Oh, I'll vote for him. Because let's face it: the alternatives, along with the world they would create, are just too awful to consider.
The candidates jockeying (jacking?) to become the Republican presidential nominee are on a par with a haphazard cluster of low-level villains that The Justice League of America could dispatch within a few kinetically rendered panels (although, the Tea Party has all the tenacity, simplicity and personality of the household cockroach, a most formidable foe, indeed).
And because maybe my president knows something that we don't, that the highest level of the poker tourney that has become presidential politics has rules and moves and twists and spins that we here in the lobby can't even fathom, and that this latest seeming capitulation will lead to a harmonious, strategical, progressive, patriotic triumph.
But while this proceeds, at least have a pep rally.
It's so disheartening to suffer the psychological crush of living in a country where bullies, ninnies and feebs are calling the shots, their chests puffed out as they strut and bloviate and just plain hate, to open the media tap and see a nation reveling in lowbrow pursuits, vilifying intellectualism and otherwise fetishizing mediocrity (and I don't just mean network television).
At least the game is not over yet, despite the pundits and putzes dry heaving their assertions about Obama being done-for, a one-termer, heir to Jimmy Carter, etc. (heck -- in a late night Twitter-jag, I was saying as much myself).
But sleep and ponderation (two things that the corporate-stoked 24 hour news cycle has sought to eliminate with as much zeal as the Right's drive to eliminate granny's safety net) has tempered my frustration. A bit.
A lot of this is about team spirit. After all, every coach motivates his or her team before a game, every general exhorts his or her troops before the big battle. The Right, of course, gets their troops' juices going by watching clips from "The Town" (sometimes followed by selected scenes in a Mummenschanz version of Wall Street).
The Left needs to be psyched up, too, instead of continually being psyched out. It can get rather disheartening for the constituents to have their enthusiasm squelched for lack of a chirpy squad of scantily-clad cheerleaders to counter the rakishly cocked tricorn hats, bandoliers and bold "Don't Tread On Me!"-mullets. I mean, at this point even a human pyramid wouldn't be so bad. It's basic Trickle Down Psychology.
So while the upper level machinations are being machinated, and assuming that Obama is indeed the shrewdest gambler since Kenny Rogers, then why not in the meantime give the majority of Americans who voted Obama into office on a swell of hope a show they can actually get behind? Catchy, upbeat ditties about the greedy cretins and xenophobic phooeys who got us into this mess? A true telling of the motivations of the neo-cons and the radical religious Right, with their fealty to ideological myths of capitalist übermen and implausibly generous plutocrats? A big, clear, colorful demonstration of the steep slant of corporate-backed media and the maddening treason of a Frankenstein's monster of a Supreme Court? I feel my toes a-tappin' already!
And when, many years from now the history of this time is writ, clearer heads will look back and ponder the shame of a president -- and a country -- under siege from the moment he stepped into the Oval Office and was prevented, therefore, to do what the country needed him to do; that the machine of government had been so corrupted from decades of corporate incest and the resultant growing sociopathy. And they will see that the destruction was so calculated and so complete that not even the hope and change that blew the ember into a fire in the hearts of so many Americans in those first days of Obama lasted for sheer lack of a St. Crispin's Day speech or a Knute Rockne incitement of victory over a formidable opponent.
Gimme a U! Gimme an S! Gimme an A!
Follow Steven Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheStevenWeber
Lend me your rhyme and I'll write you a tune, ....... And I'll try not to sing out of key.
What's a President to do? Elected in the midst of the "Worst financial crisis" in nearly 100 years, two "un-winnable" wars, and the most acrimonious political discourse the nation has ever seen, it would be hard to argue that the "Herculean tasks" set before him were virtually impossible. Our Nation, was, quite simply, doomed.
Three years later, and we are still doomed, but NOT DEAD! The economy, which upon taking office was circling the drain, is now in a sputtering recovery. The unemployment rate, which upon taking office was spiraling out of control, is worse than it was as a ratio, but is no longer trending higher at "break-neck" speed. The "un-winnable wars", which upon taking office were threatening to not only NEVER END, but were presented as potentially ESCALATING and EXPANDING to more fronts (if we elected the alternative to President Obama),are both going through an "orderly draw-down".
Are we where we want to be? No! Are we "headed in the right direction" as a Nation? Debatable! Are we DEAD? Done? Finished? Over the cliff?
Not hardly!
In the first two years of this administration, MORE PROGRESSIVE LEGISLATION was passed into law, than in the past 50 years! That SHOULD COUNT for something!
Am I saying that I am satisfied? Not at all! We have a long way to go. Am I suggesting that I believe that this Administration and/or the Democratic Congress was the "Liberal answer" that I felt we needed in 2008? Absolutely not!
