It's lonely on the outskirts. Being on the outskirts of the outskirts is even lonelier still. Yet there is satisfaction here on the blogs that are outside the mainstream. Months ago, just after the election, I wrote that there was no loss to be had in questioning Obama. If he turned out to be all he and Axelrod promised he was - the country would be better for it and we - liberals, moderates, and conservatives -did our duty in questioning him without shame. In a free country everyone must question leadership. We are not 'consumers', we are citizens. If our most strident criticisms were proven wrong - well - so be it. I've eaten worse meals than crow pot pie.
On the other hand if, as indicated by the actual facts available on Obama during the entire election season, he turned out to be a duplicitous, arrogant, narcissistic, speechifying light weight who was lying overtly and covertly all along, then those who stood their ground would transform from "deadenders' into prophets before everyone's eyes. Becoming a prophet in this instance was a low risk bet. Obama made it an easy call. There was never any chance he would be the President he promised he'd be.
Eleven months in the road to prophethood is cleared of all brush and looks to be wide open from here to the horizon. None of those who refused the siren call of Obamamania will be dining on crow anytime soon. We probably never will. To mash up the metaphor a bit - it's safe to say that the crow dinner reservation has been handed off to the Kos family. Even so, the BHO victory restaurant is emptying and will close up shop soon enough.
The real deadenders now are the likes of Andrew Sullivan and Matt Yglesias - men who loved blindly and nearly unconditionally. Misguided children at places like the Dailykos and Huffpo are on a dead end road too. They chose hope over truth. Hallucination over reality. The bender that will surely prove the naysayers wrong - over sobriety.
In one year many of these mega children have passed quickly through the stages of ego deflation. Mindless glee (post election), fighting back (mockery and slander), denial, (those tea parties are just crazy racists. They mean nothing.) and most recently - excuses.
Excuses are the last stage before they turn completely (Many will have an abrupt cognitive break here- insisting they always knew Obama was not the man advertised.) or they will disappear - hunkering down in some hole, insisting that Obama is a great man and sometime soon the rest of us will come around. This will make the circle complete. Magical thinking started the journey and will be its end. Along the way there will be plenty of "Well, he's better than McCain would have been." A declamation similar to "jobs created or saved." As these remarks are desperate speculation, I consider them preparation for the final descent into an all encompassing magical world.
Via Riverdaughter and Glenn Greenwald we see a fine deconstruction of some recent excuses. Sure Obama has backtracked and ignored the ideas that animated his campaign - but hey who needs principles when a Democrat is in the White House? Taking principled stances only applies when Republicans are in power.
Bush bad. Obama good. Beat chest. Sip latte. Repeat.
It would be swell if I found the disintegration of the Obama apologists heart wrenching. It would speak to a personal magnanimity. But I ain't there. Watching Sullivan try to re-auction his soul in public satisfies mine. Nor do I put much into worrying about the direction of the country. I gave up on that last year. Hillary Clinton really was my last hope on that front. A country blessed by landing the right person at the right time for 230 years - ran out of grace. In 2008 we needed diligent, hardworking, competent leadership to rise to the top. We got Obama. I've come to the depressing conclusion that I am a pre-iceberg passenger on the Titanic fully aware of how this voyage ends. The best choice now is to watch closely and know where the nearest lifeboat hangs.
A spirited discussion about Mrs. Palin erupted here a few posts down. After, having thought I'd write little about Palin going forward, that conversation got me stewing again. The reason my thoughts on Palin had run there course is simple: After resigning the governorship of Alaska it seemed to me that she had removed herself as a viable national player. If she intends to run for President one day it was, in my book, a mistake.
Now she's on a national book tour and making headlines again. For a moment she is as present as she was last Fall. Like the campaign, the critiques of her are rarely evenhanded - and often vicious.
For those who did not want Hillary Clinton to win last year - it's annoying for those of us who did to have to explain our frustration and horror at Palin's treatment. Many of us are again put in the uncomfortable position of calling the elephant in the room...well....an elephant. The tactic of degrading Clinton based on gender was transferred to Palin. There is no denying it. In fact, she was sexualized more easily - making the slutty stewardess jokes easier for late night comics.
If one was an Obama fan the sexist bile directed at Hillary was par for the course, a part of the conversation. It became the context in which many Obama fanatics saw the world. The evil woman was in the way of our beloved man. Even now, suggesting to an Obama supporter that much of the criticism of Clinton sprung from gender fear is met with incredulity - though the evidence is overwhelming. If "Yes, but Hillary is a controlling bitch", isn't spoken - it's right under the surface. That was always their final answer.
Liberals who had nursed resentments about the Clintons since the 90s let loose the full barrage on Hillary. The ease with which this resentment became sexist vulgarity still has me shell shocked. Cunt, Witch, Bitch, Evil, Kill her, Run her over and leave her by the side of the road. Keith Olbermann implied on his show that she ought to be killed.
