Oh my god.
Oh my god, oh my god,
oh my god.
This is far worse than
I thought.
I've been struggling
to understand the implosion of the Obama presidency over the last two
years, trying to peel back the layers of the theoretical onion, looking
for an explanation as to how this could have happened.
How does somebody with
managerial and strategic skills brilliant enough to come from out of
nowhere and win the presidency, wresting it away from at least two lions
of the political establishment, run such a stupid and failing White
House?
How does somebody with
the guts to go into the consummately ugly ring of presidential campaigning,
and the perseverance to stay in there taking shots for two years straight,
manage to turn around and become such a coward, especially after he's
been handed the most powerful position in the world?
How does somebody with
the communications skills of a Lincoln or a Kennedy wind up sitting
by silently, while the worst elements of American society define him
in the most disgustingly pejorative terms imaginable?
What the hell is going
on here?
There are lots of theories.
Obama himself has argued
that many people saw the campaign he ran as far more perfect than it
was. There is some truth to this, especially since when the Republicans
really came out swinging against him, in August and September of 2008,
he sat there - like any good Democrat would - paralyzed and unresponsive.
The result was that McCain - even with the pathetically unprepared
Sarah Palin attached to his hip - drew nearly even with Obama in the
polls at that point. That fact becomes all the more amazing considering
that McCain was the Republican nominee, and the country was incredibly
sick of Republican rule, having barely survived it for eight years running.
But that's what happened, and arguably had it not been for the economic
implosion on Bush's watch that fall, Obama's miracle campaign would
have miraculously managed to sit back and silently snatch defeat from
the jaws of victory.
Still, though, Obama
ran a pretty flawless campaign. And he overcame some substantial
hurdles, in some cases with a grace that elevated American politics
in ways not seen for decades. And he came from near obscurity
to win the election (in 2000 - just eight years before he became the
party's nominee and was elected president - he couldn't even get
admitted to the Democratic convention), and defeat two politicians who
were handicapped as far more likely to win, just a year prior.
That's pretty amazing talent.
Another theory would
suggest that shrinking cowardice is simply endemic to the contemporary
Democratic Party. Ever since George McGovern's electoral fiasco
of 1972, Democrats seem to have decided that being a pinata is somehow
the preferred persona for members of their party to adopt. Or
maybe they're just satisfied to govern in between the cycles of Republican
catastrophe, when voters give them the keys to the car only because
letting the drunken malevolent teenagers of the GOP continue to drive
has become just too awful to consider. But that concept never
made a lot of sense to me. People like Bill Clinton or Barack
Obama invested enormous energy and grit to realize a lifetime ambition
of becoming president of the country. Why would such individuals
all of a sudden morph into Missy Milquetoasts?
Perhaps a better explanation
for the failure of Obama and his ilk to fight hard for the country's
welfare and for progressive values is that he is no progressive at all.
I've been arguing that for a long time, and he is certainly helping
to reaffirm that notion right now by appealing a federal court decision
ending Don't Ask Don't Tell, a policy which he claims to oppose.
But, in fact, the Obama ideology ship sailed a long time ago.
He previously also went to court defending the Defense of Marriage Act.
He bailed out Wall Street a hundred pennies on the dollar, and demanded
nothing of them in return. He has tripled the US presence in Afghanistan,
and is bombing the snot out of Pakistan. He has not closed Guantanamo,
and has an even worse record on civil liberties than Bush and Cheney
did. His health care bill is a total gift to insurance corporations,
and now we've just learned from Tom Daschle that the president had
never considered the public option at all, having cut a deal with those
corporations in advance promising that there would be no such component
in the legislation. And so on, and so on. Stupid voters
make the erroneous assumption that politicians like Bill Clinton are
liberal because they are Democrats, and because the right and the media
keep telling them that these guys are liberals. Most of the country
has now done the same for Obama, but of course the opposite is true.
So maybe the explanation for his failed presidency is simply that he
has adopted the same regressive policies that have been killing the
country for three decades now.
Of course, that might
just be because his politics happen to be lousy. Or - according
to another theory - his presidency might suck because he is beholden
to the same oligarchical interests as just about everyone else in Washington.
