Excellent post. I agree 100 percent. Where have you been lately? We have missed you around here, dude.

But the GOP, in going so far to the right, pulls the Dems to the right too, such that a moderate Dem becomes what a conservative Republican once was 30 years ago.

The middle is the middle. Imagine a translucent ruler. The middle mark measures the rainbow thing beneath it. If you move the rainbow any direction, left or right, a new thing can be seen as moderate, something which wasn't a short time before.

The GOP, by pushing their party to the right, are also dragging the whole nation to the right.

The Dems are far more conservative now than they have been in 30 years, at least on economic issues. On social issues, like gay rights, they are very liberal.

Where exactly do you get your information to write such things? Let me guess--Young Turks--Prophet Cenk is a former Republican--The Daily Kos run by another former Republican--Ed Schultz--another former Republican or perhaps Salon's Golden Boy -Greenwald who worked for the Cato Institute. Barack Obama has been a great President and got more progressive things passed in the last three years than have been passed since Robert Kennedy was murdered. Who has President Obama helped--how about Native Americans-the lowest of the poor minorities? He has done more than any president in history for Native Americans. His record with protecting women from domestic violence and workplace discrimination is sterling. (Joe Biden has worked on these issues for years and years.) He reduced nuclear weapons by a third and has appointed more openly gay officials than any other president in history. You must be a member of what we--those of us who broke away from the Daily Kos--call the pretend left. Your type is more concerned with symbols and purity tests rather than legislative progress. You seem like a smart, articulate young man. Don't far victim to the barkers from the far left. I listened to those asses for over three decades before deciding that allowing the Republicans and Neo-Cons to take over this entire society was not something I was going to allow to happen. I challenge you to go to the People's View and read. Learn and join us to defeat Republicans--that should be the goal. I found this post dishonest. President Obama has kept 151 promises that he made in the campaign. Too bad you can't give the man--a part-black man, no less-who got nearly 70 million votes in this still racist society any credit for his numerous progressive victories. Sad, very sad.

Kemstone…I think the Republicans have decided to sling as much mud at their straw man version of Barack Obama as possible…and allow liberals like you to take on what you call “the real Barack Obama.”

Apparently they feel that you guys are doing way too much damage to him for them to take a chance interfering at this point.

Smart move on their part!

Keep up the good work.

I cannot help wondering, however, how helping get Obama replaced by someone chosen by the Republican base will help the causes you supposedly champion!

Barack Obama is by far the most middle-of-the-road Republican on the national scene today. Bob Dole and he would probably agree on 99% of the issues brought to them. For everyone who feels comfortable with the present administration, all I can say is welcome to the Republican Party of the Bob Dole.

And for anyone who feels uncomfortable with the present administration, I would ask:

What makes you think replacing it with one run by someone selected by the Republican Party base would be an improvement?

The real opposition to the real Obama is being totally ignored by the Mass Media.

They're hoping we'll believe the lie that we have to choose between the candidates that they present to us all of which are owned by the same corporations that own the Mass Media.

Under the circumstances of a severe financial crisis, Obama is going to argue that he is a centrist one would think, where a lot of elections are won, although many of the continuties in policy are just ... imperatives of accepting the premise that America has overseas interests of a certain form. Maybe that's wrong, although most elites accept those premises, and not without a lot of reasons.
For example, and maybe its self-serving as both an American and someone who spent a lot of time analyzing foreign events, it still as a practical matter might be a lot more difficult to alter longstanding American security arrangements overseas, since doing so would potentially create incentives to make us stay, even from some semi-enemies or frenemies, the latter once it really became a live option, and really thought about what happens with an "unleashed" Japan, ROK, and Germany, or even Israel.

Zacherytaylor wrote:

The real opposition to the real Obama is being totally ignored by the Mass Media.

They're hoping we'll believe the lie that we have to choose between the candidates that they present to us all of which are owned by the same corporations that own the Mass Media.

What is the alternative?

What realistic alternative do you see for next November other than choosing between the candidate of the Democrats and the candidate of the Republicans?

Do you honestly think the candidate of a third party can get enough votes to win?

And if so, I will ask the same questions I ask of all “third party” advocates:

What makes you think the politicians of your third party, if they win, will not get as corrupted by power as the politicians of every party that has ever existed on the planet?

What makes you think that the politicians of your third party, if they win, will be immune to the influence of the money that influences power in our country?

I hope you answer those questions, Zachery. I’ve never had a single advocate of third party wishful thinking ever respond to them.

Hi Kemstone.
I'm not on OS much lately either, partially because I have some work to finish and partially because of another personal event last month.

