How sad it was to watch young President Obama retreat -- Bush-style -- to a protected location and military audience to deliver the speech which likely marks the end of any hope for a successful Presidency. Some 30 years ago, Jimmy Carter's Presidency died in the Middle East desert when his hostage recovery mission blew up. But at least Carter's failed effort was a noble one. Obama has likely lost hope of success in pursuit of a war started by his political enemies and that has failed miserably to date.
By escalating the war to support a corrupt government in a land that has expelled every other invading power, he assures not only that its inevitable failure will be all the more spectacular -- but also that it will be wholly his -- as they say, he now "owns it." How can it be? This young, handsome and intelligent president escalating a war that his core supporters hate, independent voters increasingly disapprove of and his hateful right-wing enemies will never give him any credit for fighting in any event.
We on the left need to get grounded about this. All the excitement about the election of this "transformative" Harvard-educated, African-American with a beautiful wife and family made for great press and post-election bliss. But none of these superficialities guarantee success. And, to be objective, Obama had never actually achieved anything other than waltzing into a Senate seat and winning a Presidential election that took place in the middle of the worst financial crisis and stock market crash in decades -- beating an opponent who had picked a wing nut as his running mate. How hard was all that actually?
Surrounding himself with a bunch of pro-Wall Street advisors and bailing out the banks where their friends work was certainly no great achievement. His economic policies have produced little success in cutting unemployment. He has been hapless in trying to prevent the bankers from continuing to line their own pockets with obscene bonuses - now at the expense of the taxpayers as well as their own shareholders. The banks that were rescued with public money - are now thriving by borrowing from the Fed at 0% and investing in Treasury Securities - earning giant risk-free profits at our expense - while paying themselves bonuses as big as ever. Nothing has changed on Wall Street. Obama has done nothing to support, let alone push, financial reform legislation which insiders know is going nowhere.
On health care, he is allowing a group of Senators who are owned by that industry and Wall Street to craft legislation that is going to provide 40 million new customers to the craven health insurance companies, while preserving their anti-trust exemption that allows them to fix prices and not creating a strong public option to compete with them and control premiums.
Despite his promises, Guantanamo remains open.
Progressives need to face an uncomfortable fact. Obama was never really progressive. His pre-Presidential record was quite centrist. He ran to the left only because he and his handlers saw the political daylight there they needed to exploit to edge out Hillary Clinton. His lack of leadership in the healthcare legislative fight, including his quick abandonment of a public option confirm the reality -- Obama is an accommodationist -- relentlessly pursuing the same kind of non-confrontational behavior that enabled him as a black man to appear sufficiently non-threatening to rise to the top.
Progressives should have seen this coming. Candidate Obama said the Afghan War was the "right" war. We figured he was just saying that for political cover since he was using his purported opposition to the Iraq War to his advantage and thus needed to look "strong" on something. But, now we have it. Did I actually hear him cite the success of the war in Iraq as a justification for his escalation in Afghanistan? Yes, I did -- indicating that we can now add hypocrisy to his growing list of questionable traits. We were bamboozled.
Why is it that all presidents become War Presidents -- captives of the military? Somehow constantly being saluted while surrounded by the pomp -- the helicopters -- Air Force One -- the Situation Room -- seems to make them all want to be Caesars. Commander in Chief is not synonymous with Warrior in Chief.
Now we have our own Democratic War in a far-off land on behalf of a corrupt government. Many years ago, another "liberal" Democratic President (who was close to the military) escalated a war in a far-off land to prop up a corrupt government. That ill-advised adventure and economic policies that generated high inflation made him a one-term president. It also destroyed the progressive political movement for a generation. High unemployment, populist outrage at the bankers who plunder while the economy stagnates and body bags from Afghanistan may produce the same result for this President.
Remember: just because Obama was smart, young, handsome and the first Africa-American President does not mean he was guaranteed to succeed. And right now it looks like he is on the road to failure.
I hope Americans are ready for how this plays out and what it does to public opinion worldwide.
For many people, Mr. Obama represented the last, best hope that things would one day be different in the White House and perhaps inside the beltway in general. Sadly, we see that this is not the case.
Personally, I have given up all hope that this country has any chance of abandoning politics as usual. It's become clear that no hope remains - the Military Industrial Complex and Corporate America have won and the American people have lost.
Obama has shown absolutely no leadership skills to date - offering only carefully written rhetorical speeches that provide nothing in the end. Having said that, it's clear that his pinky finger has more character, ability and competence than that embarrassing idiot GWB.
I voted for Obama and I'm not sorry I did given the only real choice I had in this terrible two-party system we call democracy. I hope he can find his way, but I realize it's not too likely.
Declaring a target time could energize the Kabul local leader into action that allows us the option to draw down or hang in after the 18 months. Keep in mind that a centralized or "federalized" national government model there has never workd.
A "Dual" effort of building up existing tribal system along with a central army would be the smart hedge for nation building that can defend again the Taliban - for that's what were doing to prevent a failed narco-terror state.
