I'm not outraged by the disappearance of the public plan. Par for the course. Money rules in Washington, and the corporate types toss out cash like confetti to the pathetic "public servants" we call Senators.
Yeah, there are few good ones, but most of them are bought and paid for by the swells.
Still, I couldn't let the passing of the public option go without at least offering our president my own sad dose of reality. I'm not sure he could have done anything about it, nor am I sure he really wanted to do anything about it. But I sent him this note, nonetheless...
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Hey, Barack, what's up?
Ah, the glory days of the campaign, back when you denounced lobbyists and the distorting influence of corporate money on politics...
Of course, many of us realized that was a load of steaming dung. (That said, we still wanted you to beat McCain.) But when you brought in one of the Beltway kings of corporate/political sycophancy to be your chief of staff, the truth was clear.
On top of that, you have always been, and always will be, a centrist, despite what so many believed about you during the campaign. You're more like Kent Conrad or Ben Nelson than you'd care to admit.
So I'm disappointed, but not surprised by this health care crap.
We Democrats haven't really had any top political leadership that hasn't been centrist since before the Clinton years. Bill Clinton and his DLC acolytes like Terry McAuliffe, James Carville and Paul Begala basically sold out Democratic Party principles in hopes of matching the corporate fundraising prowess of the Republicans.
The Clinton years gave us such piss-poor and anti-middle class actions as the repeal of Glass-Steagall (a major contributing factor to our current economic predicament), and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that essentially created the media monopolies we have today, monopolies that favor the centralization of corporate power over the interests of the general public.
Of course, Clintonism was just a continuation of Reaganism, made all the worse because it was coming from a Democrat.
All that said, I'm still glad you're president and McCain isn't. I think we'd be in far worse shape than we are now had that clueless old goat been elected with his lame-brained VP.
National politics has become, for me, like rooting for the Cubs. One accepts the small thrills while always understanding that the big wins will never come.
I still love local politics, where electing someone to the school board or city council can have a real impact on the lives of those they serve. And I even get a thrill from helping out on congressional races now and then.
But I think my days of working hard on national races are over. I can't compete with the moneyed interests. And the quadrennial lip service our national candidates pay to the notion of "changing the culture in Washington" rings as hollow as a Cubs manager talking up potential World Series success during spring training.
Good luck in 2012. Tell Rahm he won another one.
Sincerely,
Bob Johnson