We all saw the comments on liberal sites. We all know those two 'liberal' kids above thought their shirts were funny. The Huffington Post, the Dailykos, Democratic Underground and Americablog became clubhouses for those hankering to express their most vile, sexist thoughts. And they did. All in the name of supporting Obama. All came from alleged liberals. All from people who claimed the mantel of equality and justice. Palin was hung in effigy as a "joke" last Halloween, a stunt that every feminist in America should have intoned against. Most were silent.
Not her beliefs. Not her convictions. Not her record. Her VAGINA. Palin's vagina is the font of all evil in the galaxy.God Lord, I wish there was something deeper at play in that remark. Some tiny shard of reality. But there isn't. Men like Sullivan - and we've recently discovered they are still legion - live in terror of any vagina they believe is hell bent on gobbling them up. Sullivan is an extraordinary gasbag - even by the low standards of his readership and clique. Still, he gets to the rub of it for many men. Any woman who does not play by the rules set by men must be stopped. Any woman who questions an adored male figure must be hounded. Burn the witches! Hillary in the spring! Palin in the Fall!
Men from James Howard Kunstler, to Chris Matthews, to Sullivan have let their inner mommy demons run wild for months now.
The hate transition from Clinton to Palin was seamless. Being conservative, Palin gave the Left a little more to work with - but it was hardly relevant. The centering emotion was the adolescent male fear ofvaginas with teeth.
My anger about this topic is not based in politics. Palin's are troubling. It's the phenomenon of denial that disturbs. It is the counterpoint to my frustration with the Obama cult last year - a refusal to see reality. The "Obots" - and I include much of the media - refused to see Obama. They excused his massive flop flops, they ignored his financial backing from Wall Street and Soros, they pretended he'd taken principled stances on issues when he had avoided them, they ignored his vapid, almost empty record. This refusal now has consequences. Obama is what many who did look closely at him suspected all along : a weak, indecisive, inexperienced man who is being rolled by everyone from Nancy Pelosi to the Japanese Prime Minister.
Will those who despise Palin, and despised Hillary before her, ever come out of denial about the real basis of their contempt? Maybe. After all, coming out of denial about Obama has been the nation's group project in 2009. It's possible Palin will be judged on her merits and the content of her character at some point.
In the mean time, someone needs to tell Andrew Sullivan that the gnawing on his testicles is something other than a politician's vagina.
GOP BROTHER linked Palin's piece in WAPO on Cap and Trade- which I just read. Pretty sure we can now put to bed any idea that she intends to slip into obscurity.
-The piece is geared to Conservatives put there is plenty that will appeal to Independents.
- It is an oped in the Washington Post - a clear sign she is intends to reach beyond her base.
- Making a quick remark about the nasty political culture (that Obama has not stopped or changed.) she moves right into the issue at hand. Cap and Trade more than anything he's proposed is Obama's political Achilles heal.
- She hits Obama directly - with no apologies. This is particularly delicious:
Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation? Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.
Emphasis is, of course, mine. Every time one of those annoying Obama cult slogans gets used against him it makes me smile. ("We are the one's we've been waiting for" is clearly suited for the wastrel, air head generation of college educated morons Obama appealed to. Meaninglessness that appears meaningful and stops thought cold....)
Her PAC raised 700,000 from Jan-June and another 200,000 in the days right after she announced her resignation - but an editorial in the Washington Post is the surest sign she has national intentions. Expect another ethics charge by noon, and a post from Andrew Sullivan claiming she didn't give birth to any of her children by dinner...
Palin is the BULLY???? WTF???? Assholes like Huffington and Bill Mahr are the bullies. But I suspect they are "Perez Hilton bullies". Bitchy little weenies until someone clocks 'em....
In a four-page letter, Alaska-based attorney Thomas Van Flein wrote, "This is to provide notice to Ms. Moore, and those who re-publish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, the New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law."
I love it. I wish the Left had not given up on clarity and conviction in 2008. How long before the dipshits at Kos and Hufpo squeal about their "first amendment rights"....to slander.....?
Sunday Prayer:Please God, make the Palins sue Andrew Sullivan.
Wimbledon has begun. I know you are all desperate to know what I think about the 3rd Grand Slam of 09. Relax, I will tell you Men: Who I am rooting for: Andy Roddick . Who I think will win: Andy Murray Women: Who I am rooting for: Venus.Who I think will win: Venus. (Does she or her sister really need a last name at this point?)
Gays ditching Barry Part 2:it's a way for the White House to wank off the gay leaders a bit while still not delivering. Also, I see no reason to link to Americablog again- so I won't. But apparently Avarosis is ripping Barry O up all the time now. WTF? What dipshits these Obama pimps - like Avarosis and Sullivan - were last year! To all the big gay players who GOT PLAYED by Obama - next time pay attention to your candidate's actions not just the trendiness of his skin color.
I urge readers here to read this at Cannonfire. He - and those he links to are - frankly - calmer writers on this topic than I am - or want to be. Joseph Cannon's piece hits the mark directly - as he usually does. From there you can go to Riverdaughter who nails it as well - saying what many of us think and I have written in less polite terms:
The left is suffering from a moral sickness. It wanted an outcome so badly that it was willing to sacrifice its own personality and principles to get it.
