assures the demise of Social Security - again, the evil will of the Republicans made manifest by Obama. This deal is 900 Billion dollars that my kids, and grandkids will have to pay, and will leave my retirement in tatters, and the Democratic party - once the only hope against the conservative destruction of America - holding the line well to the right of Reagan, to the right of Bush in some regards.
Obama is not a genius chess master. He is a Republican at heart and we were fooled. Either that or he is the weakest, most inept President in the last 80 or more years. He is dooming this country to economic disaster, and my children to a sub-European standard of living. We are all hostages of the multinational CEOs because Obama negotiated our future away. The corporations are draining us dry, then they will abandon us and move on to China and India.
Obama has taken on so much of the Republican position that it will be too hard for him to run against it in 2012. He is terrified of Citizens United money pouring in from multinational corporations, so he lurches towards their cornucopia of cash (which he will never get). But he leaves the American people behind. His messaging is so fouled, he has no hope. Even if independents rediscover him (which I don't think will happen), a big chunk of the Democratic Party is lost to him.
Look, Democrats spent almost 10 years fighting the Bush tax reductions for the rich. The base of that argument is that supply-side economics DOES NOT trickle down, therefore all but the rich get fucked. There is plenty of data to back that up. Obama has flipped on that principle in an instant, for this one deal that didn't need to be made. With the economy likely to still be the number one issue in 2012, how does he differentiate himself? As the guy who ruined America for a year of unemployment benefits?
Besides, here is a president who has majorities in both houses, and can't get anything done without the permission of the Republicans. He oozes weakness. 60 was NEVER the standard in the Senate until Obama became president. It was the exception, not the rule. And I am so, so sick of apologists saying "what can he do? It's those damn Republicans obstructing everything!" Bullshit! Would George W. Bush have stood for that? Hell no! He, dumb as he was, would have taken out a baseball bat and swung away. Remember 2006? When he lost the House and the Senate, on the Iraq War issue? He said "so you don't like my war, huh? Well you're gonna love my surge." He doubled down, and the entire Democratic Party folded.
Bush was an idiot who led this country in a terrible direction. But he was a leader.
This leads me to the other argument of the Obama apologists: that the Democratic Party is too diverse, and the blue dogs screw him every time. Well, Bush had dissenters in his party too. He kept them in line. Many of these are the Tea Party now, to whom Obama and the Democrats ceded the populist mantle. No, Obama gets pushed around by the blue dogs because he's easy to push. He throws up a wish list of legislation, and says "now you boys fight this out" to Congress. Then when he sees where the fight is, he rushes in to make a deal. Worse, he rushes in before his own party has a chance to make deals among the various caucuses. He doesn't lead. He should be leading us in the opposite direction of Bush. Instead he's following that same path economically, militarily and in the Justice Department.
You know, one more thing I hear in liberal talk media that drives me crazy is the argument that Monday morning quarterbacking does no good, and we have to get in line behind Obama because he is better than the Republican alternative. Look, I don't expect to agree with anyone all the time. But when you get screwed over and over again, at some point you have to say "no mas!" We are Americans - we are supposed to criticize our leaders when they do wrong!
He's not the guy we voted for. At least, not the President I thought I voted for. And in 2012 he will face an electorate suffering from four years of near 10% unemployment, high health insurance premiums (or, no health insurance at all), continued and even more unpopular wars, further economic inequity between rich and poor and, even bigger deficits because his friends the bankers have sucked all of the money out of the system. He will have been investigated about 750,000 times by House Republicans, because they will NOT look forward only, they will look back with a microscope (by the way, how did that strategy work out for us). The first thing they plan to do is dig out the details of all the back-room deals that the Obama Administration made with Big Pharma and the hospital groups. This will taint the one thing that Obama could claim as a big accomplishment - as "change," his health care legislation. This, plus all the corporate cash in the universe stacked against him. He has no chance.
Obama loses the swing states in 2012. His base will be demoralized, and independents will see him as weak and corrupt, and blame him for the economic pain they still feel. And they should blame him, because he has signed on for the policies that have brought that pain.
A primary candidate, with a strong populist message from the left, is the only Democratic hope. It is the hope in two ways. One, that the message is clear and consistent enough to pierce the veil of corporate cash that will rain on the 2012 election, thus allowing a slim hope of victory. Two, that the pressure of a groundswell from the left becomes too much for Obama to bear, and he switches course and begins to lurch towards that position. It will have to be a ton of pressure, because Obama is so used to running right.
Ah, god...just look at Boehner and McConnell, two ghouls with little or no personality or appeal. And these guys are mopping the floor with our side. How thin is the thread holding the sword of Damocles over us in 2012?
Primary NOW!
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