Night-Gaunt, January 21 at 4:21 pm

The turnout in Massachusetts was forty percent. Great indeed for an off term election held in rather inclement weather.

But you got Virginia exactly right! Clueless always.

“Obama is on the road to being a one-term president who’s sole accomplishment
will be his election as the first bi-racial US president.”

I wish I felt good about the author’s assessment here.  But, much of the support Obama received as the vote was coming in for him, came from that apparently large element of the voting public that responded in the manner described clumsily by Reid, as the product of Obama being “...a ‘light skinned’ negro…,” that, also, to paraphrase Reid, didn’t sound like a negro. Obama instantly agreed with Reid’s view.  There’s nothing historical in this election; nothing revolutionary, if his highly questionable victory over Hillary, in the nomination, was gotten in this manner.  Apparently a sufficent number voted for him precisely because he wasn’t “so” black; but, because Obama was White enough, and sounded White enough to nullify their discomfort with the darker “races.”

I take it as evidence that Blacks, now, are the only group whose support of Obama has remained all but completely secure.  I interpret this to mean, that most Blacks see Obama’s presidency as a stunning and unprecedented victory for Blacks, and don’t much care about his achievements or lack therof, as the president of the all the citizens of our country.

It’s obvious, that all of Obama’s supporters and voters, regardless of the color of their skin, were deceieved.

I would say that getting organized would be important but just as
the dimocrats can’t get anything done because of a slightly
different and/or intentional charade of disorganization feigning a
separate party, we here on the internet are really and inherently
disorganized and becoming organized would take going public
which again here on the internet most of us use some moniker to
mask ourselves and the bickering amongst us also doesn’t lend
itself to organizing.

I would like to think that some blog site like this or Huff Post, or
Politico would find a way to bring people together under a
common cause with a well defined logical purpose that would
unify a group that could get something done, but it may be that
information, real information that can be spread over and
competes with the msm channels would have to be critical for
anything to work.

For me, voting out any incumbent is best for now and hope that
the crooks will finally cross a line that will get people off their ass
and do something, stop watching crap on tv is essential.

As for big banks, I thought that if enough people stopped giving
them their money and quit using any of their services that that
would make those ‘too big to fail’ to really fail.

But another impediment is that far too many people are driven by emotions and that goes nowhere.

By RBShea, January 20 at 10:09 am #

Based on his early selections of advisors Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers and Tim
Geithner, Obama signaled his intention to follow a Democratic Leadership Council
philosophy of governing as Republican-Lite. What’s followed, from health
insurance “reform” to the wars and coziness with Wall Street and Big Pharma, was
predictable. His well-crafted marketing campaign appears to have been just that.
Obama is on the road to being a one-term president who’s sole accomplishment
will be his election as the first bi-racial US president.

Exactly, and as many came here to blindly defend his selections and appointments, many of us dissented. Predictable is an understatement. What would be nice is if Presidential candidates were forced to disclose their intended pending nominations ahead of the elections. I think many were surprised by his appointments, but the outcome was easy and obvious to foretell. Besides, the signs were there even before the nominations if you were paying attention.

The author of this article is clearly in a state of denial and seems oblivious to the true problems. “Drilling beneath the headlines”? C’mon Truthdig.

“where is he, exactly, on the political spectrum? “

Easy. In the back pocket of those who put him in office.
The Supreme Court (rhymes with “bought”) just closed the flap and buttoned it to ensure he stays there.