Damn right.
Cannonfire also quotes Andy Sullivan who is moral trash and ought to be shunned by all thinking people as soon as this Obama gay bashing storm passes. One can read Sullivan's regrets without clicking on his putrid blog.
Clarity: Obama's Justice Department compared gay men and lesbians to pedophiles. This is HATE. The Justice Department of the United States has taken the same stance as those who want gays dead in places like Iran.
Often I take joy in watching the False Deluded Obama Left wake up to the truth about Chicago Slim. I'm far from ego less. In this case my response is closer to nausea. I am heartsick for all the gay kids out there who read Obama's vile legal brief.
Let us never forget that it did not have to be this way. Those of us who knew Obama was a con man and a fraud must never stop reminding the Sullivan's and the Avarosis's what they did. They had an audience. They could have educated voters about Obama. They chose to participate in the lie. For this they must be held responsible and for this they must apologize.
The most horrific and blatant example yet that Obama is Bush 3:
Obama defends DOMA in federal court. Says banning gay marriage is good for the federal budget. Invokes incest and marrying children.
Actually, Obama is worse than Bush. Bush would never have been so morally depraved as to invoke the budget to promote bigotry. One can hardly imagine a McCain Administration producing a federal brief this reactionary. Hey Andy Sullivan: Go slink away into a hole in Provincetown - FOREVER. You WERE WRONG. Admit it.
Link here. Yes it is Americablog. It may now have finally occurred to Avarosis and the foolish, idiotic Obama Pods that Obama is a fraud of epic proportions. I will never let people like John Avarosis forget what he and the Pods did last year with their relentless, sexist attacks on Clinton. Let's put this as plainly as possible:
A PRESIDENT HILLARY CLINTON WOULD NEVER SUBMIT A RETROGRADE AND DESPICABLE BRIEF SUCH AS THIS TO A FEDERAL COURT.
NEVER.
Apologize NOW.
YES YOU CAN.
Some of us knew Obama was a fraud before it was cool.
Andrew Sullivan's piece called The Fierce Urgency Of Whenever about gay rights is a good jumping off point for tonight. In it he states: ...I have a sickeningly familiar feeling in my stomach, and the feeling deepens with every interaction with the Obama team on these issues. They want them to go away. They want us to go away.
His piece is largely personal and about HIV, not gay rights (Though there are, of course, intertwined, they should not be taken as one and the same.) I have no desire to write a broadside about Sullivan and HIV. The appropriate response to that is, as always, compassion.
However, it causes a bottomless pit of fascination for me that so many people fell for Obama. And fall they did. Flat on their backs. Flattened on their backs is more like it. My distress and revulsion is still palpable.
I've done my time on campaigns over the years: Ted Kennedy, McGovern, Mondale, Brown, Jesse Jackson, Harkin, Clinton, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Clinton...and in all those campaigns the level of self congratulatory delusion never came close to what was evident in Obama's campaign. Obama in the eyes of those who supported him was not a candidate at all - but a seer, a Messiah, an answer to everything from Gay Rights to bunions. As last year wore on - and into 2009 - oozing smugness became the order of the day. Regardless of all evidence to the contrary - and though that evidence was downplayed anyone with a computer could have found it - the Obama fanatics ignored and dismissed it. Have we ever seen so many people willingly blind themselves?
Every time I volunteered I had hope and purpose. Like all who volunteer I had a belief in the process, a desire to be a part of something bigger, and a faith, of sorts, in the candidate. However, rarely did I have or detect a sense in anyone else that they thought the candidate was anything but a person. Bill Clinton remains the most gifted speaker we've seen in my lifetime. I admit to occasional moments of being so moved by him that he appeared to be something other than a politician. It never lasted. I knew Bill Clinton was a moderate and would behave as such. And chose to volunteer anyway.
The faith the Obama people put in Obama was of a different stripe. It was religious. Which is to say it was willfully blind. The candidate himself really did not matter to them- and he knew it. What they were projecting mattered.
Now, I suspect that many progressives internally exited the Obama Exultation Express when he chose an economic team straight out of Wall Street. But their egos can't come "out of the closet" just yet. So excuses and half baked criticisms are all that can be mustered. "At least he's not McCain or Bush" is the order of the day. Even that excuse has jumped the shark. With each passing compromise and avoidance by Team Obama this too becomes moot.
Instead of reflexively resting on what they believe he's "better than", realistic Obama supporters should be asking - What exactly is the difference between McCain, Bush, and Obama? The answer, so far, is not much. As I stated before, the interference in Detroit probably would not have happened with a President McCain. But even there, the result will be the same: Bankruptcy for Chrysler and GM. The gag rule being rescinded is another instance of sure difference. Still that rule comes and goes every time the parties switch off.
I know much of my audience here is more conservative than me. That's fine. I appreciate it, in fact. Still watching so many "liberals" lop off there common sense for over a year is - at the very least - compelling reading. Did Sullivan actually believe BHO would be a strong proponent of Gay rights? Did John Avarosis? I love calling them dunderheads. but they aren't and I know it. How could Sullivan remain a cheerleader for so long? How did Avarosis get sucker punched into selling his soul?
