I've been a member of Daily Kos for years now. I ready the site obsessively, even. But I rarely post. Today I was reading through my three or four diaries ever and found one from the very first sign of what Obama would be: the FISA capitulation when he was still a senator. Remember that? Wow. Simpler times.
I said in that diary, that of course he was better than McCain, but I was tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. That I'd wanted Obama to be "one of us," even though it was clear now he wasn't. But as pissed as I was over the FISA vote, I never imagined I'd say this.
I don't think I voted for the lesser of two evils. Do I think McCain is more in line with what I would have wanted in a president? God, no. Of course not. But I don't think the Republicans could have done this without a Dem in the White House, complicit at every turn to the gutting of the social safety net.
Without a Democrat in the White House, the Senate would have stood up to Republicans attempting this. And without a Democrat in the White House, Republicans would have feared the inevitable voter backlash (of course, now they can point out that the Dems voted for the same cuts).
Obama has failed to end the wars, failed to close Guantanamo, failed to pass comprehensive health care reform, failed to end the Bush tax cuts, and has now been complicit in engineering one of the greatest legislative victories by the Republican party in the last hundred years.
I do think he means well, I just think he's surrounded by the same old Washington insiders, conservative military leaders, conservative financial advisers, and hell, I don't know, apparently incompetent at negotiations. I don't know what was going through his mind. He had the upper hand the whole time. The 14th Amendment gave him a strong hand, but he folded like a guy with a pair of deuces.
I really do think he means well. But in the end, intentions and well-meaning doesn't matter, only results. And I seriously believe, from the bottom of my heart, that we'd have more progressive government spending now if McCain had won the election in 2008.
Damn, that sucks.