Meet the new boss...

same as the old boss.

No one could have predicted the breaking of the levees

And imagine that, President Obama authorizes off-shore drilling but yet then rants at oil industry execs. What did he expect they would do? President Obama has got to stop playing nice with his political opponents. These people are not his friends and they are not going to behave in any sort of ethical way. Really? You're surprised by bad behavior on the part of oil companies? Really? If he nominated Jesus to the Supreme Court, they'd ask what judicial experience he had. The Republicans-while their policies are nightmarish, approach the realization of those policies with a single-mindedness that Democrats need. If Dems had Republican zeal and determination, this world would be very different.

false equivalence from President Obama

President Obama attempts to claim that Republicans and Democrats engage in the politics of self-destruction. Robert Parry notes that the President only ensures that Republicans will continue to attack him because it hasn't mattered whether policies were some that might garner Republican support. They have no desire to support Democratic policies. If it were a policy asserting that kittens are adorable, Republicans would claim that kittens are a lot of work and grow up to be pesky, troublesome animals. As Parry notes, until President Obama responds to fire with fire, he will continue to get hammered by Republicans acting in bad faith.

get me some cheese with

that whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. Ooh I feel terribly oppressed. When will WASPs ever get a chance?

manipulation of Tea-Partiers

Glenn Greenwald has an excellent post up about how the GOP is once again masking as big backers of limited government. During W's tenure, they didn't hesitate to advocate any measure which might increase the size of government via wars, intrusion into civil rights, limiting the free speech of those who spoke out against them, etc. Anyone who criticized Bush was told that we are at war so please be quiet and be a good American. Now of course, with W and Cheney among the least popular figures in American political history, the GOP is trying to re-position themselves as the party of more limited government, which they legitimately were through about 1970 and so now they're making nice with the Tea Partiers, attempting to co-opt their energy and anger against the Obama administration as though Bush & Co. were not much, much more intrusive. But this matters not to the GOP who knows their brand is in the toilet and so they attempt to co-opt the intellectually dishonest claims that Obama is grasping at totalitarianism. They're trying to re-write history in an attempt to salvage their political party.

Obama legitimates Bush

Obama's speech accepting the Nobel Peace Prize was another step in President Obama diminishing the space between himself and President George W. Bush. While he campaigned as a reformer, his promises, particularly on foreign policy, were so vague as to be meaningless. Hence these actions are not particularly surprising. However they are nonetheless disappointing as he confirms my worst suspicions about the course of his presidency. President Obama said in his remarks accepting the Nobel Peace Prize that America has underwritten security for the world over the past 60 years. I guess the President forgot to ask Mohammed Mossadeq, Guatemala, Vietnam, Grenada, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and Iraq, among others. President Obama also claims waging war is a means of securing future peace. So eight years in Afghanistan isn't long enough to secure peace in Afghanistan so perhaps 35 years will be enough? Would one more death in Iraq secure greater security there? No. Is there a compelling national interest for continued US presence and troops in Afghanistan? No. Is the US presence there ensuring further, understandable antagonism toward the US in the future? Yes. I never believed Obama was an agent of change because he was Wall Street's favorite son. Until there is campaign finance reform, none of this will change.

complacent Obama fans

There are many WASP-y Obama supporters out there for whom the election of President Obama was not particularly significant insofar as he represented a rebuff to the insular, secretive, big-business friendly W presidency but too much, because he wasn't George W. Bush. Too many people voted for President Obama simply because they were so (understandably) sick of the increasingly brazen corruption which typified W's leadership.

However, voting for someone because they aren't the worst guy ever isn't much of an endorsement of the new guy. It's not saying much to remove us from the seventh circle of hell and improve things a little bit. If those are the standards by which we define success, well, our "leaders" will continually fail to reach the standards of ethical, responsible leadership which the people of America should expect. But worse than the damning with faint praise is the fact that President Obama has doubled down on the secrecy of the Bush administration by abrogating his promise that he would veto any bill upholding telecom immunity. Obama has empowered the same financial advisors who facilitated the treasonous too big to fail bailouts at the end of Bush's second term. And we continue to bomb our "ally". With friends like that, who needs enemies? That brings me to this. Too many of my nice, urbane, yuppie college friends are not sufficiently upset, if they bought into the claims of Obama that he would change things, that he is much too content with same as it ever was. He hasn't empowered people, but is run by the same interests that have run politics in the US for a long time. Fine, if you want to criticize Bush, totally reasonable, but is Obama living up to the hype? When you promote yourself, and win awards for a campaign promoting change, you should be more than just talk.