I find it interesting that the right-wing punditocracy is not calling Obama on any of his reversals - probably because he has "switched" to their side on these issues. In truth, Obama has never really had positions, just speeches.

While everyone else is discussing his speech in Cairo, Progressives are yawning. This president has given the expression "empty rhetoric" an entirely new level of meaning.

q

dumddown says:

I promise not to comment on this article.

George H.W. Bush lost not because of breaking his 'no new taxes' pledge but because he looked wooden next to the charismatic Clinton.

Obama can reverse on every campaign pledge without worry. The media has his back. They will protect him.

Besides, ask the average Obama voter to explain his position on NAFTA now compared with his campaign position. I'd be shocked if even 10% would reply with anything other than a blank stare.

odoco
I'm 59, was a Democrat my entire life as a result, mostly, of being a child of the '60s. Then came 2006, the Democratic sweep, and the deluge of broken promises, primarily about ending the war and holding Bush & Co. accountable.

Then came Obama.

I got a call last week from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee wanting funds. In a short 30 second burst I shared with the fundraiser my many disappointments with Obama and the party, and why I am now, firmly and forever, totally politically independent. There was no response to my arguments, only the click of the phone.

If Obama ran on his current record today, he would be considered a middle of the road Republican, especially on economic issues. The MSM's portrayal of him being ultra-liberal is a joke. From FISA enforcement, state secrets, hiring the same bank crooks that stole the money in the first place, to shielding Bush & Co terrorists from the legal consequences of their crimes, from allowing more mountain-top mining, etc. - OBAMA IS NOTHING MORE THAN A WELL-HEELED, ARTICULATE, SELF-SEEKING AND SELF-INFATUATED EGO-MANIAC who presently holds the power of this country in his hands (hands controlled by the strings of the military/corporate/media conglomerate).

It is time for a total, impassioned, in-the-street continual peaceful and lawful protest against the plutocracy that now rules us. It will not change without such a human tidal wave of backlash. I see no other course of action. Especially when one considers the electoral process totally broken, and its demise supplemented by the easily manipulated electronic voting devices the rulers of the system so desperately want in place.

We are beaten if we continue to do nothing.

i think obama has demonstrated just how far a good looking guy with real charm and charisma can take the truth

especially juxtaposed against the bush baby years where the stumbling bumbling dysfunctional son was barley able to read a breakfast menu

how irritating bush baby was with his vocabulary

wrapped up in his lies: iran's got nucular weapons

obama has brought the illusion of prestige back to the office and has demonstrated a real ability to move people of all walks of life in his speeches

but, as pointed out here, he has reneged on most of his "change you can believe in" crap

re-dubbed in the alternate meida as "continuity you can believe in"

when bush was lying his ass off it was apparent and clear

not so with brother obama

and that makes him much more dangerous when you think about it

he has the fawning coporate media who herald his every move with just a dash of dissent thrown in to make the jumbalaya a little more spicy

as chomsky says: the controllers provide the illusion of dialog and conflict in the body politic when the relaity is much simpler

once in office the president's prime responsibility is empire maintenance

service the corporations - and boy has he done that - and then charm the sheeple with promises that as the article says were too ""overheated and amplified" to be taken literally"

oh really mr president

well call us fools because - silly kids that we are - we believed in your promises

we pined for the change you were able to invoke in speeches but find to trite to persue in office

joke's on us i guess

unfortunatley, so is the tab which is 13 trillion and counting

btdubbs: the income of the american government in one year is around 1.3 trillion

so we have gone to the banks - who had no money - loaned to them and from them 13 trillion - which somehow they "loaned" us without having any money to loan

now we owe 10 years of our gross income - with interest - to ensure that david reckefeller is able to get his capitol out of the ailing american economy safely

oh the woes a silky voice can cause

Shoot, that is just the tip of the iceberg. It has been an ongoing reversal and betrayal on every front.
They say voting third party is throwing your vote away in a two party system, but you are throwing your vote away anyway. And if the problem is the monopoly of the two (one) parties, then what good does it do to constantly reinforce it?

I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden.

Get over it! Obama

Clinton started this particular rot. He swore on the campaign trail that he would not support NAFTA without substantial renegotiation and then immediately in office he rammed Poppy's version through Congress as fast as he could. He said he would allow gays in the military and immediately he was in office he reneged on that. I'm sure there was something else but I've forgotten what it was.

When he was running for the presidency, Obama struck me as amazingly like Clinton, and so he is.

Rainborowe

Now you know why I've always referred to him as O-blah-blah.

'Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.' - Pete Townshend

Come on Sirota, admit it. Like most of us stupid voters, you knew Obama's real intentions and like the rest of us suckered up and voted for him. We're all losers so let's just get used to it !

