[From The Progressive Review]

Sam Smith

As inevitable disillusionment grows with Barack Obama, thanks to his lackluster performance, unfulfilled promises and often indistinguishable variation from his predecessor, it is perhaps time to put our toys away and return to real life.

The Obama campaign was in many ways just a misleading trailer hyping what’s turned out to be a third rate film. And as one does not remain the prisoner of Hollywood’s puerile productions, there is no reason to give politics’ any greater loyalty. You just admit you blew the evening and move on.

The record is indisputable: the expansion of the AF-Pak imperial war, a stimulus package that bailed out the largest banks and left workers and struggling homeowners as “lagging indicators,” a plan designed to improve the health of insurance companies more than that of all Americans, and a continuation of contempt for the Constitution.

One of the reasons Obama has felt comfortable pursuing such conservative politics is that, commencing with Clinton, a large segment of the liberal constituency has come to accept the view that incumbency is a reasonable substitute for sound policy. The depressing healthcare debate and lack of opposition to the Af-Pak war reflect the disappearance of a vigorous liberal base that actually believes in something and presses for it with the same sort of passion those on the right demonstrate so frequently.

In fact, if you scrap traditional presumptions and look at the American political spectrum based on specific issues, you find that the layout is not anywhere close to what we are told. Most striking is that traditional liberals, Obama and Democrats in general are closer to the GOP on many more these issues than they are to true progressives, Libertarians or Greens. In fact, on about a half of current big issues, Libertarians are closer to progressives or Greens than they are to the GOP.

The lesson? It helps to know who your friends are. But also how few they are. Pollsters generally give those who are left of center – including Greens, radicals or populist progressives – only one choice of self-identification: liberal. Yet even this inflated category is much smaller than generally acknowledged. Here’s a chart from American Election studies, showing the percent of those calling themselves liberal since 1972. The percentage has varied merely nine points over this period, with the peak tally at 23%.

And it gets worse. Of those calling themselves liberal, 8 to 11 percent described themselves as only “slightly liberal,” whereas the number who described themselves as “extremely liberal” never got above two percent. According to Gallup, the only groups in 2003 that comprised a quarter or more of liberals were those who had gone to grad school and 18-38 year olds.
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I have played around with this idea for hours now, on whether or not to write this piece.  But the events of the last few hours, I believe, mandate that I raise my voice once again.

I have read and re-read President Obama’s Joint Congressional Address.  All of the “acceptable punditry” have spoken and given the President glowing reviews.  And so, to them and the population that still believes in them, “All is right with the world.”  But for the rest of us, who refuse to swallow the pill that puts us into the Matrix, a good dose of reality is strongly called for.

But reality is not what we’re getting, not even from one of the national columnists whom I’ve met, Maureen Dowd.

I think Maureen Dowd characterized it as “Spock at the Bridge.”  Now, being the Trekkie that I am, that headline grabbed my attention.  I nearly gagged, however, when I got to the line supposedly from President Obama calling President Bush to proclaim, “‘I’m ending your stupid war.’ Mission Relinquished.”

Why write things like this now that it is clear that the Obama Administration is continuing the Bush policies for missile strikes inside Pakistan; torture; rendition for torture; public release of Bush Administration e-mails; illegal wiretaps; status of prisoners at the U.S. base in Bagram, Afghanistan; and workplace immigration raids?   (more…)

CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

On the Rocks

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

I write these words at the end of a week in which:

A new Democratic president, Barack Obama, via his Attorney General, has explicitly endorsed Bush’s policy on renditions and Bush’s refusal to recognize the jurisdiction of US courts in any legal proceedings in this regard; also a week in which Obama’s solicitor general has explicitly endorsed  Bush’s policy on enemy combatants. 

I write not long after the New York Times reported that state welfare rolls are actually shrinking in months when unemployment has risen to real totals of 17 and 18 per cent – 1.7 million in Dec and Jan, hence when more and more people are in desperate straits. This is a consequence of a former Democratic president’s “reform” of welfare in the mid-90s.

Back then, Clinton reached out in the spirit of bipartisanship to Republicans to effect this piece of legislative savagery. In the same spirit of bipartisanship Obama invited a New Hampshire right-winger, Judd Gregg, to be his Commerce Secretary, while simultaneously pledging that Judd’s vacated seat would be filled by… a Republican!  Ultimately, Judd contemptuously kicked away the proffered hand of friendship.

For much of last year progressives rallied support for Obama  not just with scenarios of the destruction that would be wrought by John McCain, but with screams of fear at the menace of right-wing populist insurgency, embodied in the supposed threats to mainstream consensus represented by Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin. You know, fascists; at least two of them Christian fascists. Head for the deep shelters and vote Democrat! Vote for change.

The menace of the Christian hordes?   Christians now exult that Obama is talking of a waiver on constitutional prohibitions concerning federal support for faith-based initiatives. As the Los Angeles Times editorialized angrily last week, “Like his predecessor, Obama has supported providing federal grants and contracts to social-service programs operated by religious groups. The surprise — an unpleasant one — is that he is equivocating on a campaign promise to condition such aid on an agreement by religious charities not to discriminate in hiring.”