JDMYSTICDJ
Why the are you bothering me with your crap?  You’re another one like Truedigger3.  He, like you, have been telling me that my preference for the Clintons over Obama, is something I ought to be ashamed of, and should lead me to a psychiatrist, and appropriate medications.  Everyone but yourselves are crazy, eh?  I’ll wager that your desire and effort to marginalize and demean the Clintons is far greater than my effort to defend them against the garbage people like yourself keep throwing at them.  All anyone need do, is pay careful attention to the way you and ‘digger3 talk about them.  I can’t believe the impudence and arrogance people like you and ‘digger3 reveal.  Who do you think you are telling me which leaders I should honor, or telling me that I’m not permitted to berate Obama for his gross and outrageous lies and his embarrassing incomptetence?  You bet your ass, I’m “...still on this Clinton thing,” but I’m sure as hell, not a gullible fool like yourself, that continues to cover for a spineless failure like Obama.  Did you think, that people, including republicans, wouldn’t notice that Obama was such a fuckup, as long as the people on this chatlist continue, with you as our guide, to pretend that “poor Obama” just hasn’t had enough time?  Maybe if we’re all good pretenders, kinda like Obama is, the rest of the world won’t notice that he’s sold our country to Goldman-Sachs.  You imbecile.  I emptied my wallet, and fought for Hillary during the nomination ritual, and I continue to fight for her, because I know that she’s 100 times better qualified for the office of the presidency than the buffoon you want us to lie for.

In fact, I truly don’t give a shit what you think.  But I do give a shit that you wrote to me personally.  Get off my back, and stay off, simpleton.

Barack Obama, who I campaigned for, financially and as a volunteer… had better take some testosterone and start standing up to the people who have played him like a piano (of both parties) for a year - interfering with every one of his initiatives! The alternative is to call Mayflower now and book them for January 2013. More of the same impotence, will lead to early withdrawal (from the Whitehouse).

Virginia 777

Keep up the good fight. I have given up on convincing these people to be constructive, rather than destructive.

Clearly we have fallen into a very deep and scary corporatist hole, but without benefit of wings, a slow and tedious climb is the only way out.

Destroying Obama will only make that climb more difficult.

(Just between you and me, I’m more committed to defeating corporatist power, and a resurgence of the left, than these nihilists are. Honestly, these nihilists need to study history, then they would see how creating this kind of chaos opens the door to the worst elements of fascism.)

johncp

Damn! Are you still on this Clinton thing? They now have medication for compulsive - obsessive disorder. You need to check that out.

Your portrayal of the Clinton’s as being angels, while Obama is the devil, causes me to exercise the utmost in personal restraint, in order not to be insulting.

Unfortunately, there appears to be little difference between the politics of the Clintons and Obama.

The only obvious difference seems to be one of bitchiness, as in, “My husband isn’t Secretary of State, I am, you chauvinist pig.” (My paraphrase.)

I see case after case where Obama is compared, with stupifying imbecility, with Bill Clinton.  Hillary we’re constantly reminded, probably by the same cast of idiots, would have been “just as bad,” as Obama.  Only people effectively blind to the world, would be foolish enough to compare this buffoon, presently pretending to the presidency, with Clinton, or dignify their schoolboy naivte and incredible credulity, when voting for Obama’s blatant campagining bullshit, with the pretense that he hasn’t “had enough time,” to continue his pro-Bush agenda, when they should hang their heads forever in crying shame.

By Elmer Dodson, January 21 at 6:36 pm

Good ideas except that our country is running on pure and now
‘raw naked’ greed which puts it really close to empty and it will
take fixing to even politically think of instituting what you say,
but stick around it will get even more interesting.

By Virginia777, January 21 at 1:56 pm #

““This blindness is what has put a Neocon exhibitionist into Ted
Kennedy’s seat, good work liberals,”“
***************************************************

Me thinks you are too kind to this new breed of political
skullduggery which is nothing less than a porn star gaining a
seat in the senate and the hypocrisy of it all as many other porn
stars have said they would run, and maybe some have, as a
google of ‘porn stars who have run for office in america’
indicates many have, and being the facade of prudishness here in america I find it quite amusing considering european countries have porn stars elected to their houses of government and now so does america and I am not surprised that somewhere it has already been proposed that ‘brown and palin’ be the republican ticket in 2012 and what do you think the chances of anything getting done if they should become the copulating p & vpotus as that is as inevitable as it is farcical?