This was excellent. An old online friend of mine who moves in conservative circles forwards me e-mails vilifying Obama for being radical and I reply sort of like you have: Radical? The problem with Obama is not that he's too radical, it's that he's not radical enough. He is, in many respects, centrist. There are exceptions: He's done more for the very poor and for Native Americans than other Presidents have. However, overall, particularly on economics, he's way, way too centrist, in ways that I would argue are awful for the economy. Still an improvement over what the GOP offers, though.

Good work.

Rw005g and koshersalaami, thanks. I haven't done much political writing since I moved to Japan because I've fallen in love with my job teaching at a junior high school, so I'm putting most of my focus and energy into that.

Dr.Spudman44, I appreciate the kinds words amidst your criticism, and you know that I respect your point of view but I just don't share that attitude. I think that the system is so profoundly broken that we need a president who will stand up and take all the political risks necessary to change it. You can offer up a long list of president Obama's accomplishments, and we need people out there doing that, but none of these things go to the real heart of the issue which is that our government is for sale to the highest bidder and multi-national corporations get everything they want at the expense of the middle class. If Obama never promised to tackle that problem I couldn't hold his inaction against him, but he specifically said that he didn't just want to "play the game a little better" but to "change the game". Just as we need people like you who have his back and remind everyone of the good he has done, I firmly believe we need people to put pressure on him from the left, otherwise he has no reason not to just continue doing everything his campaign donors want him to do. Anger from the left is the only thing that could make him think twice--e.g. there's no way he would have cancelled the Keystone Pipeline project if he hadn't been afraid of the left's reaction.

Frank, I don't disagree that Obama is a far better alternative to the Republicans, but I completely reject the idea that any criticism of Obama whatsoever serves only to make a Republican victory in November more likely. The people who respond to arguments that Obama is too conservative aren't going to vote for someone even MORE conservative. We know what's at stake, and as long as we've got nothing but the lesser of two bad options to choose from, we'll choose the lesser. But we can't just sit idly by with our mouths shut while all of the nation's wealth is accumulated by a tiny handful of the super-wealthy just because someone from "our side" is the president.

Amen

Frank, I don't disagree that Obama is a far better alternative to the Republicans, but I completely reject the idea that any criticism of Obama whatsoever serves only to make a Republican victory in November more likely.

First of all, I agree with everything here. But I disagree strongly if you were intending an implication that I am suggesting that “Any criticism of Obama whatsoever” is off-limits. I most assuredly am not.

But I think there are elements of the far left who have gone way, way further than simply criticizing Obama. They have essentially begun a program of vilification that matches (and often exceeds) the silly, inappropriate rhetoric of the far right.

Right here in OS, there are left leaning individuals who regularly and viciously excoriate Obama at every opportunity…with a mind to insuring that he be defeated. They actually mention that they are doing so…and that they will not vote for him in any case whatsoever. They are the people to whom I am referring.

The people who respond to arguments that Obama is too conservative aren't going to vote for someone even MORE conservative. We know what's at stake, and as long as we've got nothing but the lesser of two bad options to choose from, we'll choose the lesser.

Okay, but often the negativism becomes so strident, there is an effect on the undecided electorate…the individuals in the middle who are saying, and “If his own people hate him so much, that is proof positive he should not be re-elected. Some balance is needed…and some thought has to be put into the constant barrage of criticism that serves little purpose but to hurt his chances for re-election.

MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT how I feel on this. I think the damage has already been done…and despite some minor upticks right now, I see Obama being defeated handily in November. In my opinion, the people who are slinging mud at him…those on the right and those on the left…are going to get their way. We will all find out how that impacts on our nation and the world.

But we can't just sit idly by with our mouths shut while all of the nation's wealth is accumulated by a tiny handful of the super-wealthy just because someone from "our side" is the president.

Okay, that takes us back to my question to Zacherytaylor…and to all the others who suggest as he does:

What is the alternative?

What realistic alternative do you see for next November other than choosing between the candidate of the Democrats and the candidate of the Republicans?

Do you honestly think the candidate of a third party can get enough votes to win?

And if so, I will ask the same questions I ask of all “third party” advocates:

What makes you think the politicians of your third party, if they win, will not get as corrupted by power as the politicians of every party that has ever existed on the planet?

What makes you think that the politicians of your third party, if they win, will be immune to the influence of the money that influences power in our country?

Obama - by his own choice - has decided to continue the majority of the Bush social, economic and military policies. Why the very same act is outrageous when party does it but is "politically pragmatic" when another party does it is beyond me. It's as if the definition of right and wrong changes depending on if "your boy" is in power.

Obama sold his soul to Wall Street - just like any Republican. That alone will cause more pain than can be registered on a human scale. He signs off on summary murder, very proudly despises the rule of law, enacted "reforms" that at best do nothing and at worst hide the fact we've been set up to fail all over again. If you're not going to stick up for what's right, why be in office anyway?

