To paraphrase Eminem, "Will the real Barack Obama please stand up? Please stand up?" That is the central question of our time -- who is the real Barack Obama?
If he's the guy who got us all excited that anyone could become president, that anything was possible, that real change was coming and the one that was going to stop the same old power players in Washington from controlling everything to the detriment of the people, then we're in great shape. That means he is one of us.
You can question his tactics, but as long as he has the right goals and the right agenda, we'll be fine. We're all hoping (with the audacity of hope, I suppose) that he's the master chess player who is carefully finding ways to play the system but in the end will do the right thing.
I don't even mind if he tries but fails. As long as he is pushing for us, working for us and wants to actually challenge the status quo (the central message of his campaign). Even if we fail in the short term, if we all fight together and we have the president on our side, we will ultimately prevail.
What I do mind is if he is not that guy. If he just played us to get elected and will give us just enough change to placate the masses but leave the system completely intact. That's the kind of guy who would push for a trigger for the public option and pretend he actually gave you the public option. It's not about the trigger, it's not about the public option it's not even about health care reform -- it's what it says about him. Is he playing the politicians and lobbyists in Washington or is he playing us?
The public option and the trigger are not the end of the world (though they are very important to the health care debate); what's more important is what they represent. The trigger is the usual cutesy games Washington plays where they kill reform while pretending to enact it. Where they push it off for another five years, and then another, and then another. They do just enough to appease the voters but not enough to change the system. If that's what Obama pushes for, then there's an excellent chance we're lost.
In my mind, the even bigger test is financial reform. That is the great test of the people versus power. So far, again, the Obama White House has been on the side of power. The proposed regulations are comically weak, and are getting watered down by the day. Obama has put the two worst offenders and defenders of the old system as his top economic advisers -- Tim Geithner and Larry Summers. With the exception of Robert Rubin, you literally could not have picked two worse Democrats to leave in charge of our economic policy.
What's his point? What's his plan? Where's he going with all of this? If he is really internally pushing for the trigger in health care reform and trusting Geithner and Summers to clean up the mess they created, then he is not the guy we voted for. Then, we have our answer. We know who the real Obama is. He is a master chess player, but it's us he's playing.
The financial reform that is needed is so crucial because if we leave this system in place, it will meltdown again. It's not a question of if, but when. The system has structural flaws. The executives do not represent their companies; they represent their own short-term interests. That will always lead to a crash. And after the next crash, we won't have enough money to rescue them - or us.
That is why this is the central question of our time -- who is Barack Obama? Because if he is on our side, he will figure out how to make sure this doesn't happen and that the powerful and corrupt won't game the system for their own benefit and lead to even more disastrous results for us. If he is on their side, then we have a massive, nearly unfixable problem. Then we can fight him, too, but that is an even longer and tougher fight.
The first year of his administration has not been full of good signs. Yes, he got some things done but he has clearly been leaning on the wrong side on the most important issues. But it's nowhere near too late. But the time to change and the time for change are right now. If we don't push him to go in the right direction and don't remind him who voted for him, he could wind up forgetting why he got elected and who he is supposed to be. If the second year is like the first year, it might be too late by then. On the other hand, if he gets health care reform passed with a strong public option and does real regulation of Wall Street, then he is the guy we voted for. It all hangs in the balance.
That's why we want to push him in the right direction. This week we will be doing protests in front of CNN offices in NY, LA and Atlanta to remind the mainstream media and the president that a clear majority of the American people wants the public option and this is the time to step up and fight. You can find out more about it here and talk to others going to the events here. If we want him to do the right thing, then we have to step up and be willing to get out there again and show him who put him in office and why.
So, one year after the election, what do you think Candidate Obama would think of President Obama? Tweet your response (our Twitter hashtag is #OneYearLater), or post it in the comments section.
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Aaron Belkin: Obama Is Timid Because Progressives Are Timid
What can we expect from a President who presides over a relatively conservative public, whose party is fractured by a fundamental contradiction, and whose legislative agenda is held hostage by Ben Nelson?
Please everybody, get real.
With regard to the above statement, I agree with something Bill Maher said. The smart thing to do would be to go forward on DADT and create a diversion. Get the rabid right all worked up about boys in uniform kissing other boys. That will take resources away from their scare campaign against health care.
