He Gets It

Trey Smith

In a speech earlier this week, President Obama started to sound like the progressive many thought he was. Utilizing the language of the Occupy Movement, he declared that the 99 percent are receiving a raw deal and it is the Republicans who are doing the chief bidding of the 1 percent.

A lot of liberal and progressive pundits have applauded the President's bold move. They have chortled that Obama now "gets it." Surprisingly, I agree with them. The only point of disagreement concerns what the it is that Barack gets.

The pundits believe that Obama now understands that progressives are a force to be reckoned with in 2012 and he is prepared to lead the charge. He has stated on more than one occasion that all he needed to pursue the progressive agenda (that he says he's always believed in) is a concerted push by the American people. Now that the push is being made, he's ready to go marching off in that direction.

Sadly, that's NOT the "it" that I think the incumbent presidents gets. No, I strongly believe that what he understands -- he understood it well in 2008 -- is that, to be re-elected, he needs to sound like a progressive.

He's had opportunity after opportunity over the last 3 years to walk his talk of 2008. In almost every single case, he hasn't. He has gone back on almost every campaign pledge he made. During these 3 years, he has served the interests of the 1 percent very well and he's now fundraising on Wall Street to build up the biggest campaign war chest in the history of presidential campaigns.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of the American sheeple are about as gullible as humanly possible and that's what his campaign team is banking on. It is their sincere hope that a bit of populist rhetoric thrown into speeches here and there is all Obama needs to cause people to forget his woeful track record.