Here's the thing about Republicans and Obama supporters: they both seek to appease the right wing base, as if they are the arbiters of truth and reality. That's the problem with all political people (aka terrorists), they live their lives by what other people think. Seeking political power is not the answer to our problems.

I basically agree with Kemstone, Koshersalaami and Frank here.

I disagree with Obama alot. I think he caves in too much to the financial sector. That said, he is better than Romney.

Now, if the Dems can put up a serious contender in the primary agauinst him and win, so be it. But the likelihood of this working is zero (I dont think its ever happend---remember what happened when Ted Kennedy challenged Carter in the primary after Carter's first term? It was a disaster).

The Democratic Party today is socially liberal but economically corporatist. The way to change this isn't during a Presidential Election. Its through local elections. We need to change the party from the bottom up. That said, less than 20% of all Americans vote in local elections. I'd say this gives us a great ability to impact change.

Too many on the left and progressive camp are anarchists and think that any sort of participation in the system will enable the corporatists and legitimize the system. So what? I like the Constitution and I think its legitimate. So much so, that I'm not willing to let the GOP control my country.

Remember. The Fascists took power in Europe, because liberals, progressives and members of the left were too busy fighting eachother, than the right wing.

Hitler took advantage of this in a very fast and ruthless way.

Let's not repeat those mistakes.

And no, I'm not comparing Romney to Hitler.

Yup. People sometimes forget that Hitler was elected.

Incidentally, the NSDAP (Nazi for short) campaign slogan was - Kemstone, please correct my German because I've probably gotten it wrong -
Kinder, Kuche, Kirche
It was talking about women. It translates to
Children, Kitchen, Church

Not that I think everyone who uses slogans like these have Nazi tendencies, but I find it interesting that what the Nazis appealed to to gain power was a fear and even hatred of change and, at least as importantly, that the solution was a return to some mythical former standard. We do see that kind of thinking a lot here. I am not implying, again, that this logic leads inevitably to something as awful as Naziism though I do think it leads inevitably to institutionalized intolerance. You can watch that happening to the LGBT population here - loads of anti-gay marriage legislation that does zero to protect the institution of marriage from anything.

Who I assume Frank is referring to primarily is Markinjapan, who opposes Obama because he views Obama as a war criminal for a variety of reasons (drones killing more civilians, internment of suspects in terrorism overseas with no due process, keeping Gitmo open, taking his time closing down our Iraq effort while increasing Afghanistan and getting us involved in other places like Libya). Personally, I don't buy for a minute that any Republican candidate other than Ron Paul would be an improvement in this area so, like with the corporatist problem, we're back to Square One: No credible candidate gives us an alternative.

If I'd really understood who Obama was, I'd probably have voted for Hillary, though the only guys who really weren't corporatist were John Edwards and Mike Huckabee, both of whom imploded for other reasons.

Frank: "What is the alternative?"

The alternative is that we try to come up with something better. It may not be easy and it may involve a lot of organizational and educational efforts; but we try.

What is the alternative to not trying?

Submitting.

Zacherytaylor, you wrote:

The alternative is that we try to come up with something better. It may not be easy and it may involve a lot of organizational and educational efforts; but we try.

What is the alternative to not trying?

Submitting.

What does that mean?

In November there is going to be an election.

Are you suggesting that there is something we couldTRY that would result in neither the Democrat nor Republican being elected…result in someone else being elected?

That is just wishful thinking.

And even if by some miracle, it happened, why on Earth would you suppose that person would be any less corrupted by the power he/she would obtain…or any less inclined to be influenced by big money???

To say that “the alternative is to TRY to come up with something better…does nothing whatsoever. It will result in no more than not trying and simply choosing one or the other of the candidates of the major parties.

For anyone interesting in advancing a progressive agenda, the best thing to do for the coming election, in my opinion, is to choose which party is more likely to advance a progressive agenda (think of that as: which party is less likely to resist a progressive agenda)…and vote for the nominee of that party.

How anyone can possibly think the two parties are identical in this regard is beyond comprehension! The Democrats are far, far more likely to advance a progressive agenda—and the Republicans are far, far more likely to resist a progressive agenda.

It is a no-brainer...unless you buy into the absurdity of "it doesn't matter which wins."