Tell me where he has stopped the extraordinary rendition, stopped all the black sites, not just the CIA ones. [How do we check on that anyway?] Then there is the torture still going on, Xe/Blackwater still on the payroll, moving into Afghanistan more deeply and killing more innocents in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The whole part about trying our own war criminals here he has not. By treaty if he doesn’t then he is complicit too! Virginia777 do you have any idea of this? No. The voters in MA were given a poor performance by the Democrat in the race so most of them stayed home. Too bad because all we get is the same kind of crypto-fascist in Brown we have seen before. The two party monopoly gives us that.

Why don’t you actually put some substance behind your attacks on me? Because you are an empty gun shooting blanks. In a debate contest you would get an -F for no substance. Now get some quick!

Your good at casting aspersions but as to making them stick with actual examples you fail. To quote you “dumb.”

Tell me where he has stopped the extraordinary rendition, stopped all the black sites, not just the CIA ones. [How do we check on that anyway?] Then there is the torture still going on, Xe/Blackwater still on the payroll, moving into Afghanistan more deeply and killing more innocents in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The whole part about trying our own war criminals here he has not. But treaty if he doesn’t then he is complicit too! Virginia777 do you have any idea of this? No. The voters in MA were given a poor performance by the Democrat in the race so most of them stayed home. Too bad because all we get is the same kind of crypto-fascist in Brown we have seen before. The two party monopoly gives us that.

Why don’t you actually put some substance behind your attacks on me? Because you are an empty gun shooting blanks. In a debate contest you would get an -F for no substance. Now get some quick!

Your good at casting aspersions but as to making them stick with actual examples you fail. To quote you “dumb.”

Tell me where he has stopped the extraordinary rendition, stopped all the black sites, not just the CIA ones. [How do we check on that anyway?] Then there is the torture still going on, Xe/Blackwater still on the payroll, moving into Afghanistan more deeply and killing more innocents in Pakistan and Afghanistan. [We are still in Iraq for the long haul.] The whole part about trying our own war criminals here he has not. But treaty if he doesn’t then he is complicit too! Virginia777 do you have any idea of this? No. The voters in MA were given a poor performance by the Democrat in the race so most of them stayed home. Too bad because all we get is the same kind of crypto-fascist in Brown we have seen before. The two party monopoly gives us that.

Why don’t you actually put some substance behind your attacks on me? Because you are an empty gun shooting blanks. In a debate contest you would get an -F for no substance. Now get some quick!

List for me where I was wrong as best you can.

Your good at casting aspersions but as to making them stick with actual examples you fail. To quote you “dumb.”

here is an “insightful” Night-Gaunt “fact” about Obama:

“He is far to the right as far as GWB at least.”

oh, at least, maybe even more (not!)

Dumb!!

here is an “insightful” Truthdig commentator, Hammond Eggs:

“Obama is a Republican; that’s what he is.”

Yikes!!

I don’t think so Night-Gaunt, you are not interested in the truth because your Obama “facts” are narrow in their scope and do not reflect reading on the accuracies of the Obama presidency.

This blindness is what has put a Neocon exhibitionist into Ted Kennedy’s seat, good work liberals,

Not!!

Jeez, hoping o to be the great savior, well, pretty improbable but
just for shits and giggles ole jesus came, then there would be a
franticly fanatical push to create the ‘crist’ party and then the
worry about voting would disappear because jesus would set
everything straight, wouldn’t he?

By Virginia777, January 20 at 9:40 pm #

Three nagging questions about Ruth Marcus:

1)Why are you enabling the Obama-bashers?
Are you saying there are no legitimate questioning of his decisions and whose side he is really on?

