I don't know about others, but of late it feels like that Obama has slipped a little, and the actions of the Baucus/Bayh/Lincoln/Conrad clique combined with Schumer and Lieberman gloating over driving out Chas Freeman while AIPAC seemingly pats them on the head are profoundly discouraging for the public.
We are getting a change alright. A change back to ineffectual, lost motion, wasted time, Democratic infighting that does absolutely nothing but make Republicans smile, and the public at large upset.
Let's take a look at how this is unfolding.
Booman is trenchant with this posting from Saturday. Though it may not be time for Dolchstosslegende complaints against several contrary Democrats, it is becoming clearer that Congress is trying to reassert itself, and Obama is is, as Glenn Greenwald asserts, pushing back.
However, President Obama's pushback is alarming, and there is more than a dollop of duplicity in Obama's convoluted rewording of Bush GWOT captives policies, and the signing statements flap. Whoever advised Obama on this is not doing the administration or the public any good.
There are many here that stand lock-step with Obama, regardless of anything. That is as wrong-headed as wingers totally supporting Bush's blatent criminality.
We are progressives, and we have a duty to speak out when we feel that mistakes are being made by our elected officials. The way the signing statements flap and the odious way the captive issue was handled is a complete mistake that could be costly for the administration.
Eric Margolis has a good piece up about the confusion concerning policy towards Iran, originally on HuffPo and picked up by Tom Feeley that partly plays into the Freeman fiasco, and the last paragraph is especially trenchant:
Compared to America's titanic economic and financial mess, whatever goes on in Tehran is of pipsqueak magnitude. The real danger to America comes from its Wall Street fraudsters, not from Tehran.
The Freeman fiasco was especially painful to me as a fundamental change in US policy in the Middle East is the only way to extricate ourselves from the quagmire that we fell into when Bush used the US as tin-mittens for the Likudniks and neo-cons. Ray McGovern pulls no punches on this topic. These lines are especially disturbing:
The Freeman flip-flop is merely the latest sign that Obama is afraid to take on the Lobby - and the world is watching. Most will interpret the new President's acquiescence in this outcome as a sign of weakness - of his not being his own man.
This is a distinct liability as Obama prepares to meet next month with the likes of Vladimir Putin who will be taking his measure.
There may be some troubled by what I have written here, but it is small potatoes indeed compared to what can happen to Obama and the progressive movement if the media can start "The Carter Drum" banging over Obama not being capable, or effective. It starts with little duplicities, little aquiescenses, little comprimises that go beyond reasonable. But once it starts, as Carter learned in 1978, it is damn hard to stop. Further, it is the only way the Republicans can turn the huge tide favoring Obama and bloody the Democrats leading to major losses of majority, and gridlock in Congress. We have few friends in the media and the right wing feeding news damns this site and Markos and the front pagers too, let alone anything Obama or administration related.
Will somebody please call President Obama and tell him to get either his act, or the acts of his staff coordinated and all on the same page?