Wow thanks to Zachary Taylor who linked to this or I would have missed it. its going on my facebook. You lit this one up, Kem, like Eli Manning in a play off game, an impressive display of expose writing. Short, sweet, and right to the point. I think Zachary Taylor also called it right a while back when he said the republicans appear to be deliberately throwing this election. Ron Paul is the only candidate they have who has any chance of defeating Wall Streets golden boy in a general election, and they are willfully ignoring him

A third party doesn't have to win, all they have to do is get enough votes for the party of Obama to lose. Sometimes a tactical retreat is necessary for an eventual win. Voting for either the Republican or the Democratic parties at the present time is supporting war criminals.

Wow . . . .

Thousands of words analyzing who Obama is and who he is not and not one mention, which I can find, of the Affordable Healthcare Act.

Is this like unfreekinbelievable or what?

Peter Breschard wrote:


A third party doesn't have to win, all they have to do is get enough votes for the party of Obama to lose. Sometimes a tactical retreat is necessary for an eventual win. Voting for either the Republican or the Democratic parties at the present time is supporting war criminals.

Hummm…let’s write this using other words and see how it sounds.


A third party doesn't have to win, all they have to do is get enough votes for the Republican Party to win. Sometimes a tactical retreat is necessary for an eventual win. Voting for either the Republican or the Democratic parties at the present time is supporting war criminals.

So…doing what Peter suggests would, in effect, be voting for the Republican Party…which is to say, he is advocating supporting war criminals.

Isn't there a glaring inconsistency there?

I can't believe so many liberals want Obama to lose and the GOP candidate to win.

This is what happened in 2000. All these folks on the left bolted from the party and supported Ralph Nader, and then we were stuck with George W. Bush for 8 years, 2 massive wars and insanity.

No thanks. I'm not willing to go there again. I'm with Koshersalaami and Frank here.

And again, just because I'm voting for Obama, doesn't mean I think he's FDR. Far from it. I wish he was FDR. Hell, I wish I could get some of FDR's DNA and clone him, "Boys from Brazil" style, resurrect him, and run him for office again.

But I can't. I hope Martin O'Malley of MD runs in the future. He's a progressive Democrat and I adore him.

Until then, we have Obama and we need to be good soldiers and circle the wagons.

R, I most certainly do not wish the Republicans to win. I also do not want a Democratic Party headed by Barack Obama to be running the country either. George W. Bush ordered the torture of helpless prisoners and Obama shelters Bush by refusing to follow the law and prosecute those who ordered torture. Both are war criminals. How anyone can vote for parties which shelter war criminals is beyond me.

u need to direct this to the young people who voted for obama but have been too disillusioned to vote for him again or call him Bush III.

Peter Breschard wrote:


R, I most certainly do not wish the Republicans to win. I also do not want a Democratic Party headed by Barack Obama to be running the country either. George W. Bush ordered the torture of helpless prisoners and Obama shelters Bush by refusing to follow the law and prosecute those who ordered torture. Both are war criminals. How anyone can vote for parties which shelter war criminals is beyond me.

Peter, a realistic assessment of the situation comes up with: It has to be either the Democratic Party candidate or the Republican Party candidate who will win. A third party may some day be able to upset one or the other, but that is not going to happen in the short time between now and Election Day. It comes down to voting for Obama…or enabling the Republican nominee.

You do not wish the Republicans to win…you “most certainly” do not want that to happen.

You really have to suck it up and start supporting Obama. He is NOT a war criminal…and quite frankly, neither is George W. Bush. The United States is guilty of some grievous things…but that is the United States…not any one individual.

Really! A victory by the Republicans in November would be an absolute catastrophe for America and the world. Get a grip…and recognize that you must choose. You either will aid the Republicans or you will aid the Democrats.

It is your choice, Peter. I hope you make the right one.

I thought appointing the VP of Monsanto to head the FDA was rich. We live in partisan times where labels are all people follow not actual policy. In fact a Romney presidency would be as indistinguishable as Obama's is from Bush's. Just one puppet regime after another.

Just today I was reading how the American Socialist Party (I think that's there name) issued a public statement (who knew?) several weeks ago calling on Perry to stop referring to Obama as a socialist. You've sized this up pretty well Kemstone.

Just to make myself clear on the election issue, as sympathetic as I am to Peter Breschard's attitude of extreme reluctance to vote for someone with such abhorrent policies, I must side with Frank when all is said and done. When it comes to foreign policy and civil liberties issues, an Obama or a Romney presidency would be virtually indistinguishable, but the same can't be said for two very important issues:

1- Taxes. While Obama hasn't raised taxes on the top 1% like he said he would, Romney's tax plan would CUT their taxes to an even more absurd degree and accelerate the income inequality gap which is already disastrously wide.

2- Most importantly, the balance of power on the Supreme Court is indisputably at stake in this election, and Obama can at least be credited with nominating relatively liberal--at least not radically conservative--justices. Another Roberts or Alito on the court will solidify the corporatist-conservative stranglehold over our nation's highest judicial body for a generation, and we simply can't afford that.