2)Why are you blaming him for health care reform debacle?
He did everything he could to bring it to where it is today by doing not much for us but for the secret deals with Big Pharam & Big Health care. What did he fight for again? Not us

3)Why are you blaming him for not clearing up fast enough the 2 decades of the Conservative wrecking crew’s destruction of our government?
What has he done at all to stem it? Remember that Clinton* too aided and abetted in our present situation. What he’s done is to support said Conservative measures to stem our freedoms from torture to extraordinary rendition*.

I am judging him sole on what he has done. So far he as either done little or nothing to facilitate change away from the fascist trends, or supported them as is or in fact increased such anti-Constitutional infrastructure.

The Republican bashing of him is the kind of nonsense to fool types who get easily confused and lump one type of criticism (legitimate) with another (illegitimate) as one in the same. If Obama is a socialist then I’m a Quaker! It is a way of adding fog to the semantic environment. Use your brain to think more deeply—after awhile it gets easier!

I am interested in the truth not playing favorites. How about you Virginia777?

I should like to add a similar comment to what Jon Stewart said on Monday night.

George Bush didn’t care about majorities, he just did what he wanted. 

That is aslo the conclusion reached by David Swanson in his book “Daybreak”, which should be on everyone’s reading list.  Swanson explains thoroughly how the Executive branch of government has grown completely out of control.  The meaning of this phrase is “dangerously out of control”.  If something isn’t done to rein in the Executive our Constitutional government is in danger of failing.

So do Presidents only “get” to exercise this power when they are trying to pull a fast one on us?  Hell no, they can use it any time they want.  Obama could have informed Max Baucus that PNHP WILL be allowed into the Senate Finance Committee meetings in the same numbers as representatives of other points of view.  But that would have taken courage, which I’m truly questioning if Obama has any at all.

Obama could have closed Gitmo by now, ended the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, pulled the plug on domestic spying, asked for someone to introduce a bill for 100% public campaign financing, and that’s just a few of the more important ones.

He could have warned Faux News that if they continue to function as the free political advocates for the GOP that he would push the FCC to get busy on a revamped Fairness Doctrine.  He could have told Harry Reid that he wanted a courageous health care bill that started out by immediately ending medical bankruptcies and issuing Medicare cards to anyone who is not covered by an employer plan. 

See, there are a lot of things he COULD have done.  I had an assembler prof once (who was actually a displaced NASA employee) who used to say “The road to hell is paved with ‘wouldas’, ‘shouldas’, and ‘couldas’.”  How true.  Obama has been widening that road since Jan. 20 2009.  That was the day he stopped the pretense of being The People’s President and went on his merry way. 

Maybe he’ll read this and he’ll invite me over for a beer.  I’m not fussy, but I’ll take a Heineken if you’ve got a cold one, Mr. President.  If you’re not too busy to talk to a senior citizen who’s willing to give you a verbal spanking, I think it might be enjoyable.

-Wexler

Before I forget, the worst statement is that “there was not much more the administration could do to conjure up jobs.”

O’Reilly?

Let’s see, maybe if the original, too small, stimulous package had more jobs than tax cuts. Maybe if the administration enacted several stimuli, the way they poured bailout after bailout on the financial predators. Maybe if Obama actually did some LEADERSHIP on jobs, instead of acting like, “oh, well, several years of 10-20% unemployment (40% for blacks) nothing I can do.”

No, he didn’t do much about jobs, cause he really doesn’t give a sh*t.

Frankly, I’m tired of hearing Obamabots excuse everything feckless, spineless thing emanating from this administration. Taking even the best possible view, that the president with the biggest mandate in my lifetime “just can’t do” much, why exactly did you vote for him?

” . . . where is he (Obama), exactly, on the political spectrum?

These are questions without certain answers.”

This is the breathtaking and insulting rubbish you will be hearing from every Obama apologist still above ground and walking the face of the earth.  Obama is a Republican; that’s what he is.  Coward that he also is, he will now turn farther right, trying to keep himself alive politically.  This is like being bent on suicide and trading in a zip gun for a .44 Magnum.  The Democrats are constantly trying to calculate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin manufactured by Rush Limbaugh.  The answer is none.  But the Democrats, hopelessly cynical and money mad, will never understand that.

to: Crowhaul: thanks for the Howard Dean comment.