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From back in December. -RS

[From Mikhaela's News Blog]

I’m really glad I’m not going to the inauguration anymore (though it might have been nice to do some protesting). I’m saddened and enraged and I’m not listening to one more word of that lying fake’s goddamn audiobook.

Obama had the GALL to defend his choice of a hateful fundamentalist bigot who compares being gay to pedophilia and bestiality by talking about “diversity”, “inclusivity” and “the magic of this country” or some nonsense. Really? REALLY? It’s MAGICAL and INCLUSIVE to give a prominent role in your inaugural ceremony to a hatemongering misogynist bigot? This quote is priceless–and scary, as he indicates that the makeup of his inaugural is a foreshadowing of how he plans to govern:

That’s part of the magic of this country, is that we are diverse and noisy and opinionated,” he added. “That’s the spirit in which, you know, we have put together what I think will be a terrific inauguration. And that’s, hopefully, going to be a spirit that carries over into my administration.”

Rick Warren doesn’t just have nice little opinions he shares in a nice respectful way. Rick Warren was a MAJOR force in a successful campaign to discriminate against millions of Americans (Prop 8, obviously).

Also, Obama has the gall to claim he’s still a “fierce” advocate of gay equality–apparently extending to allowing a gay marching band to participate in the festivities.

Where was his inclusivity and magic and diversity and fierce advocacy when he decided NOT to appoint any openly LGBT people to a cabinet or staff post in his administration?

Are any of you still full of Obama hopes and dreams? Hell, he hasn’t even STARTED yet and I’m already sick to my stomach with Clinton deja vu.

Hate is not magical. Much much more analysis, links and so forth on this topic on Pam’s House Blend.

Hope and change, my ass.

Article printed from Pajamas Media
By Jennifer Rubin

Perhaps it is all a gigantic head fake. Maybe President-elect Obama is going to dash Left as soon as he utters the words “So help me God” next week. But so far, there seems to be the most astounding and sweeping repudiation of a president’s own base of support in the offing since … well, since forever.

Bill Kristol documents the “change” — otherwise known as “continuity” — President-elect Obama is preparing us for on a raft of Bush administration international policies. The difficult task of finding an alternative to Guantanamo is going to get careful consideration, Dick Cheney has wise counsel, and Israel policy will echo the Bush and Clinton eras. That’s President-elect Obama’s take, not some Republican’s, as expressed on ABC’s This Week. Kristol writes:

[T]the Obama transition team’s chief national security spokeswoman, Brooke Anderson, was denying a press report that Obama’s advisers were urging him to initiate low-level or clandestine contacts with Hamas as a prelude to change in policy. Anderson told The Jerusalem Post that the story wasn’t accurate, and reminded one and all that Obama “has repeatedly stated that he believes that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to Israel’s destruction, and that we should not deal with them until they recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by past agreements.”

On Iran, Obama did say he’d be taking “a new approach,” that “engagement is the place to start” with “a new emphasis on being willing to talk.” But he also reminded Stephanopoulos that the Iranian regime is exporting terrorism through Hamas and Hezbollah and is “pursuing a nuclear weapon that could potentially trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.” He said his willingness to talk would be combined with “clarity about what our bottom lines are” — one of them presumably being, as he’s said before, no Iranian nuclear weapons. And he demonstrated a sense of urgency — “we anticipate that we’re going to have to move swiftly in that area.”

So: After talks with Iran (if they happen) fail to curb Iran’s nuclear program, but (perhaps) impress other nations with our good faith, we’ll presumably get greater international support for sanctions. That will also (unfortunately) fail to deter Iran. “Engagement is the place to start,” Obama said, but it’s not likely to be the place Obama ends. He’ll end up where Bush is — with the choice of using force or acquiescing to the idea of a nuclear Iran.

And James Pethokoukis provides an even more comprehensive list of the very non-liberal plans for the candidate who was billed (by friends and foes alike) as the most liberal man to run for the presidency since George McGovern:

Even worse for the Left, Obama advisers are now signaling, says the New York Times, “that they may put off renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, overhauling immigration laws, restricting carbon emissions, raising taxes on the wealthy, and allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military.” You know, like, pretty much the very heart and soul of the liberal policy agenda. Even healthcare reform might only be getting what aides call a “down payment” as a “sign of dedication to the broader goals.” Let the wretching begin, Daily Kossacks. (Fun Fact: Obama gave his big economic speech at George Mason University, a bastion of free-market scholarship.)

But it’s Obama’s $800 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that will be ground zero in this coming liberal internecine battle. “Way too much Reagan, not nearly enough FDR,” griped some key liberals about a plan that would, in addition to the tax cuts, still provide a whopping half-trillion dollars over two years in government spending for infrastructure, healthcare, education, clean energy, grants to states, and aid to lower-income and unemployed folks.

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