Is the President Really in Charge?
Well, that would explain things, wouldn't it? He wouldn't be the first president not really in charge. Remember Cheney? Wasn't he in charge when George W. Bush was president? So, perhaps this time our guy isn't in charge. Why else would he be thinking of sending thousands of troops to Afghanistan? Why would he have nearly abandoned a health care public option? What happened to getting rid of lobbyists? And, why does he tell us nothing for so long, and then deliver one of his teleprompted speeches thinking we'll be mesmerized by the rhetoric instead of engaging in the openness promised by his administration?
It's a scary thing to think that the man in charge may not be at all. Possibly he opened one of those early days briefings and discovered he'd better start practicing obsequiousness with some of the generals and God knows what other powerful forces or he'd be on his way out in four years, and that's if he turned out to be lucky.
Otherwise, the whole thing doesn't make sense. This promising president, determined to bring about change, has mostly given us more of the same. Does he know something he just can't tell us? That would be good. I guess. Is he preparing for events in Pakistan that require troops on the ground in Afghanistan? Has he simply forgotten Vietnam? Or for that matter, the Russians experience in Afghanistan?
Is he so unnerved about a possible universal health care debacle on his watch that he'll take nearly anything that gives off a whiff of victory?
A lot of us have gone through these kinds of mental gymnastics. But maybe the Chenyesque, Darth Vadar types are corralling power. The question is: Who are they? The economic advisory what's-in-it-for-me, keep-out-the-women-with-opinions cadre has always looked scary to me? Weren't they a big part of the economic problems we're now in? So, why are they so powerful?
Why is this president with so much to offer abdicating responsibility, hiding behind his press secretary, giving us so little to go on, and leaving us in the dark? Is it because he never was the courageous leader we considered him to be? Or is it because he simply never had a chance?
Dr. Reardon also blogs at bardscove.
As "jollyelle" below recommends, be sure to listen to Bill Moyers' interview with Glenn Greenwald for insight into hypocrisy and what really isn't common sense and what is.
William Bradley: Afghanistan, Again: The Thicket Obama's Not Getting Out Of
We can't afford to build a nation in Afghanistan. We have one reasonable goal there, and everything else, no matter how seemingly noble it may or may not be, is a luxury.
Jamal Dajani: Taliban: If You Can't Beat Them, Buy Them!
Afghanistan is not Iraq. Unlike the Sunni Awakening, when Iraqi tribe members took up arms against al-Qaeda and foreign insurgents, the Taliban are an integral part of Afghanistan, not foreign fighters.
Stewart Nusbaumer: Wait! First A Good Argument About Afghanistan
Recently I spent 5 months in Afghanistan, studying the country up close, going all around the country and writing about the conflict. If I'm confused, how about average Americans?
Lee Stranahan: President Obama Gives In to Pressure; Orders 40,000 Gay Troops to Afghanistan
President Obama said the move was both a victory for human dignity and for pointless wars we can't possibly win.
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Professor Christina Romer serves as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. Professors Austan Goolsbee and Cecilia Rouse assist Prof. Romer. Women are playing critical roles in Obama’s presidency.
I would love to know who you believe IS in charge! Obama seems mesmorized by his choices, by his responsibilities and is loathe to take a position one way or the other. Health care is a BIG indicator of that problem. When he could be pushing single-payer, universal health care he is fighting to have the LEAST effecti ve sort of mandate for all Americans, a public-option. In Afghanistan he is seemingly carefully??? reviewing the options but yet he himself promoted the present CIF, Gen Chrystal, who want a whole lot more bodies...American bodies...there to WIN??? It is totally scary.
He's not in charge - Goldman Sachs is. .. war is profit , insurance is profit and evicting Americans is profit.
What a difficult world we live in!
How can we tell if the guy on the TV or the candidate at the rostrum is telling us the truth?
Both Crest and Aquafresh promise to dramatically change my social life if only I'll buy their products and spend 5 minutes a day using them.
One product warms that if I use their deodorant I may be attacked by passionate women. Or at least followed around by them.
Two manufacturers of sugar-laced fizzy water beverages tell me a few sips of their magic elixirs and I will be a better and happier person.
Two candidates at a rostrum recite their carefully crafted sound bites.
Really no way for the average citizen to figure out what's true and what's not, it appears.
I disagree with the whole premise of this article.
Look past any politician's speeches to their actual actions. That tells you who they really are and what they really believe. The President's actions show not that he is not over-his-head, but that his campaign was one big fraud, a typical politician saying and doing whatever he had to do to win.