Huffington and Cheetos man are a different breed. Neither are willing to think outside the box or question their current assumptions. Their arrogance is too thick. Obama merely accentuated their constricted thinking and gave them an excuse to continue bashing Clinton -any Clinton. Obama was the perfect candidate for them- especially for the fad following Huffington. I have no doubt that once Obama sinks below 50% she will turn. She is already prepping her crowd - attacking everyone in the Obama Admin - except Obama.
It actually saddens me a bit to see Sullivan's disappointment in Obama's gay rights cowardice. Like seeing a kid who just found out Santa Clause doesn't exist.
But my patience is short. He was cold blooded and mean last year and has not earned anything but a smidgen of compassion because he realized too late that his God has clay feet on issues closest to his life. Again the issue is not supporting Obama - it is supporting Obama blindly. Not questioning. Not holding up the basic tenant of being intelligent and engaged: Question everything and everyone - even those you intend to vote for. Sullivan and Avarosis have no right to be disappointed in Obama. Both men have a large audience and a platform that could have been used to educate. They could have questioned what happened at the DNC meeting last May. They could have - at least - wondered why Obama was so secretive about his academic record. They opted for cheer leading, mudslinging and gleeful, vicious attacks on Palin.
Sullivan in not a progressive but he's become a defacto member of the Left's intelligentsia with his adoration of Obama. And yes, Andrew, Barry does want you to go away. He wants Code Pink and Move On and anyone who believed he would shake up the elite to GO AWAY. You were used by a man who uses people and throws them overboard as a lifestyle. You should have seen this coming, Andrew.
Foto: Something to Chewy on. Poll Dance: Patterson is in the doghouse in NY. Cuomo leads him 70%-21% in Dem primary polling. Cuomo's Dem primary lead reminds me of Clinton's lead in places like West Virginia last Spring. Why is no one on the Huffington/Brentwood/David Geffen Left saying: What a bunch of backwoods bigots and retrograde racists those New York Democratic Primary Voters are!!!!
I am seriously. - Someone needs to tell the Daily Kos and H.R. Huffington 'n stuff!!!!! -Olbermann needs to make a Special Comment! -John Avarosis needs to...uh...go and post something about...
how bad Hillary Clinton uh I mean Cuomo...is so...because...uh.....those upstate hicks are all haters!!!! Wah!!! Therefore...vote for..uh...the Black Guy....I was not paid off..uh...by Axelrod...uh...to become an Obama Pod....wah!!! Stop being a hater!!...I hate Hillary! Wah!!!! uh...I mean I hate Cuomo!!! wah!!! He divorced a Kennedy! And Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama! Divorce rhymes with endorse! Wah! Me and Cheetos Man and Andrew "vagina dentata fears come upon me suddenly in the night!" Sullivan are super seriously important people. Wah! I blog therefore I am! wah wah wah!
Sullivan is instinctively smug. Sullivan has too much to lose internally were he to admit that some of us did not lose our collective minds after 9/11 - scary as the weeks and months that followed were. Some of us applied our minds - then rationally opposed the invasion of Iraq on both moral and policy grounds. We thought it was a mistake, a waste of blood and treasure, an attack against the wrong enemy, badly planned (even in the run up it was clear Rumsfeld was mistaken to some of us), probably illegal, self evidently not about protecting us from those who had attacked us, and was - also self evidently - about another agenda all together. Millions of us thought the invasion of Afghanistan was a just war and Iraq disintegrated because Bush took his eye off the ball.
(Iraq may end up being a "victory" but only because W finally opted to fight the war...well...as if it was a war - years after the fact- and all invaded countries, over time, "settle down". What can't be ignored is the possibility that Bush's Iraq invasion was the moment the United States began the long downward slope that all great nations eventually ride. It was a moment of overreach. I am willing to bet the invasion will be seen by historians as a major the turning point in the life of America as a superpower. )
Sullivan got swept up by W's talking points about Iraq after 9/11. But we ALL didn't. He has since recanted forcefully - nevertheless he briefly rewrites history for all of us - to justify his mistake. Until the war began almost half the population opposed it. Millions took to the streets in the United States to oppose it. I was one. Phil Donahue was booted off MSNBC because he would not tow the line. "All" is a big word, Andrew.
Sullivan's use of the world "all" is hardly devious historical revisionism. He most likely did not even notice it as he typed. But it gets to his syncophantic heart. However sturdy the persona, those of his ilk always place personality before policy in the end. His obsession with Sarah Palin is a classic case of a writer informing us much more about himself than his subject. He continues to willy nilly degrade the Tea Parties with the word "tea bagging". He is a gold medalist in the Smug Olympics. (I do wonder what the psychology of gay men, like Anderson Cooper and Sullivan is when it comes to using "tea bagging" as a pejorative.)