We need to hold our noses and re-elect Obama, but unlike 2008 when we all went home afterwards and sat on our hands waiting for him to change the system, we need to stay active and keep the pressure on both our national and our local leaders.

You may accused Obama in different way but you must remember in decade or two nonwhite population increase so vast in U.S. white people remain in minority.Every presidential election nonwhite will be elected as a President of America.What white people do then, can they leave the America and migrate to Europe.Be remember Britain also moving same way there also non white majority increasing very fast.

For a realistic appraisal of Obama by people well in formed on his violations of the Constitution see http://www.law.harvard.edu/news/2012/02/10_nader-fein-americas-lawless-empire.html

I disagree strongly. Obama has been governing from the center, andIi am happy about that.

Ok then...guess I will have to go vote for Mitt or Rick (or Jeez, choking now, Newt). Things are bound to turn around then.

well-written but you neglect the fact that it was the Left who so willfully ignored the real Barrack: a very intelligent, driven, prone to compromise politician who believed in the slow process of change as possible, a family man and a Christian but not even close to the Avant Guarde; and instead wanted a nice civilized Black man to lead us to the Promised Land, to reach the mountain top, in forty days instead of forty years. He had no inclination to magically part the sea and even less to drown the angry herd of the Tea Party in the flood.

I have compared his potential to that of Pitt and not of Wilberforce but then, I am just an artist and have proven my ability to err many times in past years.

Enjoyed your view, well thought and well written.

Kenneth

Kemstone, thank you for that last post. Indeed, if the only way one can vote for Barack Obama in November is by holding his/her nose…then “hold one’s nose” it should be. There are differences to consider…and tax policy and the federal judiciary (especially SCOTUS), as you pointed out, are absolutely important considerations. We simply cannot afford to allow conservative thinking to influence those areas further.

Noirville Redencocker may have inadvertently made the same point Kemstone just made.

NR, wrote: Romney presidency would be as indistinguishable as Obama's is from Bush's.

Okay, consider these names: Roberts & Alito (appointed to SCOTUS by Gerorge W. Bush); Sotomayor & Kagan (appointed to SCOTUS by Barack Obama).

So Noirville is right. A Romney (any Republican) presidency would be as indistinguishable (which is to say VERY, VERY DISTINGUISHABLE) from an Obama (any Democratic) presidency!

Frank, I don’t mean submitting at all and my claim that we should try is clearly just the beginning. Many more things need to be done and we need election reform and we need to enable the public to have more influence over the way the elections are run. Many people have made an enormous amount of suggestion, including me, about things that could be done to improve things; if you can’t find them I suspect that you may not be looking very hard.

Jack the behavior of the Republican party seems to be so absurd that it is worth considering the possibility that something else is going on but Obama and others are so clownish that there is a chance that, well just about anything could happen and unless more sincere people take action it probably won’t be good.

Also I’m somewhat surprised by the fact that every four years we go into the same debate about whether or not we should allow the other party to win or not; and decide that stopping this is more important than acknowledging the fact that the corporate media has informed us that collecting enormous amount of bribes usually referred to as campaign contributions is a requirement for running for office. This means that the corporations get to decide who our candidates are and every four years things get a little worse although sometimes the quality of the rhetoric improves a little.

We’re in a race to the bottom and when we accept the false premise that the corporations should be allowed to choose our candidates then we always get a little closer to the bottom. BTW the reference that Jack made to my additional follow up to this blog is at Should we accept the false premise of Dem. or Rep.? if anyone is interested.

ANYBODY after Abu Ghraib, renditions, black sites, Bagram, waterboarding, etc, who can make a statement like this:

"Obama. He is NOT a war criminal…and quite frankly, neither is George W. Bush."

is blind, deaf, dumb, and a blithering idiot.

Good Germans, indeed!


-R-

Good sketch of the Republican-drawn caricature Obama...and of the sorrows of us lefties. I've been left overwhelmingly unimpressed with Obama's presidency along the same lines described above. And I blogged about this too a few weeks back. Check it out. :)

‘I am NOT SOCIALIST’: Obama, ‘Liberals’ and Socialism
http://open.salon.com/blog/rcmoya612/2012/01/25/i_am_not_socialist_obama_liberals_and_the_socialist_tr_1

@baltimore aureole:

Way to make wholly comments wholly lacking in context. I consider myself a pretty fierce critic of Obama from the left. But I can *also* recognise that a lot of the 'initial state' conditions in the United States were abysmal thanks to a REPUBLICAN administration.

