Yet, there was always a nagging question: was he with us or just co-opting us?
Yes We Can?
Slowly, despite the glow and the aura, deeper truths surfaced, realities I had winked away. Its not surprising that his mantra has gone, as the Washington Post reports, from the "fierce urgency of now," to " Be patient, democracy is big and tough and messy." Now journalists who supported him use terms like "wimpy," "meek," "anemic" and "tone deaf" to describe his discourse.
Yes, I knew, I may have been rationalizing a false god, who was only another, if more attractive, politician who says one thing and does another in a political system where power, not personalities prevail.
Like many of his predecessors he would be "captured" by the power structures, by the military men and contractors at the Pentagon and the money men on Wall Street.
He was in office but never really in charge. Clearly, he didn't have the votes to enact a real change agenda. But that was because his own party was long ago bought and paid for.
He never had a chance, even if as I wanted to believe, he wanted one. He said he wanted to be transformational figure but the system transformed him--and quickly.
Everyone runs "against Washington," even a Senator, who was part of it.
And so I held my nose and voted, hoping against my wiser instincts. I even made a positive film about the campaign that showed how he used social media and texting to mobilize new voters. When I tried to get a copy to the White House, through an insider there, I found they couldn't be less interested.
By then, he had gone from playing the "outside game" to opting into the "inside game" built around compromise in the name of "pragmatism, or 'getting it done," in his words. In the end he was a rookie who may have outsmarted himself or just served the interests who put him there.
He couldn't dump his most passionate and issue-oriented followers fast enough.
While his backers were still hot to trot, he became cooler toward them, and, in effect, repudiated them with few progressive appointments. He put on his flag pin and relished the symbolism of the "office." He became the master of the uplifting speech disguising a quite different policy agenda.
He spoke for the people but served the power. His wanted the other side to love him too, even as his stabs at "bi-partisanship" proved non-starters.
When you lie down with those "lambs," (or is it snakes?) you betray not only supporters, but their hopes. FDR was soon spinning in his grave.
I am not surprised that knowledgeable critics of his economic policies not only consider him bull-headed and wrong, but, actually corrupt, aligned and complicit, with the banksters who are still ripping us off. No wonder he's "bundled" more donations from the greedsters and financiers this year than in 2008! No wonder, he turned his back on consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren and is trying to kill prosecutions of bank fraud in high places.
Christopher Whalen who writes for Reuters say there will be a cost for his doing nothing, "The path of least resistance politically has been to temporize and talk. But by following the advice of Rubin and Summers, and avoiding tough decisions about banks and solvency, President Obama has only made the crisis more serious and steadily eroded public confidence. In political terms, Obama is morphing into Herbert Hoover."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