One of those "life lessons" that being opposed to Obama throughout last year taught so clearly is this: People's egos, especially when their inner narrative is confronted with facts, will construct an alternate reality which supports whatever lies they are telling themselves - dismissing any and all information that confronts and rebuts their chosen narrative. Like so many bloggers who swooned for Obama, he cannot fully confront the reality of Obama. Even now. Sullivan's shifts are not evolutions based on new information. They are zig zags based on personality. Bush went from a moral man to someone he "misjudged". Andrew, you did not "misjudge" Bush. You never bothered to look at him in the first place.
Sullivan is now in the process of trying to save his self serving view of Obama.
Recently Sullivan has conjured a theory of "Obama's long game" - a justification he uses to excuse BHO's delay in coming to a decision about the releasing the torture memos. The point of the post being that Obama is smarter than you and me and therefore must trusted. He'll do the right thing "in the long run." This type of excuse comes right after "give him a chance" and right before "well, at least he's black."
The post linked at the top threads the most recent needle Obama has laid before his fawners. "Look how brave and transparent our guy is...sure he won't pursue the logical next step...but isn't he grand for releasing the documents." To be fair, Sullivan is clear in his opposition to torture of any kind. Still, one has to wonder at what point Sullivan's brain will connect the most obvious dots. By not prosecuting torturers Obama has become a party to what Sullivan rails against. As with A New Way Forward's pathetic "protests" about the banks - there is a refusal to see that the President IS the problem.
There is nothing brave about releasing the documents if the only result is to whip up fury against Bush and the CIA. What Obama did was actually cowardly. He flinched before both the Left and the Right - then got the hell out of Dodge...again.
Let me state without reservation: I think the documents should have been released - had to be released - and I believe prosecutions are in order. HOWEVER, (This is a big "however") if prosecutions are untenable - for whatever reason - then they should have remained secret. There is simply no reason to announce there may be criminals in our midst and, in the same breath, insist we will do nothing about it. This is cowardice, dressed up to look like decisiveness.
The result here is to open a wound and sit back and watch it bleed. If I were in the CIA I would be disgusted. Our intelligence community is now being raked over hot coals for apparent misdeeds. We do not get the catharsis of reaffirming our values by punishing those who crossed the line, and those who serve us honorably in the intelligence community don't either.
The same drama is aching along with the banks. The crooks are called out and then NOT punished. Meanwhile every decent person in the financial world gets slimed - because Obama and Holder refuse to punish those who committed the crimes. At some point one has to admit that the game of playing both sides off the middle serves to benefit the wrong doers. Since Obama does this with ease - one has to conclude he intends to benefit them.
He's an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks....
Eventually people like Sullivan will come to terms with Obama. Being smart and deluded are not mutually exclusive. Sullivan is smart. Denying some one's lack of principles by wildly insisting for a year- with no proof whatsoever - that he is a man with sublime wisdom based on principles is hard to recover from. It takes time. Egos are tender things. Meanwhile, bashing Trig Palin passes the time.
The some of us who did not check reality at the door last year, who knew all along that Obama was all hat and no cowboy, must keep speaking truth to the deluded.
In this little corner of the Internets the watchword is WATCH. Closely. As I've said already, I have no faith or hope in the man who is now President and this is a good thing. My expectations can be easily met, and, I suspect, will be. Some already have been met. That inauguration thingy was too pricey but did seem nice. The speech was okay.
If Obama turns out to be a truly transformative leader I benefit, you benefit, we all do. Win/Win.
Along the way, those of us who refused to "get on the Obama bus" now have the obligation to see as clearly as possible, to own what we already know. The man did not emerge from the ether yesterday. He got where he is with brutal tactics and calculating deceits. Not exactly new, but he did raise the bar. Aspects of these characteristics may benefit him as he deals with Pelosi and that lot.
For anyone who feels the need to "give him a chance" I support that. I don't feel this need. I want proof.
He's failed the trust test 1000 times over the past year. At every single moment when integrity was called for Obama chose duplicity. The Wright speech was as close as he came to showing some integrity. But then he ditched the old grump a week later anyway.
I won't be shaking the etch-a-sketch simply because he was sworn in. Real liberals don't do blind allegiance.
One of the reasons pro Clinton blogs were a treat and relief all year was because they supported and defended her while never letting her off the hook. I knew I disagreed with Clinton's war votes. The Obama pods knew he fudged his Iraq stance every 3 months and decided not to take in the information and deal with it - but instead to lie and pretend reality was, in fact, not reality.
The Obama Blogs and Media Machine attacked Clinton and ignored Obama's reality. They often slipped into moral depravity. Kos allowed - it seems encouraged - death threats against the Clintons, incitements to rape, and all manner of other vulgarity. Huffington was a caldron of blind hatred and shiny delusion. Avorisis sold his soul. Andrew Sullivan tried to - but came to find he does not have one. Poor Andy. Olbermann made a joke about killing Clinton.
Ha. ha.
The trolls who got off on alighting at those places, punking the Clintons, and working into dithers of Obama rapture are in for rough sledding. He's not what was sold. What he actually is is still open to question. And it may not be so bad. What he will be to many is disappointing. Most Pods began frantically making excuses the day after the election. In those pockets of the Left where integrity, principles, and consistency still matter the Obama party has long since dispersed.