Serious debate means coming to the table with some semblance of objectivity. Data helps provide that. The US economy reached its pre-recession peak in the 4th quarter of 2007--that is, *more* than a FULL YEAR before Obama came to power, and growth reached its lowest point during the recession in the 2nd quarter of 2009, i.e. within about 6 months of an Obama presidency. This means that in the 5 quarters prior to this trough, i.e. prior to arresting the decline in the economy, Obama himself was only in power for the last 3-month period. That's a fact--an objective fact.

What about unemployment? Unemployment reached its pre-recession peak even earlier--it was at its post-2001 lowest (more at the end of this para. on that) by early 2007--and started increasing by the spring/summer of 2007. It absolutely skyrocketed starting April 2008--so much so that by the time Obama came to power in January 2009, the unemployment rate had increased by a breath-taking 3% points or so relative to that April…and in fact, had almost doubled from its absolute lowest levels under Bush. Again, facts. There's a corollary here: during the entire Bush presidency, unemployment NEVER reached the levels it had reached under Clinton, and only reached summer-2001 levels 6 years into his presidency. Does this mean that if unemployment under Obama reaches the 7.8% rate it was at when he came to power, you’ll absolve him? Fair is fair, right?

Bush couldn't provide full employment for almost his entire presidency, and then saddled his successor with MASS unemployment. Talk about piss-poor starting conditions for Obama in 2009.

Does this absolve Obama? NOT.AT.ALL. But we *should* recognise why he's performed less-well than ANYONE would have wanted him to--that is, because he was saddled with a shockingly bad economy, against which he arrayed pathetically timid policy prescriptions. And you can blame Republicans equally for that timidity, what with their obsession with the debt.

Almost 8 decades ago, John Maynard Keynes rightly argued: 'Look after unemployment and the budget will look after itself.' And for most of the post-war period, governments in the West did precisely that. The budget, in actual fact, DID indeed look after itself.

Today, Republicans are the pro-budget-deficit-obsession camp par excellence. Obama's folly is that he's become a fellow-traveller; 'moderately' or so, perhaps, but that matters very little to the man or woman with few job prospects—or worse, long-term unemployment.

I wish that progressives would consider that their view is distorted too, if they want to condemn Obama for adopting a moderate course. He is intelligent and creative, and has integrity and authenticity. the alternative is so disturbing that there is nio question that he should be re-elected. Think twice before condemning Obama. in fact, think three or four times.

This is a really excellent piece. It is well-reasoned and written so well, I think it would not be out of place as an actual Salon piece. Thanks for organizing so many thoughts that I myself have had, giving me some I have not, and putting it together in such a fine piece of writing.

This is probably one of the most salient and concise indictments of both the Rebublican Party on the whole and of the President's neglect of his base, promises made in campaign and of the Spine of Democrats in general.

Kudos. Now if only more people will wake up and smell the chicory and, left, right or center, demand we get a whole new pack of idiots in elected positions the country over, federally. After all, with a bunch of new idiots, fresh from the visage of every incumbent being tossed out on their asses, maybe it'd be easier to ensure they listen to the people and not the Corporate Interests that are literally running and ruining this country at the same time.

--r--

WOW! . . . . .

Another thousdand words about who Obama is and who Obama isn't . . . . and STILL NO mention of the Affordable Care Act by any supporter.

WOW . . . .

As a reminder, this piece of legislation was the "big, fucking, deal" of this administration . . . .

I hereby offer my services. For $50, I will come to your location with my shovel, and dig your head out of whatever warm, dark, location it happens to be.

If we want a Progressive Democrat in the White House, we have to cut our lethally bad habit of refraining from political activity every four years, except for spasmodic, episodic ejaculations of political zeal everytime a Presidential election comes around.

The key to controlling the White House begins at home. You need to ensure that progressives control your County and municipality. Then your region and state. This is how you turn your state party around, into an agent of progressive action.

This is what happened during the Progressive Movement and New Deal. They didn't wait for Wilson, TR or FDR. The movement began long before them. They were merely the icing on the cake.

The problem with political activism today is that the centralized media makes us focus exclusively on national issues and the federal government. But this is a mistake. As Tip O'Neil said, all politics is local. Congress is a fragile table. The legs, the pillars that support it reside in municipal and county seats. If you can control these, as well as the party-controlled electoral college folks, you control the White House.

Only 20% of Americans vote in municipal and county elections. This is why insane radicals often get elected. Remember David Duke in Louisiana?

If the right can make a concerted effort on the local level, then so can we.

What we need to do is form a PROGRESSIVE FACTION within the Democratic Party and use it to control the party's agenda, like the Tea Party, NRA, Christian Coalition, Moral Majority and other groups did in the GOP, and as Organized Labor once did and the Gay Rights groups now do, within the Democratic Party.