I trust Gen. McChrystal, Gen Petraeus, Gen. (ret.) Jim Jones, Adm. Mullen, Sec. Gates, Sec. Clinton, and our "not too liberal" President Obama.
1. Hume Skeptic will never fan you.
2. You will never get another hp pick.”
As for Afghanistan itself, we pretend it is an independent nation? Then let it stand or fall as one. Colonizers owe nothing to the colonized but the end of colonialization.
Further, you are simply factually incorrect. Obama may be dealing with Bush's mess, but he is no Bush. He has surrounded himself with some of the best and most liberal and progressive foreign policy thinkers from our top Universities. Maybe you should do some research. But alas, he's not just a thinker anymore. He's the President.
"Let it stand or fall as one?" It is this type of myopic, oversimplified ideological thinking that I thought we voted out of office! So 2005. If Afghanistan goes to the religious nuts, so too will Pakistan. That would be a big problem for everyone. Complex problems require nuanced solutions.
During the election it was clear to me that Obama wasn't going to be the "change agent" so many supposed him to be. Folks essentially became enamored with him, as evidenced by the slightly creepy verbiage employed throughout the above article. Because of this, they believed he could accomplish the impossible. It's actually pretty basic when you think about it.
The COMPARISONS between Obama and "HECKUVA JOB, BUSHIE!" are piling up.
uhhh.. items like
- Obam RE-NOMINATING BUSHIE'S OWN Fed Chairman nonminee, Ben Bernanke - despite Bernanke's record of FAILING to do ANYTHING to restrain the banks from doing things that would MAKE THEM FAIL and go BANKRUPT (but for TRILLIONS of dollars of taxpayer 'bailouts')!!
- Bushie IGNORED the poor & minority people in New Orleans both before and after Hurricane Katrina... Obama is pretending that __25%+ UNEMPLOYMENT_ in Black community DOES NOT EXIST. Hell, Obama is IGNORING far MORE Black families in CRISIS today, than Bush IGNORED in New Orleans!
- Bushie GAVE KARL ROVE a FREE HAND to POLITICIZE the DoJ. He SICKED the SEC & DoJ on MARTHA STEWART for "lying to federal officials" about her selling a lousy $55,000 of ImClone stock she had EVERY RIGHT to sell, having NO fiduciary connection to the company.
Obama has LEFT Bush & Karl Rove's PERJUROUS, PARTISAN PROSECUTORS IN PLACE, and has done NOTHING to PROSECUTE REAL, VAST FINANCIAL CRIMES in the markets!
- Bushie LOVED the COMMANDER-in-Chief gig. So too does Mr. Obama...
Mr. Lerach's criticizes the President for "surrounding himself with a bunch of pro-Wall Street advisors and bailing out the banks where their friends work". Who in particular does he mean? While he has economic advisors and has made political appointments from Wall Street (believe it or not, that is where the bankers are who know the most about...banking), he also has plenty of academic advisors too. Who would Mr. Lerach rather advise the President about banking and economic matters? Perhaps his personal banker that controls his hundreds of millions of dollars he made in his career out of the pockets of, gasp, shareholders? To criticize a President for having advisors from Wall Street is empty and absurd.
he has NOTHING BUT "advisors from Wall Street" and most of them are either ex-GolddamnSachs officials, or CAREER ALLIES of GolddamnSachs, like TIMMY GEITHNER was/is.
(Geithner was a protege, at Treasury, under then Treasury Secretary ROBERT RUBIN... as in FORMER GolddamnSachs CHAIRMAN Robert Rubin, and Geithner, promoted to President, NY Fed Reserve Bank (a branch of the Federal Reserve Bank system, a CABAL of PRIVATE BANKS, of which GolddamnSachs, JPMorgan-Chase, & Citi are 3 of the largest members) during the run-up to the 2008 financial collapse & subsequent "BAILOUTS", did WHATEVER Bush's Treasury Secretary HANK PAULSON asked of him... as in, "FORMER GOLDDAMN-SACHS CHAIRMAN Hank Paulson."
Thanks for the TEXTBOOK example of "I don't care if OUR guy IS AS BAD AS BUSH, as long as he is OUR GUY" "liberalism" !!
Romer
Sunstein
Goolsbee
Orszag
Warren
Shall I go on? He gets much input from people who have made careers of criticizing Wall Street.
Paranoia strikes deep!
Sadly, It doesn't take Air Force One to instill the hubris in people that derails them from the principles they espouse. About they time they begin to fly on private planes, pay attention to how what they say will be received rather than whether they believe what they are saying, and surround themselves with people who can't or won't say no to their every idea, the transformation has begun. And that is typically well before they become candidates for higher office.
Putting Obama in office is not the same as sending a man to the moon (just because he is half-black). Obama's accomplishments or failures will be judged by his accomodation of the special interests - many who backed him with generous campaigne contributions.
The evidence is in - he sold out or he was always of the right wing in many ways - not the center, which is more to the left than Obama.