Virginia 777 since this is my first day here I don’t know you and you don’t know me. I NEVER sit out any election. I am very disappointed with Obama and want to work for Howard Dean in primaries ‘12.

How does that sound like not sitting home? Hmmm?

And let us all keep in mind that Joe Biden’s son, Beau, was one of the chief lobbyists instrumental in the passage of the bankrupcty bill, which was wholly bank-sponsored and very anti-consumer…

oh I’m sorry wendy1836 that you worked so hard and feel “betrayed”. How productive when progressives turn that anger into staying home, not voting and allowing a Neocon to sit in Ted Kennedy’s chair.

Not!!

Political mandate requires satsifaction.  And it wasn’t so much a mandate for ‘change’ as it was an anti-GOP mandate.  Obama’s ‘no consequences’ stance regarding the Cheney administration’s illegal drive to war was his major downfall…

And, yeah….Howard Dean in ‘12.

I worked my ass off for Obama as did millions of others.

Now I say:

Howard Dean in primaries for ‘12!

Impossible, you say? I’m not so sure.

Three nagging questions about Ruth Marcus:

Why are you enabling the Obama-bashers?

Why are you blaming him for health care reform debacle?

Why are you blaming him for not clearing up fast enough the 2 decades of the Conservative wrecking crew’s destruction of our government?

Here are your answers, Ms Marcus.

1. No, it comes in the job description.  The rest of us have the luxury of tuning out from scandal/crisis overload now and then, but the Prez doesn’t.

2. Absolutely.  He completely blew health care reform, that is, assuming he ever envisioned HCR as changing the system. If he wanted to he could have exerted pressure on Congress to put something together, but he went AWOL.  On other issues he does not appear to have a handle on the bully pulpit and influence that a Prez can wield.  It’s all moot.  His party is going to defect from him soon so he won’t have any influence to wield.

3.  He’s center right.  Always has been.  He just acted progressive until after the Iowa caucus when he took a hard right and never looked back.  Too bad, he had a lot of potential, he had a network of “fired up” people willing to go to work for him.  So what does he do?  He bails out Wall St, goes out for lunch on everything else.

Thanks for nothing, Barack.  I didn’t vote for you, but after this latest debacle I can truly say that I will never vote for another Democrat on principle.  I will vote 3rd party or abstain.  Maybe write myself in.

-Wexler

Obama is a corporatist, a war criminal, and a murderer.  The blood of Iraqi’s, Yemeni’s, Afganis, Pakistani’s, and of Americans who die because they can’t bribe the corporate health care mafia enough to give them treatment is on his hands; he is guilty.  He is scum; his actions are inexcusable, he needs to be taken to the Hague, the american empire needs to be crashed, the cia and nato abolished.

“Half measures” taken, concerning what? Health care he gave it to those who would best serve their common interest—the present system. The GWOT? He is pouring more money and corporations into more countries than before and definitely not less money. Keeping the State Dept. on the same track nothing “half” about that. He is keeping us idled or for some fooled still. Dangling that carrot (made out of painted steel) in front of our noses to lead us on as they rob us still. Get it yet? Think of it as a court case and Obama is really an enemy witness. Then you will understand why.

Barack Obama follows the Bill Clinton model of triangulating.  The trouble is that with the seriousness of the problems he faces, the approach of taking half-measures does not work.

“Even where his policy preferences trend liberal—ending don’t ask, don’t tell, or passing the Employee Free Choice Act—Obama has subordinated them to political realities.”-Ruth Marcus

Like Truman did with integrating the military in 1950? No—he said “you do it” and they did forth with. For the Employee Free Choice Act he would have fought for it if he believed in it. He didn’t because he isn’t a Liberal at all any more than Bill Clinton was. (Who gave us Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the first place.) Oh both of them lifted the ban on speech concerning birth control but that was it. Nothing more or substantial. He is far to the right as far as GWB at least.