And we need to have our own conventions. But not in terms of electing our own candidates to run against dems. In terms of nominating our candidates to run in primaries against conservative Dems, WITHIN THE SAME PARTY.

But once chosen, we never run against a Dem in a General Election.

We need to hammer out a platform like this. Democratic Centralism, in a way.

Are All Democrats Cowards?
http://open.salon.com/blog/breschard/2012/02/14/are_all_democrats_cowards

well done! You are right on target. The fictional Obama is way larger than the real one. Take good and bad out of the equation for a moment and just think "What changes when my opponent writes my story?"

You've spoke to that quiet nicely.

The question is: What can we as writers do to help?

BOTTOM LINE: In November, the only realistic choices will be between the candidate of the Democrats and the candidate of the Republicans.

No third party is going to come along between now and then and make a decent showing. And as I have asked several times: What makes any advocate of a “third party” think that the politicians who will flock to that party will be any more honest or competent than the politicians of the present major parties? What makes any advocate of a “third party” think that their politicians will be immune to influences from the moneyed interests in the country…or, if elected, to be immune to the kinds of corruption that power produces?

If you still think there is no real difference between the parties, just think about the names Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito…and compare them with Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan. If you truly see no difference between those two groups…the problem runs too deep for discussion on the Internet.

And as Kemstone pointed out…the difference in tax policy between the two major parties and their candidates is, and always will be, enormous.

Stop the pissing and moaning. Start supporting Obama, before this lack of support jumps up and bites everyone in this country on the ass.

"...the Republicans can't make a fact-based attack on him for doing..."

Well, for doing practically anything they don't like. He is, was, and always has been, after all, running on a Republican ticket. A barely covert one.

-r-

Yes, they are counting on a majority of Americans to be disconnected from government and the legislative process. Yes, they are making a calculated bet that those same Americans can be prodded to the voting booth if the issues are framed just so. They’re right to count on those things… Hey, welcome to the game. It’s only been going on as long as groups of people have collectively made decisions. It’s called politics, based on collective perceptions. Certainly nothing new.

Also, no offense but your bio would suggest you’ve been away from America for a while. Have you seen the legislative moves against the Obama administration? The number of unconfirmed administrative nominations? The record-breaking filibusters? 51 votes out of 100 is no longer a majority.

Hey Y'all, STOP all this pissing and moaning, because it's gonna' bite You in the as*, because . . . . because . . . . because . . . fRANK told me so, and fRANK's never been wrong, yet (has he?).

This post reminds me of Obama's community college speech introducing his wonderful new budget. It talks about just about everything that doesn't really matter. Just as Obama, with his usual sense of political expediency, gave his audience the impression that the country's economic woes could be solved by shoring up community colleges--does the guy not know that his speeches are telecast?--he didn't address a single fiscal issue that really matters.

"The best they can do is say that he talked about doing such things in the 2008 campaign." You come close to relevance here. The public is well aware of the fact that rising above all of Obama's positions is his monumental incapacity to effectuate his policies and his utter incompetence as a political leader. Add to this an unprincipled political hack who remains mired in Chicago politics and procedures and you're left with an epic failure that anyone from Donald Trump to Donald Duck can beat and best.

There isn't a single Republican contender, retired or continuing, that isn't more qualified to be president. To a man (or woman) they know how many states are in the Union, what the date is (at least within a year), and how to select advisors who know the percentage of votes necessary to advance legislation in the United States Senate.

Great post, Kemstone...one I will come back and re-read from time to time. Bravo!

I want to thank R. Christian Moya, Sir Sidney Fudd, and dunniteowl for their kind comments, and Frank Aspisa, zacherydaylor, and Rwoo5g for continuing to contribute their thoughts to this thread. There are a number of new comments I want to quickly respond to.

Patrick Frank, if you’re happy with how Obama has been governing, then by all means vote for him. I’d only urge you to pay closer attention to Obama’s actual policies, which have not been as “centrist” as his rhetoric but actually significantly conservative.

Kenneth Houck, thank you. But I think it’s irrelevant what the Left “expected” of Obama when they voted for him. Even though he talked about taking on the broken system in Washington, we shouldn’t complain that he hasn’t even tried because we should have known he wouldn’t?

Baltimore Aureole, you might want to get in the habit of reading more than just one paragraph of a blog post before you comment, it makes you look stupid. Anyone coming away from my article with the impression that I’m a “starry eyed Obama groupie” is either high or incapable of comprehending basic English. If you’re interested in “serious debate” you have a funny way of showing it.