Though this blog and many bigger ones directed fury at the Obama charade - lines where drawn in the sand. Anger was in full bloom. The murderous fantasies of spoiled children were not.
BHO does not fit any of the usual labels. Though this may sound appealing and revolutionary about now- it is not. Core principles matter. I have no idea what his are, or if he has any. Liberal and conservative are nouns. Moderate is a verb. To say Obama is moderate is to imply an action or way of being. It is not a statement of core beliefs.
Splitting the difference is not a core principle. It is a tactic. The Carter, Bush 1, and Clinton presidencies all suffered when a lack of core principles was exposed or principles were betrayed. Bush 2 believed in a thing or two along the way - but his anti-curious shallow personality resulted in an ossifying stupidity as the first years of the Iraq war and Katrina proved.
If President Obama demonstrates leadership skills and integrity, takes intelligent action, and proves he belongs where he now is - I will applaud. The campaign and transition proved that he was shrewd and supported by many. Nothing else. As far has I can tell, even after the speech yesterday, is that he believes in "unity". Before November he believed in "hope".
Yeah, well. Who doesn't?
The bar is so high for me, and my expectations so low, precisely because I watched closely all year. So far, all he brings to the party are slogans, speeches about unity, and, since winning, a congenital compulsion to split the difference in all fights. Oh, and a lot of very powerful folks behind the scenes who do have expectations.
A few things backed up today. 1. The white liberal Obots are quickly becoming the battered wives of American politics. They take a beating from the Lord Obama, insist it won't happen again, and, after a bit, start making excuses to keep the relationship going. The toxic Andrew Sullivan - who I can't bring myself to link to again - is now backpedaling with truly asinine rhetoric about generational change and the usual horseshit from Obama Kool-Aid World. Uppity has a fine round up here. 2. This nonsense about Obama "reaching across the divide" by choosing Warren is not double- think - it's triple-think. For the "reaching across the aisle" meme to be true one must believe:
A. Obama was ever pro-gay rights. Unlike Hillary Clinton, this is not true. All year Obama surrounded himself with homophobes - while refusing to even have his picture taken with pro-gay rights San Francisco Mayor Newsome (talk about cowardly). Obama has never spent a penny of political capital on gay rights.
B. Believing, in contradiction to the facts, that Obama is for equal rights for gays one can then take refuge in the nonsense that Obama is building a bridge by choosing Warren.
C. When, in fact, Obama - by choosing Warren - is simply continuing as he always has; surrounding himself with homophobic "leaders". Obama is in his comfort zone with Warren.
Nice trick, Barry.
Now a link to the ever odious Avarosis. I laid out my utter contempt for rich white faux liberals here. This does not mean that watching them impale themselves is not going to be fun next year. (I wish there was a Code Pink Cam so we could see the freak out when Lord Obama bombs Afghanistan and has the military go into Pakistan.) The cognitive dissonant nightmare that is Avarosis's brain manages to point up a sick truth about Warren here. I am not sure who causes more nausea, Rick Warren or John Avarosis. Can't decide. I'll stick with Huffington and David Geffen if I feel the need to vomit.
In summary: the problem here is not Rick Warren or Barack Obama - it is the fools on the Left who did the Obama denial jig all year. I'd like to re constitute the central thesis of this blog at some point. But so far my basic beliefs about BHO are truer today than they were when I turned on him last January. (It's called research - you should try it Obama Pods.)
Obama is a fraud. Obama will turn out to be poison for liberals.
What I was going to post alone tonight is below:
BRAND OBAMA
No Quarter has already done the due diligence on this Chomsky clip. It is so spot on that I am happy to bring up the rear and essentially repeat a post.
Chomsky lives further to the Left than I ever alight. But I have admired him greatly from where I sit. I consider his addition of the phrase "manufactured consent" to the lexicon invaluable in clarifying my thoughts on this year's Obama media circus. Our "consent" in electing Obama was manufactured as surely as our "consent" for the Iraq invasion was.
Money quotes (I paraphrase) :
The choice of Biden must have been with conscious contempt for his own voters.
and
These people should not be advising (Obama) on the economy. They should be getting subpoenas.
One of the fascinating truisms of both Obama and Bush has been to ability to throw the bird at the population openly and suffer no backlash. Indicative, I think, of very similar personalities. When Obama, answering complaints about his status quo cabinet choices, said "I am the change." One could easily hear the echo of W's "I am the decider."
(If a Senator Clinton had been elected her saying "I am the change." would actually be true.)
Chomsky calls Obama what he is: a brand. And as a note to whoever is left out there on the true pacifist Left the comments on Afghanistan and the Obama website are helpful.
Getting fair, real analysis on Obama is going to take some work next year. The media simply won't be able to bring itself to confront its own maleficence in 2008.
Since the election Obama has come out of the closet. As with Clay Aiken, only the most delusional teens denied what was self evident.