Barack Obama let BP completely run amok, before and after the Gulf disaster.
He also has received about $80,000 in campaign contributions from them
over the last half-decade, more than any other American politician.
Maybe that's a coincidence, but I don't think so. Similarly,
Wall Street poured tons of money into his campaign, while he gave them
nearly everything they could have dreamed of, and staffed his economic
team with all the slimy little Goldman Sachs geckos he could find.
Was that an accident? Doesn't seem likely. In other words,
maybe Obama's failures are hard to explain because they aren't failures
at all. Maybe he is serving his plutocratic masters quite well,
thank you very much.
All these are possible
explanations for the unexpected meltdown of this presidency. But
I have another theory now. An 'Oh my god' theory.
Remember Ricky Ray Rector?
He was the poor SOB with an IQ of about 70, who was put to death by
the State of Arkansas in 1992. Governor Bill Clinton flew home
off the campaign trail to supervise the state's murder, so that he
could show the voting public that he was just as capable of ruthless
ugliness in the name of serving his own interests as any Republican
ever was. Americans like that in a president. We like our
president to be just like us - not some elite snob with that whole
ethics thing going on, or all that other effete East Coast superiority
shit (see, for example: "Bush, George W."). Anyway,
poor Ricky Ray was so out of it that, just before they fried him, he
asked the prison guards if they would save the pecan pie from his last
meal so that he could have it "later". Didn't matter to
Wild Bill. He made a public spectacle of flipping the switch on
a guy who didn't have a clue of what was about to hit him. (And
why not, either? So some dummy on death row had to die for him
to get to the White House - so what? What's wrong with that?
Heck, in Clinton's second race, he cut millions of people off welfare
in order to win. Ricky Ray was small potatoes when it comes to
presidential roadkill.)
Anyhow, keep Ricky Ray
Rector in mind as you read the following passage from a New York Times
article about to be published, based on an interview with one Barack
Obama of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.: "In an
hour-long interview with the Times's White House correspondent, Peter
Baker, Mr. Obama predicted that his political rivals would either be
chastened by falling short of their electoral goals or burdened with
the new responsibility that comes from achieving them. 'It may
be that regardless of what happens after this election, they feel more
responsible, either because they didn't do as well as they anticipated,
and so the strategy of just saying no to everything and sitting on the
sidelines and throwing bombs didn't work for them,' Mr. Obama said.
'Or they did reasonably well, in which case the American people are
going to be looking to them to offer serious proposals and work with
me in a serious way.'
Say what?!?!
Oh my god.
Oh my god, oh my god,
oh my god.
Now I have a new theory
explaining the failure of the Obama presidency: This is the Ricky
Ray Rector of presidents.
This guy managed to get
through the last two decades without noticing just what the vicious
thugs of the Republican Party are entirely capable of.
This guy lived through
the last two years of his own sinking presidency without noticing what
these sick freaks have already been doing to him personally at every
juncture.
This guy is completely
unaware that multiple Republicans poised to take control of the House
- some of whom will have gavels in one hand and blank subpoenas in
the other - have already come out and made clear that they will run
this White House ragged by investigating it over every scandal they
can possibly invent.
This guy does not realize
that some of them are literally already talking about impeachment.
This guy is the Ricky
Ray Rector of presidents. He is about to be subjected to a cosmic-scale
buggering of epic proportions, and he's still talking about "working
with" Attilla's Army of the GOP, and hoping that the Hitler Youth
across the aisle might "feel more responsible" after they have achieved
their goal of wrecking him and his party, precisely by means of wanton
irresponsibility.
Oh my god.
I know that presidents
can famously be trapped inside a bubble of insularity, but this is something
altogether frightening. This cat is utterly in denial. This
is no longer just a matter of being a slow learner. This is no
longer a matter of some kumbaya obsession to offer lovely bipartisanship
cookies to a pack of ferocious, starving jungle tigers. If Barack
Obama thinks that getting shellacked in November is going to make his
life better - never mind ours - this president can no longer be
said to be rational. I mean this quite seriously. The above
passage suggests to me that our president is fully delusional.
