Meet the new Boss. Same as the old Boss?

"The change, it had to come ..."

So we were told. So we held up the iconic blue-and-red signs that read, "Hope."

But nowadays, it's looking more like, "Meet the new Boss. Same as the old Boss."

Barack Obama promised us a more Web 2.0-type government. We were promised transparency. In the age of twitter and blogs and social media, we thought we would finally be able to see behind the curtain, to know what was going on -- and be able to communicate with our government. America 2.0. A really great vision, right? I thought so as well.

Yet, today I read the following on this very site with regard to warrantless wiretapping: "The decision by the three-judge appeals panel is a setback for the new Obama administration as it adopts some of the same positions on national security and secrecy as the Bush administration." (From '"Court Rejects Obama Admin's Effort To Stop Warrantless Wiretap Suit")

I did a double-take. The Obama administration is now supporting warrantless wiretapping?!? What the --?

Pardon me, but I'd thought we'd left the dirty world of Gitmo and secret prisons and torture and warrantless wiretapping behind when the national shame of the Bush administrations ended a few weeks back. Yet, now I see President Obama doing the exact same thing. Obama, a Democratic President, pretty much in control of both houses of Congress. And yet, we are still backsliding from the great democracy the world has ever known into a regime.

I'm starting to get a sinking feeling that this is not really a 'Democrat versus Republican' thing anymore. After all, to change things, we elected a Democratic congress, then a Democratic president. But despite this, some things are not changing at all.

Can it be that Democrats and Republicans are not really opposites? Could it be, instead, that they are mirror twins of each other?

After all, both parties now seem to ignore the will of the people once elected. You want proof? We The People very emphatically did not want this monster bailout of Wall Street -- yet, it happened (never before have the switchboards lit up like they did in opposition to this bill). Likewise, We The People don't want a government given to Soviet-style warrantless wiretapping. And yet it continues.

And now, Barack Obama actually defends it. He now treads in the soiled footsteps of George W. Bush. Let us hope it is but a single misstep. Let us hope President Obama is the real deal, and gets back on track, and shuns the ways of secrecy and un-American ways of doing things.

But as for me, I'll need to see more proof before I invest President Obama with further faith.

I won't get fooled again.

Comments

[siegfried]

would appear that the solution is to elect a Green congress and a Green president. I began to suspect this when Nancy said impeachment was off the table.

[harriscrl3]

Meet the new left same as the Old left.

Carol

[deke4]

Where is the money? If those who feed at the public throgh are not willing to divulge where the money went, and those responsible for monitoring the public's money are unwilling to tell us then we can only assume that quite a bit of that money was not used for its intended purposes. It would behoove the Justice Department to interview those who decided who got taxpayer's money, those who got the money, and those politicians who will not divulge where the money went and what were the intended uses. of our money.

Were I go to a bank in the old days, they would write down my whole life history on their forms including the amount of money no matter how minute, my family history, what was I going to use the money for, how much I had to pay each month, the penalties for late payments etc. Yet here we are dealing with the supposedly intelligentsia of the banking and investment communities and they refuse to do the same thing they expect every borrower to do. Yes I think it is time for legal action and time to let these good ole boys see the inside of a real prison, not a country club prison. I am beginning to have more respect for an armed robber than I have for these white collar criminals. I know of no armed robbers who brought a nation to its knees as these white collar criminals.

[BeeOplentee]

You have no one to blame but yourself for your disappointment by living in your fantasy world.

"America 2.0"? That's your term, not Obama's. He's more pragmatic, thankfully..

[Danigirl65]

The initial bail-out of Wall Street occurred before the Obama administration with over $700 billion being put out there and half of it being used and half being saved for the new administration's use.

I also strongly doubt that it is entirely fair to compare 50 days to 2,920 but who am I to say??

[Rule Of Law]

And one of the main planners of that first bailout--which has not done the job--was Geithner. And he keeps shoveling the same stuff at us. 50 days or 500 days, it will still smell as bad. I want Obama to go outside the DC beltway and talk with Roubini, Hudson, Reich, Krugman et al. He's not getting the whole story from those Goldman-Sachs Wall Street retreads.

[Rule Of Law]

There's right and there's wrong, and it doesn't take a Harvard degree to know the difference. The problem with the expansion of executive power, as Dick Cheney pointed out--but as a positive not the negative it really is--is that the next president has a hard time not using it.

[ATL78]

Obama supported FISA during the campaign, why is this a surprise?

[Freesia2]

Oh we are not backsliding from the greatest democracy the world has ever known into a regime. We just suffered under a regime. I know what that feels like and I know the difference now.

You realize the mess he's walked into of course. You know that getting even one thing done is a battle against not only adversarial, but pathologically twisted people bent on political revenge in the guise of Republicans. You must be aware that he's got not just an economic crisis, but 2 wars and the environment in shambles.

I can appreciate your feelings. You're headed absolutely in the right direction. But so is he. Against greater odds and more overwhelming multiple challenges than a progressive typing out the latest Dear John letter saying he's breaking up with him.

I'm an Independent. This is one of the reasons I don't register as a Democrat. When Democrats aren't pouting they're waging war on their own. Either way, they pick and pick. Keep your faith, give your faith, lose it. That's up to you. Meanwhile, I'm watching a man battling so many dragons and I know that I'm lucky to have him. I'll be grateful every day.

[convergenz]

Hold that thought.

Washington DC is legendary as a death-by-committee sort of place, and I secretly suspect that Barack is picking his battles. We're presently working with the IT group that is attempting to overhaul the present healthcare system, and I tell you, it ain't pretty ... each and every congressman, pharm/insu­rance/medi­cal lobbyist intends to have his face time with the media types over non-essential decisions, while Rome burns.

Let's revisit your commentary in six months, shall we?

[anachoret]

Glenn Greenwald did a good article on this as well.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/28/al_haramain/index.html

Personally,I wonder how long it will take for the US Government to contract all of this stuff out to the Cor-pirate sector. The general public's attitude toward the ability of the Government has become a joke, and rather than trying to improve it, we're just selling it at off and "hoping" we haven't just bought into another confidence artists slick sales job. The people we elected can cry foul and say "not my fault," while the crooks can sell off the info, cash in on the contract, and pull a few strings to make sure it all gets blamed on a "Few bad apples." Then they can tell us that the business is too big to fail, and it would hurt "National Security" if we don't give them even more money to fix.

[ThomasMc]

Oh, come on.
Some of us have been calling him "Bush-lite" all along.