He is what is Obama really is: 1. A narcissistic power monger. As L.R. predicted months ago - "Geffen" limo liberals and their adolescent enablers would be the first under the bus. This is now as clear as it can be. Obama used you guys. Obama does not need white liberals any more. So SEE YA! Please come back to Iowa and New Hampshire sometime in late 2011. Oh, and he never liked you. You are envelope stuffers. Always were - from the moment he robbed Alice Palmer... 2. A Neo-Liberal warrior. The anti-war lie has finally evaporated. The foreign policy team is as right wing as we've had in a Democratic Administration since Lyndon Johnson. Obama - now unfettered - is clearly signalling more war in Afghanistan. Code Pink had better call a Code Red. Yes, Clinton is on the team. But she NEVER, not once, presented herself as anything other than a realist hawk. All the while being roundly trashed by trollops like Huffington and Avarosis. 3. A man who looks favorably on Milton Friedman economics. His team is populated with "Chicago School" types. One caveat: "Big government" will make a come back. It would have under McCain as well. The situation is dire - the only institution left standing with access to currency (not money, really - just the illusion of it. ) is the U.S. government. So the government will spend. But don't expect any cash infusions for anything other than what will help Obama win re-election. The spending will not be based in any principle of fairness. It will solely be based on keeping Democrats - and himself - in power. From Cannonfire: The Shock Doctrine will be the guiding light here. 4. A man who has no use for Gay rights. He never has. He's been clear. I hardly fault him. Again, the skill with which he manipulated the delusional liberal wing of his party was something to behold. Regardless of evidence that clearly tagged Obama as a homophobe, the John Avarosis-es and and the Andrew Sullivans kept puckering up to kiss THE ONE's rump. I can't help but remind everyone that nothing short of bile spewed forth from the Pods about Palin's church. Well, Rick Warren is now giving the invocation at a Presidential Inauguration. Put that in your sexist pipe and smoke it, Andrew.
The crash and burn of other sections of his coalition is coming. The environmentalists are holding their collective breath. N.O.W. is squirming as the Obama boys elevate Caroline Kennedy - not because she's the best choice - simply because she carried the most water - for the boys.
None of this should be written in stone, of course. Obama will maneuver to the Right and Left as only a man with no principles can. The driving force here is his own power and the power of his handlers - the Soros crowd.
The biggest lie of all is that Obama represented change and McCain and Clinton did not. What the petulant "Yes We Can" minions refused to acknowledge all along is that McCain and Clinton both were independent operators - having won a degree of independence based on having already paid their dues.
McCain or Clinton would have been beholden to certain groups. But their campaigns were not centered around a BIG LIE. Obama's was. Both Clinton and McCain would have made choices that aggravated many. But it is hard to fathom either ferociously thumbing their nose at their own base like the manchild Obama has these past 6 weeks. Deceit allows - invites - duplicity.
Like the months after 9/11 - this period has been a waste. Bush could have rallied the country to a new and better place after the attacks. Instead he manipulated our basest fears to conjure a wasteful war. After the election, Obama could have used the moment to lay out a challenging vision. Now the moment is almost gone. Mr. Obama is paying off friends, trying to contain a scandal, and playing patty cake with the Right.
Obama is Bush 3. Obama is a fraud. Obama is poison.
Of all the Obots Andrew Sullivan is clearly the most deranged. Which is saying quite a bit since Kos was routinely populated with death threats against Hillary Clinton all year. Cannonfire has already handled this story - but I need to chime in on a few points.
A. I don't care who Trig Palin came from. The rumour that Trig is actually Britol Palin's baby barely rises to the level of interesting. Even if it IS true that Sarah Palin faked a pregnancy to cover for her daughter I'm not sure how it mattered then or matters now. Families carry all sorts of secrets. It seem to be one of there functions. Let's say last spring she lied to protect her family and standing in Alaska - so what. I wonder have any male politicians covered for their families? Hmmm.
To me the photo Sullivan presents of Palin looks more like she's chunky than pregnant. So what. What she does not look like is the slender Palin we came to know this Fall. So let's say she covered up a family embarrassment for ambition's sake. Okay. This matters to Sullivan for two reasons: She's a she and she opposed his saviour. Obama's ambition cannot be questioned - only Hillary's or Palin's are suspect.
B. Sullivan can not abide strong women in power. He is so thickly enmeshed in his sexism he can't let this story go. Saying remarkably that: maybe we have witnessed one of the biggest frauds in American political history and the biggest failures among the American media in a very, very long time.Wow - that sentence is so unconcious it boggles the mind. I can't help believe that this sentence is Sullivan's unconscious screaming about OBAMA not Palin. Feel free to check this site in a year to see just how complete the media cover up of Obama has been.
Since at least last year the media has covered up anything and everything that would damage Obama. We still don't know what they hell he was up to in New York during the "Columbia years". He was allowed to lie with impunity about his church attendance. No long form birth certificate has been produced. (I believe he WAS born in Hawaii - but the real birth certificate contains some sort of embarrassing information.) The whole sale creation of a state senate career on the backs of other senators' bills in his last 2 years there? Unexamined. His blatant lies about his parents and Selma? Ask about it and you're a racist. The list is so long it would take the better part of a week to catalogue how complete the media malfeasance regarding Obama has been this year.