While I stand by my statement, I do not believe that the Legislation passed, was passed for its "Progressiveness". It was passed for its PRAGMATISM!
This President (in answer to those who assert he "ran" as "a Progressive") IS NOT a Progressive. He's not even a Liberal. He is, and always has been, a Moderate! Anyone who suggests that he promoted himself as anything else, simply wasn't paying attention (or, they were paying attention to the MEDIA, particularly the Right-wing MEDIA, who were h311-bent on "painting him" as a Liberal because it fit their agenda) to the reality of what he had done as a Senator in Illinois.
Did I think he was Bernie Sanders or Jesse Jackson? Of course not, but neither were we led to believe he was as old-school Republican as he's turned out to be on so many issues. Not all, but many.
The Public Option. A pretty liberal campaign issue, which was immediately dropped without a fight before the HCR debate was even in full swing.
The solumn promise as a Dem, that he would protect SS and Medicare if elected President. Pretty liberal stance that he himself has now abandoned, putting those sacred Dem safety nets on the table.
Yes we knew he was serious about the fight in Afghanistan, but I don't believe anyone suspected he'd still have us there in 2014.
And he did lead us all to believe he'd change the faces in Washington with a fresh Administration, but immediately dumped many of his own people in favor of the old guard Washington corporate lackies.
There are other examples, but that's enough to make my point that it isn't fair to accuse us of pretending Obama was more liberal than he turned out to be. He cultivated an image that he was going to "change" DC, fighting for HCR, Financial Reform, green technologies and so on.
That was not a conservative idea or promise to my way of thinking. It was a liberal one.
That said, I find myself as torn as Weber on how I will vote in the next election. I WISH there were a viable LIBERAL candidate. There is not. I WISH that I could HOPE that the Nation would make a greater course correction to the LEFT.
Oh wait! I can!
Now it's time to GET REAL!
The biggest obstacle to a more Progressive Government IS NOT the President! It's the election of 2010! It's the House of Representatives. It's a Senate with a Conservative Democrat as its Majority Leader, and a Democratic Majority that can be consistently filibustered, obstructed, blocked, and refused debate. It's a Supreme Court that has a 5 to 4 Conservative majority, and little hope of seeing a Liberal Justice appointed because the Congress WILL NEVER APPROVE one.
The 2012 Election is being viewed through the wrong lens. The MEDIA is pushing the perspective that the Presidential election is THE RACE! A referendum of the will of the people!
It is not!
The Presidential election will be important, but if the past 4 years (by the time the election is held) has taught us anything, it has demonstrated that without a fully supportive Congress, we will continue to see MORE GRIDLOCK, more obfuscation, more obstruction, and more watered-down, toothless, ineffective (or even detrimental) legislation being sent to the President for his signature.
Tomorrow I will endeavor to rally and fight, to keep the Repubs from gaining any further control of this shattered and broken governmentÂ.
Try to come up with a slogan that will help prevent our star quarterbacÂk, from running the ball towards the other team's goal post so often. Perhaps the marching band members holding up letters saying "Stop, Obama, Stop!"
However today I don't feel much like working on a fight song. Today I must mourn what may prove to be the last phase, of the Republican final solution to drown government in the bathtub.
And, after that? We'll think of some way.
After all, tomorrow IS another day...
WOW. Think about that for a moment.
I have defended the President fairly tirelessly in the past - always believing that he had an ace up his sleeve and that somehow, there was a plan to eventually do right by the American people. He has, I'm afraid, lost my faith entirely on this latest debacle. Although he does not make the laws, he has the power to be an enormously influential force in the shaping of policy and timing thereof and he completely blew it.
As far as the quote above, from this point on, I go with my conscience - and I think America will be better for it. I am tired of voting for the lesser evil.
This deal sucks - America loses big. If Obama invoked the 14th. successfully - it would go away, and no longer be this artificial excuse for for an un-needed political battle, dividing the country for no good reason, and damaging our credibility as a country before everyone.
The world is laughing at us.
I should have read you're whole piece, while in a calm state of mind, I especially love that last
paragraph.
Good.
performance as president these 2 plus years into his term? Sorry, can't do it.
Obama is GW light, as far as I'm concerned. I'm done being lied to by a man who sold himself as a progressive.
Want to start a draft Howard campaign? I'll sign on.
Just a great sentence. Sums it up for me. Makes me want to go read some Sylvia Plath to cheer up.
Work to look for true new alternatives look for americanelect, look for the creation of a new party of many new aprties.
Otherwise just be quite and cry on your destiny because you did NOTHING to change it.