Both parties are under the control of Conservatives and worse and it shows. Since 1980 we have been on that downward spiral as the Conservative i.e. Regressives have been moving to dismantle all the benefits that have happened since the New Deal. With our closed two-headed Party system is was just a matter of time till the most regressive would seek to dominate it and cut out any who doesn’t fit their mold. Which is why no 3rd party nor any really Progressive like Kucinich would have a chance.

” This assessment oversimplifies matters. Obama proposed an enormous agenda, but his focus remained chiefly on health reform. The decision to press simultaneously for climate change and financial reform did not unduly drain resources from the main mission.”-Ruth Marcus

Only he didn’t, first gave away the best bargaining chip, single payer gratis, then proceeded to say that the second choice wasn’t really important as he allowed the Congress to go wild and do whatever they wanted for Big Pharma & Big Corporate “health care” so he wasn’t busy there. However as a Conservative i.e. Regressive he was busy keeping the fascist locks in place concerning war, national security, secrecy and suppressing our Constitutional Liberties intact. But then he is helping to shepard the Republic into the grave anyway. Ready for the next leg of the economic meltdown? Its coming and this time no money for bail out and the Greater Depression will be here and his buddies will be ready to rebuild us into the empire they so want. (We are already in a Great Depression, they just won’t tell you.)

However there is nothing “lite” about his administration, just that sugar makes the poison seem less bitter, but not less dangerous. This is what happens when only two kinds of poison are offered as the “free to decide” and nothing else is on the shelf. You must go across the street & tune in on shortwave to find out anything and that doesn’t mean you can vote for them.

The only ones promoting Obama as a “messiah” are the arch Conservatives who use it cynically. But then that was the point, the more they portray him as a “socialist” the more his reich wing action get muffled and hidden. Even if the rank-and-file believe it the uppermost leadership—-the quiet hidden ones know their boy is on the job. [Hint: Hillery would have been no different.]

I agree with RBShea and Bookluvr.  We were more or less duped. We are not the
only ones.  He no doubt, embarrassed the Nobel Peace Prize Committee as well. 
especially when he iterated his thanks for the award and preceded to explain just
how and why he was expanding the conflict in Afghanistan.

President Obama presented himself as a thoughtful, intelligent man. A man for
the people.  Instead, he immediately sought those long in power from past
presidential administrations.  Those with close ties to lobbyists and Wall Street.
President Obama continues to fail us and embarrass us.  He is simply another very
charismatic politician.  That sums him up:  charismatic.  A politician.

I have not the foggiest idea what the answers to your questions are and, to be true, I don’t care. What I do knoe is that President Obama is on the air- or TV waves every day spouting more hot air and then going back to the Oval Office to do exactly the opposite.

Most of the Comment section is perceptive and on-the-mark. What I can’t
figure out is the article that they’re commenting on: Ruth Marcus. Why does this
site constantly post such drivel from WaPo DLC apologists? Her most revealing
comment was when she used the term “political realties”, code in Wash. DC for
“acceptable to corporate interests”. The rest of the tripe was just more
“Beltwayspeak”; how to successfully accomplish the corporate agenda, not
whether that’s good for the country. Did Obama try to do “too much, too fast”?
No! He sold us out to Wall St.! She states as fact that “once the stimulus was
passed and the financial markets stabilized, there was not much more the
administration could do to conjure up jobs”. Is that even a credible contention?
Take the $28 trillion banks are estimated to have gotten, take ONE TENTH of it,
and you could’ve put millions to work building a green energy system
(including conservation of energy… the ultimate “shovel-ready project) which
would’ve created jobs, stimulated the economy, addressed climate change,
reduced drastically our balance of payments problem, and reduced pollution.
And she never mentions the on-going murder campaigns in Afghanistan and
Iraq (and Pakistan, Yemen, ??). What she’s trying to talk around is that Obama betrayed every expectation people had of his administration. Yeah, the predicted electoral backlash has
begun in Mass., so they trot out Marcus (look for similar swill in the next few
days from Dionne and Robinson) to “cool the mark”.