So once again Pods like Sullivan refuse to hold the great and powerful Wizard of Chicago to the same standards as other politicians - especially women.
A few times in the past 4 months I've stated that the Obama Pods would be the first thrown under the bus by the Dear Leader.
So far. So good.
Hillary will be Secretary of State. This has the Obamamedia and the Obamablog kidz cringing. Screw 'em. Their hatred for the Clintons knows no bounds and has no rational underpinning anyway. The deluded have to wake up about Obama eventually. It may as well be now. Obama is reconstructing the Clinton White House - with some Bushies in tow for good measure.
See the incoming CIA chief: If Brennan emerges as the pick,...will have to oppose him strenuously in the nomination process. We will, in fact, have to go to war with Obama before he even takes office.And if Obama doubts our seriousness, I have three words for him. Yes we can.
That is a quote from the nation's preeminent hypocrite and barebacker in waiting: Andrew Sullivan. They may have to "go to war" - My God, the inflated self importance still astounds. When the Clinton announcement is formalized by Obama everyone should grab a tarp. Micheal Moore may well explode, raining lard and invective far and wide.
Brennan is a Bushie at heart. A Clinton at State and a Bushie at the C.I.A...
ha. ha. ha.
Obama is setting himself up an administration of D.C. insiders. This should surprise no one. The fact that there is much gnashing of teeth in Podville is testimony to the level of delusion and self importance still rampant with Kos and rest of the "Yes We Can" twits.
So far we have Clinton at State, Brennen at the C.I.A., Richardson at Commerce, Daschle at H.U.D., and Rahm the Impaler as White House gatekeeper. Except Brennen - all are Bill Clinton bred insiders. (Brennen is a Cheney/Bush "apologist" according to Sullivan.) Conservative anti-choice Republican Chuck Hagel will show up somewhere on Obama's roster soon. And Lieberman got the thumbs up from Obama - and therefore the Senate Democratic Caucus - so he can stay. Cue Kos teeth gnashing.
We told the kos kidz Obama was not who he seemed. Maybe Howard Dean will launch an insurgent presidential campaign from the Left in 2012 to give those idiots something to do.
The Whole Foods liberals are being left at the alter - and I am glad to be a witness.
Some Bill S. tonight from Much Ado About Nothing. No connection to the post - I just love this scene because it is all about love.
So what- exactly are the Obama workers in the photo thinking by reverently placing portraits of Che Guevara everywhere in the Houston Office?
I'd really like to avoid name calling - but why bother - calling a moron a moron is not an insult anymore than is calling a genius a genius. These people are morons.
Definition: Moron was originally an English scientific term, coined in 1910 by psychologist Henry H. Goddard from the Greek word moros, which meant "dull' (as opposed to "sharp"), and used to describe a person with a mental age located between 8 and 12.
Seriously, I can't get my mind around a major party (ha!) "mainstream" candidate having so many brain dead followers - many apparently having no problem adorning a field office with a Communist icon.
Do they know who Che was? Do they know that he was a violent revolutionary? Or do they think it is just a cool thing to put on a wall - the 2008 version of LO VE in a square? Are they themselves Communists?
Given the 2 portraits of Che in this office, it is entirely within reason to ask. Sure, Obama Pods, go off on me if you like but - Che was a committed Communist. If a portrait of Castro was up in the Obama office no one would question that they were Communist sympathizers. Then again a "Warhol" of Castro has not been marketed as far as I know. And yes, I read The Motorcycle Diaries.
Are they telegraphing that THEY are violent revolutionaries?
If so - when they start the revolution who, I ask you, WHO will teach Poli Sci 101 and How to Be a Perpetual Victim 102, and the Dead White Guys Suck Ass extension courses at community colleges around the country??!!Woe is us!
Do they understand that Communism does not allow for Whole Foods Markets?
Santa Monica hippies and Venice Beach stoners are fine with going to the organic farmers' market to purchase arugula- but Arianna "I'm rich because I married well and married gay" Huffington, David "name another building after me NOW!" Geffen, and John "proud to be the second most self hating gay man in America after Andrew Sullivan" Avarosis and the other latte libs need to send the help, (that they buy 'holiday' gifts for EVERY YEAR, Damnit, and therefore are clearly pro labor) to Whole Foods or Gelson's or Trader Joes for the soy milk, not some pot head street fair that screws up traffic every Thursday afternoon.
Sorry kids, Whole Food, Williams Sonoma and Double Shot Non Fat Lattes are purely capitalist creations.
Do they know that any Cuban American who sees this image will joyfully vote for John McCain? And plenty of other people who remember the Cold War as well. How can we be expected to trust these folks?
Some of us know who Che was, and may even find him interesting. But we harbor no delusions about Marxism. So either the portraits of Che in an Obama field office are clueless or Marxist.
