False Hope Springs Eternal

By virtue of the fact that I learned in 2008 to severely limit my media and liberal blog intake (I just could not fathom how BADLY the left was being deceived and how happily they were participating in the deception.) my reading does become a bit of an echo chamber. So be it. The stunning on going double think of the Progs at Kos and elsewhere in fascinating and edifying.

Turns out the faux liberals are really stupid.

I limit the impulse to read any of it -except to gloat.

Cannonfire again points up the faux liberal cognitive dissonance regarding Obama still rampant on the Left. Anyone who did some cursory research knows this already: Obi has a rare chance to change the game. But he won't.

The operative word in the sentiment is "rare". What is truly historic about this moment is not Obama's non WASPiness. His half blackness was, and is, an excuse white liberals hide behind to avoid looking at just how status quo a politician he is. (At its core it is also breathtakingly condescending.)

It is an exceedingly rare opportunity for a truly progressive government to emerge in the U.S. 1932 is the only other moment I know of in the last 100 years that a liberal government had a shot. Historical rewrites aside: Much good came from 1932. Starvation among the elderly was a real problem in pre FDR America. The rights of workers were severely limited. The financial system, now gutted by deregulation, was forced by FDR into a degree of transparency. A woman in a cabinet was unheard of before FDR. Not to mention Eleanor Roosevelt's drastic reconstitution of the First Lady's role. The New Deal did not end the Depression. It did, however, reshape our view of the elected Federal Government. It did open an era in American life in which the middle class could eventually flourish - the harshest aspects of Capitalism having been reigned in.

1980 codified a new conservative era. Conservatives like to blame the 60s - but the self indulgent society we now have springs from the 80s not the 60s. The conservatives have failed on an epic scale. On all fronts. 2008 is a moment when a true leader could have emerged to transform the landscape yet again. It is increasingly clear Obama has no intention of being that leader. He intends to be liked. Which will be his undoing. Since his election he's done everything imaginable to limit the "change wave" that brought him to victory - to tamp down expectations - to signal that the Rs will change to Ds but the elite will remain the elite. The "pigs at the trough", as Ms. Huffington called them, have different names but troughs will remain in place. I see no difference between what would have been Bush's policies if he had another year and what will be Obama's. Which is, of course, the point. Hawks on the foreign front and Wall Street types at home. Debt our way into a recovery and war our way abroad.

(As of today we know the U.S. presence in Afghanistan will be doubled. I mention this not because I disagree - I don't - but because the Obama Pod lies were so severe about the wars. Obama WILL NOT change this policy. Nor will there be a speedy exit from Iraq.)

The difference between Adams and Jefferson or Hoover and Roosevelt was extraordinary. The difference between W and Obama thus far is entirely in style and not substance. Unless he becomes someone else rapidly he will be a place holder for the next GOP majority in 4 years. Again this is, in all likelihood, the point. Would McCain have changed the landscape? No. Absolutely not. However, he would have added intelligence and decency back into the mix as the conservative era ended. And Hillary? Would she have midwifed a new era? Not the Clinton of 2007. But by the last primaries of 08 the answer was a clear YES. The choice confronting the superdelegates in June was between a woman who had earned her stripes and a fad no one knew much about who happened to be half-black. The Democratic "leadership" having replaced principles with slogans - made the obvious, and easy, choice.

The reason the media overlords and the libertarian Huffington crew were so ecstatic about Obama all along is simple: He is one of them, and they knew it. Obama was the perfect illusion of change, without being change at all. Wall Street gets a bailout, women get a supporting role, the war gets moved, and gays need to stop "whining."

Change has come, indeed.

The Obama media and Barack blogs continue to make excuses for him. I joked that the more I found out about Obama the more I thought his non Waspiness was the only thing I did like about him. But not being white is not a qualification for a thinking real post racial person. He came from corruption, and was abetted by corruption. Even if one won't say he is corrupt himself, he certainly is beholden to it. A distinction with absolutely no difference. It remains galling to see the Left continue to encourage their own descent into irrelevancy. The liberal calling cards of "hand up not hand out" and "economic fairness" are dead, killed by identity politics in the service of the status quo and Caroline's annoying ascension.

There are no liberals in Obama's inner circle. One would think the Obama/Dean liberals might take the hint. Instead we are having another round of the faux Left's favorite drinking game: "He's just a politician" - I guess one throws one back every time Obama betrays another part of his base.

I really admire places like Cannonfire and Riverdaughter for not flinching before the year's Obamamania. It's been no small task to stand up to the shitstorm of half truths and errant nonsense. The facts betrayed Obama all along. This is why he needed the entire super structure of American media to garner 52% of the vote -in 2008 after 8 years of W, by all rights, he should have had 64% easily. Watching one media outlet after another grudgingly admit bias is both sickening and sadly satisfying.

Still, they got their man: The agent of change who will change almost nothing.

As for the Left making excuses and feigning outrage: Go to hell. If they haven't learned how the game is played after 30 years of Atwater and Rove and refused to see the Obama Trojan horse (though it was plain as day) then there is no hope and they deserve no power. The planning and execution of Operation Make Obama President has been amazing.

Obama's true motto: For the elites, by the elites, so the elites shall not perish.

What many white liberals are still seeing is the symbol they elected. A garish topper on a 30 year whine festival Christmas tree. Maybe that is the final out for them. In reality the cynicism is so embedded that a symbol is all they really wanted. The best antidote for cynicism when all real hope is gone? False hope. False hope does, after all, spring eternal too.