I agree with KISS, and I saw it in the campaign 2008, it doesn’t
or shouldn’t take much to understand when any candidate
pledges support of corporate american and the american
izraeli public affairs committee that that candidate has
nothing in mind for the public who elects them and o did this
and it should have been very much considered when it
became time to vote or else you wind up getting what we
have.

What is cozy for a newly elected president to do is, AFTER
he/she is elected is to then start choosing their appointees
and in o’s case alarm bells should have been going off when
he picked the very ones responsible for this mess, geithner,
summer, bernake and rahm emanuel et. al, and those alarm
bells should still be sounding.

But as for 2012, those who control the elections will have to
decide whether they could get o elected again and to do so
will have to require a lot of voter fraud because the people
should be on to him by then and the ease of getting the first
black/mulatto re-elected president won’t be there.

I hate that because the choices for the dumbbell voters won’t
be a happy thing at all.

I agree with RBShea 100%.  When Obama picked Rahm Emanuel, that was the first clue, and everything he has done since then became predictable. I won’t vote for him again.

Based on his early selections of advisors Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers and Tim
Geithner, Obama signaled his intention to follow a Democratic Leadership Council
philosophy of governing as Republican-Lite. What’s followed, from health
insurance “reform” to the wars and coziness with Wall Street and Big Pharma, was
predictable. His well-crafted marketing campaign appears to have been just that.
Obama is on the road to being a one-term president who’s sole accomplishment
will be his election as the first bi-racial US president.

Sorry Ruth Marcus, you seem not to be the brightest bulb in the package. Obama’s greatest mandate was to take care of his buddy’s on wall street. than the next mandate was to prolong the illegal war, than his next mandate was to take care of his buddy’s in the health care industry. And now he is figuring how to lie and manipulate us to believe he is the messiah and Mr. fix-it. Come the mid-term elections you will see Obama fold like a cheap suit and quietly go away.

  This assessment oversimplifies matters. Obama proposed an enormous agenda, but his focus remained chiefly on health reform. The decision to press simultaneously for climate change and financial reform did not unduly drain resources from the main mission.

His focus consisted of asking for a health care reform after making a sweetheart deal with Big Pharma, dumping the thing on Congress and walking away…..some leadership quality.

  As to the overarching concern of the economy, it’s fair to criticize specifics of the stimulus package. But once the stimulus was passed and the financial markets stabilized, there was not much more the administration could do to conjure up jobs. Dropping everything to focus on the economy would have been more atmospherics than anything else.

What is fair is stating that Obama sold us out to the very crooks who wrecked our economy, and that he has a job and seems not to care that an increasing number of us are not exactly thrilled with a jobless recovery that benefits crooks and liars.

I am sorry to be so negative, but Barack Obama is an abject failure, a man with no national experience whose pretty words do not translate into good deeds.

Obama was a freshman senator and he is now a freshman president.  With little political capital other than his “mandate” he has little power to twist arms and force congress to do anything.  He is always at their mercy and we see the results.  He is consistently held up by special interests (and bozos like Lieberman).  He has no ability to call in favors or to take those Dems who oppose him to the woodshed for some education.  So he is weak and ineffective.  I doubt his situation will change for the better as we now see the 60 seat supermajority gone and he will lose seats in the fall.  So any success he might have had is slipping away.  Repugs will trash him as that is the best way for them to regain the WH in 2012.  If they run a credible candidate, this will happen.  And Obama will not be the great savior but just another in a long line of weak, ineffective Dems who temporarily occupied the WH.  Voters respect a powerful leader, even if he is a jerk.  Weakness is always punished.