Even Obama's top political
advisor seems to be waking up to a glimmer of reality, although he is
ridiculously late in doing so. Cynthia Tucker writes that, "In
an interview last week in his West Wing office, David Axelrod, one of
Obama's closest advisers, acknowledged that the administration had
been surprised by the unified Republican resistance to the president's
agenda. 'We had the idea that, particularly in a time of national
crisis, there would be more of an inclination to work together.
Well, I think we miscalculated,' Axelrod said."
Yeah? You think,
Dave? Hey, maybe you did miscalculate there just a bit, now that
you mention it.
It gets worse:
"I think the Republicans have been diabolically clever about how they've
portrayed this. They stood on the sidelines and made a decision
that 'we're going to let him wrestle with this mess that we created.
And then in two years we can try and hang him with it."
I dunno. Maybe
it's diabolically clever to wreck an entire country of 300 million
people for narrow partisan gain, or maybe it's just diabolical.
And pathologically cynical. And stunningly sick.
But I do know two things
for sure. One is that these monsters made clear their intentions
from the very beginning. First by their voting pattern on every
bill the Democrats put forward, despite that Democrats wouldn't know
liberalism if it slapped them upside the head, and despite that Republicans
voted against many of the very bills that they had previously supported
or even co-sponsored in some cases. They also made clear their
intentions by means of their rhetoric, trashing the president to the
point of questioning his nationality, and literally accusing him of
being a granny killer. And they announced themselves as well by
overtly stating, as Senator Jim DeMint - among the sickest of the
sick - did, early on, that their strategy would be precisely what
Axelrod describes.
So, given all those clear
indications, just exactly how astonishingly stupid do you have to be,
Dave, to be figuring this out only now?
Except that, actually,
you guys still are not! Even today. Whatever Axelrod might
say, his boss is still talking about working with these animals.
Still fantasizing that they'll play ball with him. And worst
of all, somehow imagining that, following their crushing defeat of him
in November, they will somehow be more inclined to be nice to him than
in the past. Or that their rabid tea bagger constituents would
allow them to cooperate with a president they see as Satan, Stalin,
Hitler and some gay guy all rolled into one, anyhow. Are you freakin'
kidding me?!?!
This has to be some sort
of wicked twisted curse, some kind of Greek tragedy or something.
After eight years of Bush and his party dragging the country over the
cliff, now we are shackled to Neville Pollyanna Chamberlain Milquetoast,
who is busy laying plans for tea and crumpets with the tea party mob
who seek to annihilate him, and - for many of them - not just metaphorically
either.
That means that during
the next two years of multiple continuing national crises, we will be
treated to standing by and watching some sort of insane WWE political
wrestling match between two leviathans: One, which is murderously
vicious and represents the predatory elite oligarchy ripping off the
country at every turn, and the other, which is pathetically feeble and
represents the predatory elite oligarchy ripping off the country at
every turn.
America is so over.
Imagine how they must laugh at us over noodles in Beijing. I just
cringe for this country every day, with each worse-yet news report from
the front lines of a political system that makes full-blown dysfunctionality
seem like a panacea by comparison. There seems to be no bottom
to the well of our stupidity and greed and hypocrisy and insistence
on committing national suicide.
Yep, America is surely
over. But, goddam it, does it have to be this embarrassing?
I keep trying not to
write any more rants about the failings of Barack Obama. I'm
sick of hearing myself say it. But every time I vow to avoid the
topic, some new development like this interview comes along and just
blows me away.
I could not possibly
care less about the fate of the Democratic Party, and increasingly I
feel that way about the country too, both of which manifestly deserve
their fate.
But, that said, Democrats
can now no longer avoid recognizing that they have a self-destructive
(and self-destructing) fool at the helm of the party, and they will
be forced to decide whether they are really dumb enough to run this
loser for a second term in 2012.
That's up to them,
and one reason that I don't care is that, even if they do dump him,
they are highly unlikely to choose anyone who is more than slightly
better ideologically than Barack Obama, or anyone who has more than
a marginal bit of additional spine. I can't even think of who
that could be in the party.
But maybe Democrats could
have the decency to find someone who can at least recognize the difference
between the electric chair, on the one hand, and the electrical parade
at Disneyland, on the other.
Would that be asking
too much?
Meanwhile, somebody get
this idiot his pecan pie.