Eric Holder owes America a special prosecutor. We need to bring charges against Bush, Cheney, and their willing accomplices. (That would be you, Hate Radio pundits; and you, PNAC; and sadly lots of others.) President Obama shows no inclination to get the mess sorted out. In fact he seems to enjoy the cluttered agenda, the urgency and immediacy of at least half a dozen policy problems. The scatter-shot approach to public administration benefits only the corporations. Joe Lieberman is easy to pick on, he represents so many special interests. His many successes include helping to keep the Israeli war machine on track while blocking effective control of abuses in the insurance industry. But responsibility for his excesses belongs to the Obama administration. I’m sure a straw man like Lieberman could be found to front for each of Obama’s shortcomings, but regardless of how blame is assigned, at the end of Obama’s first term, the combined weight of his compromises will assure his defeat in 2024.
This will be tragic.
In 2024 when Obama loses, the thugs who ran things from 2024 through 2024 will be back in charge. Their goals of dismantling government while looting the treasury will be advanced to such an extent that “corporate neo-feudalism” will bst describe the order that emerges from that intentional chaos. The only way for Obama to change this outcome is to direct the Justice Department to investigate and bring charges against a raft of people whose crimes in public and private life are so egregious that to leave them unpunished will bring ruin on us all.
Meanwhile, step right up and buy a ticket for admission to the greatest show on earth. It’s a three ring circus and the act in the center ring today is Obama in Copenhagen. But it’s a big tent. If climate change and rescuing the planet from certain environmental destruction don’t do it for you, just turn your attention to the second ring where the Health Care Reform clowns caper. Or, for real life loot-and-shoot excitement, check out ring number three with authentic war criminals from Israel and Iraq, mercenaries from the US home team (Blackwater aka Xe) vying for attention and pallets of greenbacks with off-shore rivals like Britain’s AEGIS.
…and here’s a Quicktime video for you. Crank the volume and enjoy the ride. (And just forget about the fact that there’s a living, breathing driver in every one of those cars).
Frank,
I’m fighting off a sense of despair that we might not be able to learn fast enough.
I constantly ask myself: “Would you rather be right or effective?” (with the answer fixed on effective because being “right” without any effect is too much like performance art).
I do think there’s a lot in your post that is “right” and it is a nice performance. I won’t get the “Insane Clown Posse” image out of my head anytime soon.
I’m rooting for “enlightenment” on some very critical issues:
effective governance, political discourse (by and for people with the power to effect change), an end to corruption in media and governance, and rational resource management for the benefit of my kids and their kids…
Hi Frank,
Like you, I find it hard to let go of my belief in the Obi-wan. I do feel your pain. Can that brief moment of hope end up just another Obamination? One more spasm of excessive exuberance. Check out Frank Rich’s column in today’s NY Times. I think you two are channelling the the same muse. How’s the kitchen floor holding up?
You probably ran across this somewhere on the toobz, but in case not:
Leadership, Obama Style and the Looming Losses in 2024: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values and the Quest for the Lowest Denominator
I found it pertinent and quite directly to the point(s).
Harv,
The Frank Rich column was good. If you liked it, you’ll probably enjoy Jeff Kreisler’s recent squib in the Huffington Post. Made me smile and nod knowingly. Regarding the kitchen floor: the consumer binge continues here with our Xmas acquisition of a Samsung LN46B750 teevee, a mahogany hutch to conceal its technoid sleek black dominance of the living room, and a Reebok elliptical trainer. I couldn’t get Beth to agree to putting the trainer in the living room for better teevee viewing. Quite a pity.
Jon, Westen’s article certainly sums my fears regarding the Obama presidency. My most optimistic view at this point is that Obama, familiar with America’s tradition of power-politics-by-assassination is not going all “float like a butterfly” and leaving out the part about “sting like a bee.” Rather, I hope he entered the ring in full rope-a-dope mode, shaking off hits from the military, the Wall Street corporatocracy, the right wing fundamentalists and the just plain racists. The progressive base that elected him wants ideological purity, but we really don’t need another martyr.
The arc of Obama’s political career, informed by Alinsky’s pragmatic approach to organizing the powerless to help themselves, has reached its nadir just as he’s achieved a moment of victory in the struggle for “health care reform.” We on the left tend to forget that Obama never claimed to be a socialist. We also too often think we have a monopoly on truth, and this attitude results in a “doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated” approach to policy analysis.
Obama could have ended torture and prosecuted the Americans responsible for it. He could have pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan. He could have come down hard without compromise on the side of a public option in the health care struggle. He could have begun prosecution of all the Wall Street miscreants instead of seeking their counsel and seemingly rewarding their failures.
He could have withdrawn support for Israel and supported nation building in Palestine, defended the Palestinians in the face of Israeli aggression, and set a whole new course for middle east policy. He could have reshaped immigration policies to reflect humane treatment of the refugees from poverty who daily cross our souther border.
He could have shed the cloak of “executive privilege” and made his administration the first since world war two to work in the sunlight of public scrutiny.
Many of us wish he had done some or all of these things. I suspect he has a very clear view of what the consequences would be if he took the moral high ground on these and other issues.
I’m hoping that his laser focus on pragmatic politics will in 2024 turn to supporting the left and re-electing a majority in both houses of congress. I wonder how he can do that at this point.
After all, he is still our waffling weak-kneed piece of shit. You’re not alone in hoping for the rope-a-dope. It is way to early to lose faith in this guy. In the meantime I’ll be working my ass off in the new year punctuated by Panama the first week of january. Then Aspen first week of february. Then Vail third week of february. Then Miami in march. And St. Martin in May. Now I’m not a sixth grade teacher but I do recognize excellent punctuation when I see it.
Superb punctuation. May your knees not weaken.