Hunter,

Thank you for the very excellent essay. I won’t attempt to respond to all of your very excellent points, but I would like to note the most spectacular.

You write…

• “It is unfortunate that his basic integrity becomes a weakness in this sham of a system. I hope he opts to just lose and keep his scruples, if that is what it comes down to in the end.”

I hope the same, and I believe that he will. It’s of paramount importance that he does. I have to have that much faith.

On the other hand, I also have faith in the American people, to come together against the forces that have created our destruction. So, my faith is that it will NOT come down to this in the end. (Obama’s loss that is) because a loss for him would mean a loss for ALL of us. (ALL of us minus the corporatists and the 1% that currently own us all).

There can be no doubt that the system is SUCH a scam, that unless we reclaim it now, though the basic integrity that we recognize in Barack Obama as the only viable leader who could bring us back to those basics, we probably will not have another opportunity before all is lost. That is what makes this such an urgently crucial time for all Americans, not to mention the rest of the world that would continue to come under the attack of America’s militarism.

•
”I hate it when he does try to “politic”, and thank goodness that it is not his strength and he really isn’t so good at it as Clinton.”

Ah yes…this has been the source not just of my own ‘criticism’ of him, but also my very greatest fear for him, since long before he ever decided to undertake this mission that is really our only collective ‘salvation’ at this point. In short, I was very much afraid that Barack Obama could become corrupted by the system, in order to survive the system. That’s because I’m old enough and experienced enough myself, to know EXACTLY what he would be up against. (and I should add that you’ve explained it superbly, in noting how very anxious and determined the neo-cons and the neo-liberals are, to destroy any chances of returning this country to the people, which is of course what Obama represents – returning our country to us).

Many of us have hoped that this ‘politicking’ by him is simply a matter of him needing to do whatever is required in this sham of a system, in order to get to the place where he actually CAN utilize his brilliance, pragmatism, and integrity, to the advantage of the common good of all Americans. I don’t KNOW that to be the case, since I cannot read his mind.

As a NON-religious person, this is one of those crucial times, when I have to rely on a measure of faith. But then, faith and religiosity aren’t the same.

Thanks again for this contribution.

Actually, it was Clinton who waged war on Democratic Party history when he turned his back on the New Deal and gave us NAFTA, the WTO, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and deregulation.

Yes, politics is messy.  The question would then be, “What did Bill Clinton get?” We know what he gave, but what did he get in return?

Perhaps you should go back and look at the Clinton administration through the lens of history, rather than memory, and review how it went about business.

Why is that so few people remember that Clinton didn’t have any health-care policy until he had to have one, because Kerrey and Tsongas had them...and the former was talking loudly about it all the time.

The argument that he came to power just before the cusp of Republican ascendancy holds a great deal of water; it dovetails nicely with the fact that he probably wouldn’t have won in ‘92 if Perot hadn’t run so well.  But that doesn’t excuse his failures, nor does his sailing into a head wind make him a great...or even good president.  It only proves that he spent 8 years tacking back and forth...only to end up further back than where he started.

He didn’t just “buy” the NAFTA pitch, he resurrected it from the grave...against his own party.  Again, read the history books.  You’ll find that Hillary wasn’t opposed to NAFTA, but that she was opposed to it taking up political capital that could have been used on health-care (and scheduling).

Foreign policy?  Ok, it was better than W.Bush..but that’s like saying that living under Mussolini would be way better than living under Hitler.  When he paid any attention to it at all (and his NSA and SoS were appointed with the clear instructions to not bother him with anything less than crises) he worked towards the same end goal as Bush...only he did it with neo-liberal economic policy rather than military might.

His legacy was that he played a shitty hand badly.  Yet he thinks that his legacy is greatness, and so do many others.  It isn’t about ideology (at least not from me).  It’s about reality.  The reality is that no mess was “cleaned up”; worse yet, much of the foundation for Bush’s economic house of cards was laid by Clinton.

You know, he’s only responsible for the death of 500,000 Iraqi children...but it was “worth it”.  That’s ideology, and it’s the same ideology as Bush’s...and it’s probably the same ideology as Obama’s.  Is it the same ideology as yours?

Just because politics is a difficult, give and take business does not excuse mistakes or wrongs.