This idea that the President is being misserved by DLC corporatists like Geitner, Summers and Emanuel is absurd. Did they come out of thin air. Who appointed them and keeps them in their job? Obviously they are doing what the DLC corporatist President wants.
He didn't show the courage or character to draw a line in the sand and stand up and fight for a robust public option. He gave away the store BEFORE negotiations even started. Health care reform has developed into a diabolical trade with the insurance industry -- a meaningless public option in exchange for great corporate campaign contributions.
Wall Street was bailed out with no change, no strings and no regulations. Main Street got bupkis.
Gays were, of course, thrown under the bus right at the start. FISA? Bush's executive orders? Iraq? Afghanistan? The list of broken promises go on and on.
The President is a great politician and I have no doubt the corporations will be successfully shilled for and he'll be reelected. Will anything actually change? NO.
Bait and switch.
It's as old as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution!
To the writer...Chance, his chance was that he got elected. If he wasn't up to the job he shouldn't have ran for it...I voted for Hillary in the primary, she would have kicked butt. Now look where we are, in the dirt again...
Admittedly, it's a difficult world out there.
It is so hard to figure things out - especially for some people.
Have you ever wondered how both Crest and Aquafresh can claim to be able to dramatically improve your social life?
Or how drinking a brown-colored sugar-laced fizzy water can make you a better and happier person?
Or which of two candidates is being candid during a campaign?
Some folks use their brains.
Others just believe what they wish for is true.
It looks like Hillary was right when she said he was a good talker but didn't have the experience to make anything really happen...to bad we listened to him.
If he is not in charge, I am afraid that is at least partly by choice. He may not be the leader we thought but he is plenty smart enough to have known what he was getting into. Giving him the out of "never had a chance" is a denial of our very democratic foundations and of a President's core responsibility. If he didn't want the job, he shouldn't have run. Yes, there are powerful corporate interests that control much of what goes on in our government and that is undermining our democracy. But that is also because too many of us have become complacent in the wrong headed notion that our democracy is safe without our active involvement. They only own us if we let them.
So much of the Obama democratic(little d) momentum seems to have vanished. We,The People, who contributed time, money and energy--listened to Obama's words and voted accordingly....what else did we have to go by....how do we actually get a candidate to uphold the intentions and actions spoken of on the trail??
Immediately, after Obama was elected, his deeds took a turn and seemed incongruent with the words. It was confusing then.............and it still is, now.
Obama's cabinet choices didn't seem to match up with the direction of his promises.
He told us he was going by plane and then he went by bus with lots 'o stops along the way.
Listen to Glenn Greenwald and Bill Moyers latest conversation on just this topic.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/10302009/profile3.html
See Kathleen Reardon's Profile
Joyelle: Thank you for this link. I've now emphasized it above in the blog. It's something we should all take time to listen to and think.
There are two ways in which very large corporations have the ability to control the government. One is through the privately owned Federal Reserve, and the other is through bribery (private campaign finance). We must audit and nationalize the Federal Reserve and make bribery illegal. These things should be done before we attempt to do anything else. Otherwise, everyone can forget about democracy, change or reform.
I do not want to be a knee-jerk liberal. I want to apply the same standards to Dems as I would to Republicans. Ok, so lets be objective.
Lets take Afghanistan. It is a war. At the very least our President should address the public and tell us why we are there. Same for Iraq.
Then the financial bailout: The crew at Treasury are his. They all have track records that are consistent with Bush America. Obama needs to tell us why he is helping featherbed the big banks.
He has more influence than any other one person in the US. He needs to tell us what is happening, and why.
NO!
No. Obama is not starring in a remake of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. His actions seem deliberate. He said he would undo Bush/Cheney executive privilege before day 100. But most of 200 questionable executive orders are still on the books after day 300. He said lobbyists would find no home in his White House. But he's surrounded himself with them. A former Monsanto VP and lobbyist is Obama's new food czar at the FDA.
No. If Barack Obama doesn't seem like himself. Maybe it's because we never really knew him.
I agree, let's not forget that Obama is the man who could have spoken out against the war crime that was the bombing of civilians trapped in Gaza, knowing that the Israeli were taking advantage of the transition of power in the US and would stop the shelling for his inauguration, all the eyes were on him waiting for his reaction...he said he understood the Israeli reaction, it was the politically convenient thing to say but it is morally indefensible, it gave a good glimpse of what he was made of, an ethically challenged opportunist
Obama is in charge to the same extent that any other president is in charge. In other words, when Rahm Emanuel says something nasty, it has been preapproved by Obama...but the president himself answers to a host of corporate masters, not the people. It's the American way.
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