Again, I have to wonder about the 'plane incident' while on the campaign trail, when his reversals became glaringly apparent. Like Wellstone, Carnahan, and so forth, and there are others, there have long been heavy threats on the righteous. For EVERYONES awareness, check on 'Obama's plane incident', though it was dismissed and forgotten by most, I just have to wonder again and again, I....

politicians used to be honest, and now they're not? is that the crux of this?

speaking of cruxes, turn those crosses back over, right side up, and worship the almighty phallus...woo hoo~!

Here's a scene from "Lawrence of Arabia":

Lawrence has just learned of the Sykes-Picot Agreement in which Britain and France agree to carve up the Ottoman Empire after the end of WWI. Lawrence protests and Dryden, the cynical diplomat from the British Foreign Office says to him, "And let's not have any displays of indignation . . . If we've told lies you've told half-lies. And a man who tells lies, like myself, merely hides the truth. But a man who tells half lies has forgotten where he put it."

It's the word "merely" that is so telling in that passage. It means that what we do (lie) is really not so bad. It's for your own good. Obysmal isn't any different. In the United States, at least, the half-lie has disappeared completely from the political lexicon. The bald faced lie is now the order of the day.

David Sirota writes:
"It's true that politicians have always broken promises, but rarely so proudly and with such impunity."

Obaama is an utter disaster. Now we have a fascist Revlon Girl with a lot of $, NO working political parties, and an army of celebrity "leftists", media operatives, and Democratic Party apparatchiks who bent so far backward to enthrone a "black" that now they've fallen, and can't get up.

One Arab commentator characterized Obaama's mideast performance as "part vapid, part sinister". That says it ALL about the administration.

A General Strike for Single Payer won't hurt, and might help. With Single Payer in place, we can move on to a General Strike to stop Afghanistan.

Obaama is a predator with a fraying personality cult. He's a pathologically-ambitious mobster, not a "Democrat".

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

Informed progressives are by now well aware of Obama's sundry reversals and the inability of the Democratic Party to reform itself. The question is: What are able-bodied progressives going to do about it?

The U.S. system is too stratified and calcified for progressives to participate in any substantial and timely change of it unless they rapidly organize in terms of sheer numbers and media access. The younger, non-arthritic Left needs to be better funded, more organized, innovative and radical in terms of commanding attention to progressive ideals and ideas. An umbrella United Progressive Party would pool the resources of the thousands of scattered small progressive groups into a big enough voter bloc to achieve some serious national goals. It could co-opt the many progressive leaning Democratic Party support groups who are being told to shut up and tow the DLC corporatist line by the likes of Rahm Emmanuel while their voices and goals are ignored. Members of these groups are starting to realize they are being betrayed by a Democratic Party leadership that no longer has the excuse of significant Republican opposition in Congress: A Democratic Party approaching filibuster-proof status in the Senate that still caves in to every blast of hot air from Right-wing rant radio and every Big Money corporate lobbyist who strolls through the halls of Congress.

THE TIME FOR PROGRESSIVES TO UNITE IS NOW. The people of this country and the world have no more time to waste to solve the biosphere-threatening problems of our time. America with its wealth, technology and woeful record of exploitative resource wars owes the world a major contribution towards solving those big problems. Only well organized American progressives can compel this in a timely manner. They need a clearly articulated concise Party platform; a media arm funded and prepared to answer objections and attacks from other media, and they need to create/become their own media sufficient to target existing and potential progressive voters with a progressive message defended on progressive principles framed in a more accurate historical context that includes the proud contributions to American society made by over a century of progressive thinkers and activists. It's almost 2010, people. The clock is ticking and time is running out to prevent a global Malthusian Hell. There is no excuse for allowing this result and there will be few literate human beings left alive in another few generations to listen.

What can you and I do? Send emails AND regular mail letters to all the well-known progressive and betrayed Democratic Party support groups urging them to cease wasting time supporting a thoroughly corrupt Democratic Party and to pool our membership and resources under one umbrella United Progressive Party. Demand a national summit of progressive organization leaders for this purpose. Send this message to the Green Party, Ralph Nader and his supporters, United for Peace and Justice, World Can't Wait, Iraq Veterans for Peace, etc., and any other progressive groups--large or small--that you are aware of.

The greatest part of America and being American was when Americans rose to meet hard challenges because naysayers proclaimed they couldn't be met. Before progressive Americans dragged these dreams into existence most people refused to believe that workers had rights, that women could vote, that wilderness areas could be protected, that smallpox or polio could be defeated with public health vaccinations, that blacks could vote, that human beings could ever land on the moon. We can solve the big problems. All we have to do is be angry, proud and energetic enough to refuse to be told that we can't.