While they're fretting over the coming Gay Apocalypse, we pass strong health care reform under the radar. Divide and conquer!
You're correct to worry if Senator Obama pulled a bait-and-switch when he became President Obama, but neither economic issue (health care nor financial reform) is quite as significant as the matter of civil liberties.
America has survived crippling wars and economic crises repeatedly, but no democracy can survive a loss of basic legal rights that makes dictatorship possible. In 2008, candidate Obama pledged to "restore habeas corpus". But, by repeatedly preserving the various mechanisms by which Bush/Cheney undermined our Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights (of which the totalitarian excesses of the Patriot Act are just examples), President Obama hasn't failed just those who worked so hard to elect him, but our entire nation.
His spineless abandonment of meaningful health care reform for end-in-itself "bipartisanship", and failure to agressively pursue meaningful financial reform (by working to reinstate Glass-Steagall, for starters) are bad. His abandonment of an unabridged right to counsel and a fair and speedy trial--in favor of indefinite detention without charges--is unconscionable.
If he doesn't get his act together--and fast--he can expect to face a primary challenge in 2012 that will render him an historical footnote, like James Buchanan. It's Obama's move. Like you, I'm waiting to see which Obama emerges to make it: the one we elected or the one we see.
The real question is this: is Barack Obama a LEADER? And the answer, more and more every day, appears to be no. Does this guy actually believe that any causes are worth fighting for, or is he so scared of disappointing anyone on either side of the aisle that he'll compromise to infinity?
Obama will go off and write his books, Rahm Emanuel will go to work for an insurance conglomerate, and someone worse will be occupying the White House.
But I'm reminded of what I read or heard that Johnson or Kennedy said to Martin Luther King 'If you want me to pass civil rights legislation, then make me'. King made that happen thru marches, sit-ins, etc. The law got passed. I agree with you that we need to put fire under the democratic congress and the president to do right by the american people. Let's march on... when does the marching start?
But it's an important point nonetheless. The trouble is that most on the left don't know what else they should be doing to "force" Obama to do what he claims to want. If he somehow feels the need for additional popular pressure -- and I think that while it's completely wrong that is indeed his operating assumption -- then he needs to specify what would do it. Does he want 70 votes in the Senate? (And if so, why?) Then tell us, and we can work toward getting them. But don't tell us it's our fault for not pushing hard enough, while simultaneously telling us not to push back against apologists when they point out all the obvious good that Obama has done on minor issues as if that were enough to justify inaction on the critical ones!
How do we actually push Obama in the right direction? We all know peaceful protests don't work because they don't actually add any pressure. The largest protests in world history did nothing to stop the war in Iraq. What we need is something that will give Obama no choice but to do what the people want. The protesters might have to block roads. We might have to organize a national labor strike. Only real pressure will push him in the right direction.
But that means Americans would have to tear themselves away from Dancing with the Stars or whatever other inane garbage is topping the ratings these days. If only my countrymen were so bold.
We had 9-11. Then we had the Wall St. meltdown. I often wonder just what kind of horrific calamity has to occur before Americans actually do get off the sofa and take to the streets to take their country back from corporate America.
I will not be voting for Obama again and I will not be voting for any Democrat until they prove they're a progressive.
And his administration has repeated withdrawn their support for the "public option" but always through staffers so that later Obama could come back and deny that he had said it.
Well, the people of their states could stop voting for them.
But the big question is: What is the President doing??? He has the phone numbers of all those jokers. He needs to get some LBJ in his system.
Thanks Cenk !
Quit worrying about the Republicans. They're too busy self-destructing at the hands of the radical right. There's nothing to be done to please them anyway, short of complete and total capitulation on every issue.
Your only hope is that the GOP continues to fight amongst itself and that Congress does NOT pass a cap and tax bill. Actually Obama will get a lot better after the 2010 election where Dems lose 25 seats, just like Clinton did, and then the economy will recover.
Typical inconsistent rightwing-nonsense!
So tell me: when it's so out of touch with the "US mainstream", how come, that this "US mainstream" elected Obama?
But you are right with one thing: the left voted for him -> more than 50% of the country...