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Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
It isn't quite
fair to call Barack Obama a liar. During the campaign he carefully
avoided committing to much of anything important that he might have to
take back later. For now, I won't quibble with The St. Petersburg
Times's Obamameter, which so far has the president keeping 30 promises
and breaking only six.
It isn't quite
fair to call Barack Obama a liar. During the campaign he carefully
avoided committing to much of anything important that he might have to
take back later. For now, I won't quibble with The St. Petersburg
Times's Obamameter, which so far has the president keeping 30 promises
and breaking only six.
And yet, broadly speaking, Obama has
been lying on a pretty impressive scale. You just have to get past his
grandiloquent rhetoric -- usually empty of substance -- to get a handle
on it. I offer a short, incomplete list, which I'm sure others could
easily enlarge.
In Iraq, Obama has
promised to withdraw all the troops . . . unless, which means that
we're not leaving. Whether it's 50,000 troops remaining at the
"invitation" of the so-called government of Iraq, or just enough to man
the 14 permanent military bases, or some combination of U.S. military
personnel and private mercenaries that exceeds 50,000 soldiers, our
army will almost certainly stay in Iraq past the stated deadline of
Jan. 1, 2012.
As for pork-barrel politics,
Obama named one of its greatest champions, Chicago's own Rahm Emanuel,
as his chief of staff, and the new budget (as well as the "stimulus"
package) is loaded with pork. Meanwhile, have you heard anything
serious about campaign-finance reform from Obama? Not very likely from
someone who refused public financing and still has about $10 million
left over from record receipts of $745.7 million. It's just a detail, I
know, but Obama's naming of former Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn III
as deputy secretary of defense seems to be at odds with the president's
alleged crusade against special interests and the "revolving door"
between private business and government. He has also "sold"
ambassadorships to campaign donors. The biggest plum, London, is slated
for Lou Susman, a Chicagoan and former Citigroup executive who bundled
$239,000. Paris has been reserved for Charles Rivkin, who raised about
$500,000 for Obama.
Without Saudi pressure, there will be no
resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since Saudi oil is the
only lever that would cause America to press Israel into making real
concessions. Indeed, the president doesn't mean for one minute to force
Israel into anything more than symbolic withdrawals of its illegal
settlements on the West Bank. Meanwhile, the Saudi elite continues to
play its double game, paying protection money to extremist Islam and
granting pensions to the relatives of suicide bombers. It's just
politics, say Barack and Rahm, grinning ear-to-ear with their sleazy
new friends from Riyahd. Just keep the oil pumping around election time
and all will be well.
But two months ago, U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk said
such a blunt instrument was no longer necessary and that the leaders of
Canada, the U.S. and Mexico were now "of the mind that we should be
looking for opportunities to strengthen [the North American Free Trade
Agreement]." And, of course, there is no discussion at all about
renegotiating Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, a "bad trade
deal" that has done even greater harm to American workers and unions
than has NAFTA.
Meanwhile, as I noted in my April 15 column,
"Wall Street sharks circle the UAW," Obama and his banker friend Steven
Rattner are liquidating the United Auto Workers even as they liquidate
the American auto industry. Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's
pseudo-secretary of labor, said as much. "The only practical purpose I
can imagine for the bailout is to slow the decline of GM to create
enough time for its workers, suppliers, dealers and communities to
adjust to its eventual demise," he wrote last month in the Financial
Times -- no surprise, considering that Obama's chief economic adviser
remains Lawrence Summers, a champion of deregulation and "free-market"
economics in the Clinton administration and very much the enemy of
labor unions.
Yes, of course it's nice to have a president who
speaks in complete sentences. But that they're coherent doesn't make
them honest.
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It isn't quite
fair to call Barack Obama a liar. During the campaign he carefully
avoided committing to much of anything important that he might have to
take back later. For now, I won't quibble with The St. Petersburg
Times's Obamameter, which so far has the president keeping 30 promises
and breaking only six.
And yet, broadly speaking, Obama has
been lying on a pretty impressive scale. You just have to get past his
grandiloquent rhetoric -- usually empty of substance -- to get a handle
on it. I offer a short, incomplete list, which I'm sure others could
easily enlarge.
In Iraq, Obama has
promised to withdraw all the troops . . . unless, which means that
we're not leaving. Whether it's 50,000 troops remaining at the
"invitation" of the so-called government of Iraq, or just enough to man
the 14 permanent military bases, or some combination of U.S. military
personnel and private mercenaries that exceeds 50,000 soldiers, our
army will almost certainly stay in Iraq past the stated deadline of
Jan. 1, 2012.
As for pork-barrel politics,
Obama named one of its greatest champions, Chicago's own Rahm Emanuel,
as his chief of staff, and the new budget (as well as the "stimulus"
package) is loaded with pork. Meanwhile, have you heard anything
serious about campaign-finance reform from Obama? Not very likely from
someone who refused public financing and still has about $10 million
left over from record receipts of $745.7 million. It's just a detail, I
know, but Obama's naming of former Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn III
as deputy secretary of defense seems to be at odds with the president's
alleged crusade against special interests and the "revolving door"
between private business and government. He has also "sold"
ambassadorships to campaign donors. The biggest plum, London, is slated
for Lou Susman, a Chicagoan and former Citigroup executive who bundled
$239,000. Paris has been reserved for Charles Rivkin, who raised about
$500,000 for Obama.
