I was appalled to see Barack Obama's nice guy list of good Republicans, the ones he looks forward to working with, the ones whose counsel and advice he will seek. Why did he do this? I've been impressed with him and grown to like him, but I'm much more likely to support a Democratic candidate who gives us a list of which Republicans should be going to jail. Sorry, but I'm just not interested in the old business-as-usual, go-along-to-get-along, you-scratch-my-earmark-I'll-scratch-yours bipartisanship. And isn't there some unfinished business we should take care of, one or two little things, a subpoena or two, Iraq, before we kiss and make up? Besides, I don't think you can lie down with Karl Rove and the Swift Boat vermin without becoming Karl Rove and the Swift Boat vermin, and that, for me, is what the Republican Party has become. Are these three men cited by Obama the lonely three Republican men of principle, the ones who managed to keep their honor all through the dark times? Lugar, Warner, and Coburn? Come on. Aristotle said that character is habitual action: look at what these "good" Republicans have done, and tried to do, all their lives. Look at how they have voted! You want me to tell you, Barack, that any friend of yours is a friend of mine? Sorry. Any friend of theirs is no friend of mine, I'm afraid.
What I'm looking for is a candidate who will be strong and honest and angry enough to fight to save the country, at the eleventh hour, from corporofascism. Someone who will push our apathetic and complacent multitudes back from the precipice, back toward our abandoned, bedrock principles of equality under the law, and checks and balances under the Constitution, and accountability. Obama's handlers may think Mr. President Nice Guy is just what these contentious times call for, but I think they have badly miscalculated. Too many of us know -- and care -- that these Republican pals of his have all been, at least until very, very recently, enablers of and cheerleaders for the most dreadful, incompetent, criminal administration in our nation's history.
Has Obama studied the voting records of his chosen three, or don't their beliefs and actions matter to him? What exactly separates these three from the talking-point herd? Are these the courageous three who invariably stood up to the contemptuous, power-ravenous, Addington-addled Executive Branch? The thoughtful three who never rubber-stamped the ignorance and evil of their party and their shameful leader? The decent three who believe in that the government should provide a safety net for the poor and the old and the sick and young? The generous three who don't share the one-line Republican Creed of Greed: first, cutting rich men's taxes? Sure. These three. They'll have some very good advice for a new and inexperienced Democratic president.
What America needs (and what I think most Americans really want) is a president who will restore justice, a president who will scourge all those who gave us these golden years -- for Republicans -- of prodigal and unchecked criminality. (They weren't quite so golden, of course, for the poor and the middle class and New Orleans and the Middle East and the planet). I had begun to think Obama could be such a candidate; no longer.
I can't understand why this had to happen. Barack Obama is campaigning for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States! Why would he so blatantly scorn and disrespect those of us who are yearning for justice, those who see very clearly what danger America is still in, those who know what terrible things have been done to America and in America's name, and those who are still passionately, implacably angry about all of that? What can Obama say to us now, all of us -- all vital members of his own party, of course -- who are mortally opposed to everything Lugar and Warner and Coburn stand for? Can we vote for Obama now without the creepy feeling that we are also voting to smooth over the differences between what we see as right and wrong, good and evil; without voting a little bit for these stellar Republicans? How many of you want to vote a little bit Republican? Why in the world is Obama wooing Republicans in the middle of a Democratic primary, anyway? He can't woo them and win us. What is he thinking?