This Is Why

Over the past two or three weeks, President Obama and his spokespeople having been working double-time to try to enthuse their progressive base. With the prospects of a GOP takeover on Election Day growing more and more certain, Obama has even adopted the odd strategy of scolding those of us on the left side of the aisle. Yes, he admits, he may not have come through with the things he promised, but we must give him and the Democrats another chance.

This is the ploy of an administration and political party that are desperate! Since they have frittered away the last two years and possess few policy victories to show for it, all they are left with is trying to blame their own supporters for losing faith.

Writing in The Progressive, editor Matthew Rothschild shows one of the many reasons why there is little reason to have any faith in these folks. While the foreclosure scandal broadens, the Obama administration has chosen to sit on the sidelines on their hands!

How ironic is it that the banks are the ones that are finally imposing a moratorium on foreclosures, rather than the Obama Administration.

On Friday, Bank of America announced that it was halting its foreclosures in all fifty states amid a scandal over whether it and other banks had been using proper documentation in foreclosure proceedings.

JP Morgan Chase and Ally Financial also have halted foreclosures, at least in the 23 states that require a judge to sign off on the deals.

The attorney general in one state after another is looking into possible fraudulent foreclosures.

But all the while Obama Administration still resists backing a moratorium.

On Sunday David Axelrod went on Face the Nation to dismiss the idea again.

But the moratorium always was and is a good idea. Hillary Clinton, by the way, proposed it during the 2008 campaign. It would put a floor on the falling housing market, and most importantly, it would allow several million people to stay in their homes and have a little breathing room.

Obama himself could have negotiated this moratorium when the bankers came crawling to Washington desperate for our bailout money. He could have made it a condition: They could get the bailout money only if they agreed not to foreclose on anyone for at least a year. (Or he could have forced them to reduce the principal on all their mortgages by 25 percent or 30 percent.)

But Obama chose to do nothing...

This is one of many reasons that liberals and progressives can't muster much enthusiasm this year. Rather than scolding the faithful, Obama could certainly shore up his base IF he made some sort of decisive move. But alas, he stands there like a deer caught in the headlights and those headlights are coming from the surging GOP caravan!