Without Saudi pressure, there will be no
resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since Saudi oil is the
only lever that would cause America to press Israel into making real
concessions. Indeed, the president doesn't mean for one minute to force
Israel into anything more than symbolic withdrawals of its illegal
settlements on the West Bank. Meanwhile, the Saudi elite continues to
play its double game, paying protection money to extremist Islam and
granting pensions to the relatives of suicide bombers. It's just
politics, say Barack and Rahm, grinning ear-to-ear with their sleazy
new friends from Riyahd. Just keep the oil pumping around election time
and all will be well.
But two months ago, U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk said
such a blunt instrument was no longer necessary and that the leaders of
Canada, the U.S. and Mexico were now "of the mind that we should be
looking for opportunities to strengthen [the North American Free Trade
Agreement]." And, of course, there is no discussion at all about
renegotiating Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, a "bad trade
deal" that has done even greater harm to American workers and unions
than has NAFTA.
Meanwhile, as I noted in my April 15 column,
"Wall Street sharks circle the UAW," Obama and his banker friend Steven
Rattner are liquidating the United Auto Workers even as they liquidate
the American auto industry. Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's
pseudo-secretary of labor, said as much. "The only practical purpose I
can imagine for the bailout is to slow the decline of GM to create
enough time for its workers, suppliers, dealers and communities to
adjust to its eventual demise," he wrote last month in the Financial
Times -- no surprise, considering that Obama's chief economic adviser
remains Lawrence Summers, a champion of deregulation and "free-market"
economics in the Clinton administration and very much the enemy of
labor unions.
Yes, of course it's nice to have a president who
speaks in complete sentences. But that they're coherent doesn't make
them honest.
It isn't quite
fair to call Barack Obama a liar. During the campaign he carefully
avoided committing to much of anything important that he might have to
take back later. For now, I won't quibble with The St. Petersburg
Times's Obamameter, which so far has the president keeping 30 promises
and breaking only six.
And yet, broadly speaking, Obama has
been lying on a pretty impressive scale. You just have to get past his
grandiloquent rhetoric -- usually empty of substance -- to get a handle
on it. I offer a short, incomplete list, which I'm sure others could
easily enlarge.
In Iraq, Obama has
promised to withdraw all the troops . . . unless, which means that
we're not leaving. Whether it's 50,000 troops remaining at the
"invitation" of the so-called government of Iraq, or just enough to man
the 14 permanent military bases, or some combination of U.S. military
personnel and private mercenaries that exceeds 50,000 soldiers, our
army will almost certainly stay in Iraq past the stated deadline of
Jan. 1, 2012.
As for pork-barrel politics,
Obama named one of its greatest champions, Chicago's own Rahm Emanuel,
as his chief of staff, and the new budget (as well as the "stimulus"
package) is loaded with pork. Meanwhile, have you heard anything
serious about campaign-finance reform from Obama? Not very likely from
someone who refused public financing and still has about $10 million
left over from record receipts of $745.7 million. It's just a detail, I
know, but Obama's naming of former Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn III
as deputy secretary of defense seems to be at odds with the president's
alleged crusade against special interests and the "revolving door"
between private business and government. He has also "sold"
ambassadorships to campaign donors. The biggest plum, London, is slated
for Lou Susman, a Chicagoan and former Citigroup executive who bundled
$239,000. Paris has been reserved for Charles Rivkin, who raised about
$500,000 for Obama.
Without Saudi pressure, there will be no
resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since Saudi oil is the
only lever that would cause America to press Israel into making real
concessions. Indeed, the president doesn't mean for one minute to force
Israel into anything more than symbolic withdrawals of its illegal
settlements on the West Bank. Meanwhile, the Saudi elite continues to
play its double game, paying protection money to extremist Islam and
granting pensions to the relatives of suicide bombers. It's just
politics, say Barack and Rahm, grinning ear-to-ear with their sleazy
new friends from Riyahd. Just keep the oil pumping around election time
and all will be well.
But two months ago, U.S. Trade Rep. Ron Kirk said
such a blunt instrument was no longer necessary and that the leaders of
Canada, the U.S. and Mexico were now "of the mind that we should be
looking for opportunities to strengthen [the North American Free Trade
Agreement]." And, of course, there is no discussion at all about
renegotiating Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China, a "bad trade
deal" that has done even greater harm to American workers and unions
than has NAFTA.
Meanwhile, as I noted in my April 15 column,
"Wall Street sharks circle the UAW," Obama and his banker friend Steven
Rattner are liquidating the United Auto Workers even as they liquidate
the American auto industry. Robert Reich, Bill Clinton's
pseudo-secretary of labor, said as much. "The only practical purpose I
can imagine for the bailout is to slow the decline of GM to create
enough time for its workers, suppliers, dealers and communities to
adjust to its eventual demise," he wrote last month in the Financial
Times -- no surprise, considering that Obama's chief economic adviser
remains Lawrence Summers, a champion of deregulation and "free-market"
economics in the Clinton administration and very much the enemy of
labor unions.
Yes, of course it's nice to have a president who
speaks in complete sentences. But that they're coherent doesn't make
them honest.