Reply #181: If I were brave enough to voice my honest opinion and risk

[Tansy_Gold]

the wrath of. . . .whomever. . . .

I think Obama is an empty suit. I think he's got a great smile, a great gift for oratory, and a very wide but very shallow intellect. He can see the surface connections between issues, but he can't dig down to the foundational connections that crisis-solvers need to have. He also has all the necessary personal narcissism to put himself out there on public display and risk being humiliated.

In that respect, I think he's much like GWB -- indeed, all politicians are to one extent or another -- because public humiliation really never bothered W. The whole Katrina thing with McCain's birthday cake meant nothing to W, no remorse, no shame, no embarrassment.

Obama appears to be similar. He hasn't dogged BP because he doesn't have the focused passion needed to deal with an on-going crisis like that. He hasn't resolved the economy because it's hard work to go up against entrenched special interests of the uber-rich, and Obama the professor isn't used to the real hard work of governing. For him it's an intellectual classroom exercise, after which he goes home to dinner and a good book. Kinda like W, only he had PBJs and reruns of Dallas.

With Obama, I fear there's no there there. He looks good and he says a lot of things we like to hear, and he makes us feel better about ourselves as Democrats, but he's not really doing the job we thought he was going to do. And yes, I know there are some who think he is, and they're quite satisfied with him, or at least happy to continue making excuses for his shortcomings, and that's fine. That's the nature of discourse.

But if we look at some of the actions behind the actions -- as you've done defendandprotect -- a whole different image starts to emerge. I can understand why some people would turn away from that revelation, pretend that it doesn't exist or that it's a lie. That's a safe and comfortable position to take. It's one that doesn't engage the discomfort of an unpleasant truth.

Bill Clinton was and is a consummate politician, and that doesn't mean he did all the right things as president. But I would and will always give him credit for being a passionate human being. Maybe too passionate about some things and/or people, but I think even the infidelities (plural) were evidence that Bill Clinton had real blood in his veins.

I'm not sure about Obama.

For some reason or other, the usual DU search engine is all messed up this morning and so are my old bookmarked threads, but in what is still available, I came across something I posted back in May of this year, when the BP catastrophe was just beginning:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

<snip>
Has it reached the point where we have to contemplate even the possiblity that "Obama Lied, the whole Gulf Coast died"?

So Bush and McCain partied while New Orleans drowned. How much different is that from Obama and Calderón partying while Grand Isle and Plaquemines Parish suffocate in crude oil?

http://www.examiner.com/x-21743-New-Orleans-Progressive ...

"Ever since the BP oil rig the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank over a month ago, gushing at best guess a minimum of 700,000 gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, local residents of the coast have harbored the fear that Louisiana's once pristine coastal eco-system, - home of some of Louisiana's most sacred wildlife - will eventually turn into an oil-polluted graveyard. To the dismay of everyone, that fear has now turned into reality.


"...In a part of Plaquemines Parish in an estuary called Pass a Loutre, reeds in the marshlands that were normally green with life, are now brown and dead, saturated with oil..."

"Sacred wildlife" is not a phrase used in everyday conversation, but I think it speaks to an almost-forgotten connection between our lives and the life of the planet. A connection relegated with some disparagement to native Americans, New Agers, and ancient goddess worshipers who hadn't seen the light of modern Jesus. We are about to be destroyed, not by the sword or by lightning, but by the consequences of our ignoring the rules of living in harmony with our world.

What Obama seemed to promise in all those ringing speeches was a return to something resembling that harmony. A retreat from war. A hand outstretched in peace. A more equitable economy.

Was it a lie? Was it all a deliberate untruth?

My French is rusty and it wasn't ever very good to begin with, but when I saw the name "Pass a Loutre" there was an instinctive "translation," if you will to "Pass to the Other Side." (Pass á l'outre.) Maybe my translation is completely wrong and someone will correct me and embarrass the hell out of me, but there you have it.

Obama has disappointed me many times since November 2008, and I've not been shy about voicing my "concerns." But I've held back on this issue because I just did not want to believe it was as bad as I thought it was.

<end snip>


One of the constant complaints about the Dems has been their lack of courage, their lack of the spine to stand up for what's right, what's good, what's just. I will not be guilty of that lack of courage.

I will stand up and say that Obama has not delivered much of anything that was expected of him with his huge mandate and his "veto-proof" congress. He did not rally the people and he did not rally the legislative process. Pelosi and the Dems in the House have indeed passed more progressive legislation that has stalled in the Senate, blocked by no more than a few pukes and a few uncooperative DINOs. If Obama and Biden, as leaders of their party, could not negotiate with members of that pary or with sympathetic members of the other party, on key issues, then the conclusions should be that either they are inept leaders or they do not want to lead in that more progressive direction.

This does not mean I'm going to run out and vote for rightwing radical insaniacs like palin or angle or mitt romney or such like. I'm going to continue to vote Democratic because we really do only have two games in town and one of them is essentially the rebirth of the Nazis. I'm not going there, no way no how.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to sit back and praise Obama and Biden in the face of their failures to deliver on the key issues on which they campaigned and on which they were elected AND/OR their failures to deal with the crises that have developed since the election.

Leaders lead. And if you look ahead in the direction they are leading, we aren't going to reach the Promised Land anytime soon.



Tansy Gold