Reply #274: Why did Obama say make me do it?

[Mithreal]

I'd wager, no one here thinks Bush and Obama are the same. I think you may be taking an argument to an extreme. That is why I wrote what I did.

I will borrow an argument even though it is somewhat inflammatory.

"The fundamental truth about the Obama administration is that it is the Bush administration run by slightly less incompetent, marginally less evil people:

* The Iraq occupation will end when Bush wanted it to.
* The Bush administration's campaign of eradication of fundamental civil liberties, including the gutting of the 4th amendment and holding people without trial, continues.
* The Afghan war continues, and is even being escalated.
* The signature issue of "health care reform" is a scheme which will force citizens to buy private insurance which, because of lack of effective controls, will increase in price faster than wages or inflation.
* Obama and Geithner have followed the Bush/Paulson financial policies, virtually to the letter, spending trillions bailing out Wall Street and creating a financial sector which has fewer, larger actors with more political power than before.
* Obama continues to exert pressure primarily on Progressives rather than on Blue Dogs in order to obtain relatively more conservative rather than liberal bills. (This is not an accident.) The most liberal bill always comes from the House, the conference committee bill is inevitably closer to the more conservative Senate bill. (This is not an accident.)
* Unlike Bush Jr, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Reagan, Obama has not replaced the prior administration's district attorneys wholesale, instead leaving in place the majority of the Bush administration DA's who had survived Rove's purges intended to make sure they were loyal Republican apparatchiks.
* Obama has not cleaned out the administration in general of Bush-era appointees and plants; indeed he has filled less spots than either Clinton or Bush II had by this point in their terms—and no, it's not because the Senate won't confirm them.
* Obama appointees will be forced to resign if the right wing (aka Beck) goes after them hard, but if progressives don't like them, tough luck.
* Obama's economic team is filled with people who created the framework which allowed the financial meltdown to occur, who didn't see it coming, and whose solution to it is to give money to their friends and colleagues and try and get another bubble started."

http://openleft.com/diary/15113/meet-the-new-boss

I don't entirely agree because of all the positive the President has done but he has also done some bad things. I am not saying throw the bum out. I am saying we need to get active and push back.

So, yeah, I stand by my earlier statement.