Don't Criticize the President

For most of the president's tenure, he, his staffers and his devoted-but-dwindling army of sycophants have insisted that the political fallout from the crushing recession reflects unrealistic expectations of Obama in the wake of George W. Bush's destructive reign. It is, dare I say, an audacious claim, especially coming from a candidate who asked us all to have the "audacity of hope" -- and it's more than a little insulting. After all, much of the complaints about the president have been about campaign promises that he didn't just fail to fulfill -- but that he refused to even try to fulfill.

Indeed, when a political candidate promises to try to pass a public option to compete with private insurers, attempt to crack down on Wall Street abuse, do what he can to stop unfair trade deals, oppose extending his predecessors tax cuts and avoid initiating costly new wars sans congressional approval, and then once in office works to kill a public option, refuses to prosecute Wall Street crimes, presses the rigged trade deals he opposed, supports the extension of his predecessor's tax cuts and starts a new war in Libya with no congressional authorization -- whose fault is it that he ends up in reelection trouble?

I'd say the answer is obvious -- I'd say that if such a politician wasn't in reelection trouble, it would be a sign that our democracy is in a deeper crisis than it already is.

But, then, merely citing this record brings accusations of treason, at least from Democratic staffers, pundits and activists in Washington. In an age of politics that has melded politicians with celebrity and activism with starfucking, to be a rank-and-file progressive and honestly examine a candidate's record during a reelection campaign is to risk being portrayed as a dangerous, seditious, ideologically zealous revolutionary.

After Wednesday night, though, the power of this kind of with-us-or-against-us partisanship will face it's ultimate test. Because while the intricacies of health care, Wall Street regulations and trade pacts can be muddled with esoterica and while Democratic presidents have shown a deft ability to soothe their base by conflating militarism with humanitarianism (the same trick, of course, that Republicans use for their militarist adventures), this Democratic president is aiding a new war on Social Security, the single most popular social program in American history, a program that the Democratic Party has -- both in principle and out of sheer self-interest -- long based its brand on. Whether Obama ultimately champions specific cuts or just floats the general possibility of such cuts, the larger news is that he has now legitimized them as a negotiating chip -- and importantly, he made such a move on his own, not because of circumstantial necessity.
~ from If Obama Cuts Social Security... by David Sirota ~

Yes folks, another snippet critical of Mr. Obama. I will continue to feature these because there are a lot of self-defined progressives out there who keep falling all over themselves trying to excuse away his mounting shortcomings. There are lots of people out there who believe that -- for no apparent reason -- a 2nd term will be far rosier than the already disastrous first-term.

Another thing that should be remembered is that I DIDN'T VOTE FOR HIM! The reason I didn't vote for him is because this is exactly the kind of presidential administration I expected. I wasn't duped by his campaign pledges nor his "audacity of hope" slogan. I knew the man was a Wall Street centrist, not a liberal and certainly NOT some left-wing socialist.