UncleChri, Affordable Care Act, Affordable Care Act, Affordable Care Act, Affordable Care Act, Affordable Care Act. Happy now? I’ve written so much about the Affordable Care Act on my blog that quite frankly I’m sick of it. There was no need to mention it to make the point I intended to make with this post, although I easily could have because it’s another prime example of right-wing media turning what is basically a centrist and corporate-friendly piece of legislation into some kind of Stalinist assault on liberty.

ChicagoGuy, “What can we as writers do to help?” Answer: everything we can. Write blog posts, comment on articles, write letters to the editor of newspapers and magazines, sign petitions and leave personal comments, and write to your representatives in government directly.

DennyRussell, are you saying that if the “game” is very old, it’s useless to try and change the rules? I’m glad that people like Martin Luther King didn’t think that way. As for my living abroad, physical proximity to Washington D.C. has nothing to do with how closely one can pay attention to the U.S. government. I’m more familiar with the roadblocks to progress, including the abuse of the filibuster, than the vast majority of Americans whose bodies happen to be physically located there. We need a leader who will push back aggressively against those roadblocks rather than just try to live within their confines. There’s nothing stopping Obama from lambasting the Republicans for their unprecedented abuse of the filibuster every single time he gets behind a microphone, yet he almost never mentions it at all.

Gordon Osmond, I didn’t touch on anything that really matters? The influence of money in politics, the loss of our civil liberties, the stranglehold of the military-industrial-complex on foreign policy and of Wall Street on economic policy? These things aren’t important?

What else is new? This is the way the GOP has always operated. They think that saying something makes it true. Sadly, too many otherwise good people fall for their lines.

Kemstone,

Your response convinces me of my view here. Apologists of this president understand that the revelations of ObamaCare do not shine the president’s image as anything but a central planning collectivist. From your immature repetitive opening to your claim that the ACA is both centrist and corporate friendly, I am further convinced that even you understand what Obama’s record will mean to him.

The ACA isn’t fiction. It’s decidedly real and it belongs to this president. I don’t blame you and all your friends for avoiding this subject.

Isn't it a display of gross immaturity to incorrectly use blowhard ideologue terms like "central planning" wrongly and "collectivism" as if the word doesn't apply to everything from insurance to religions to the Boy Scouts to any government function and, germane to the abuser of terms, ideological collectivist thinking?

A national insurance plan, especially one involving so much private market activity, is not "central planning," a term the proper user of terms would limit to those few examples of centrally planned economies. It's not even close.

The kid now dealt with...

I agree with the domestic complaints about Obama, but foreign policy tends to be relatively consistent, even if wrong or right, though I question how much is in America's interest or transnational corps. The thing about that is, especially in times like this, Americans pay little attention and have only show some concern when it makes oil prices bump up. It doesn't swing elections, usually, so there's not enough political motivation to sway presidents.

However, if the Republicans weren't so whacked-out, the Dems would have to govern like they worked for the people. So, that observation is dead-eye on point.

Kemstone - So what is the difference between the Obama being painted by the GOP and the Obama he painted for himself in his campaign? No he has not done everything he promised.
So why would you vote for him again?

Yes he kept the Bush tax cuts because he somehow redefined the middle class to be people making up to 250K. So he could not expire the Bush cuts could he?
If he gets a second term he will not have that promise to worry about anymore and will in some way raise taxes on people anywhere from 100K up. The day after he gets elected again the economy and all the wisdom and advice will magically change from the day before. And taxes hikes will
be necessary.

Yes he killed the bad guy. Well what a problem he would have had if he took him alive and tried him and the glove didn't fit. I don't believe for a second that he could not have taken him alive. I can think of several ways to take him alive.
I have no doubt that if that was the priority the Seals could have done it. Alive would have been Obama's worst nightmare.

You don't seem to get it that Obama said whatever it took to get elected. And that since his first day in office he has been running for reelection. What on earth made you think he was going to actually do anything he said?

It was a pipe dream of smoke that he blew up that ass of everyone. Liberals have no choice. They are committed.
But like all elections he needed the middle. So he promised people with a conscience to close Gitmo. He told people making 249K they were tax safe. He said all the right things. Some he did. Some he did not. And it was nice to elect the first black president. His color trumped Hillary's gender.
But none of it has anything to do with making you happy.

Why do you think many GOPs don't want Romney. He is just an Obama clone. Newt may be disciple to many people but a least we know that. Romney, like Obama, will blow with the political wind.

Of course I will vote for him if it comes to that. But that doesn't mean I believe a damn thing he says.
Why exactly did you believe anything Obama said?

He is a politician. Yet so many people actually thought he gives a damn about them.

Obama and McCain were juxtaposed in there personalities and delivery. Obama and Romney will be 2 perfectly smiling bullshitting politicians.

Frank - from most liberals/progressives/democrats or whatever the correct term, a GOP guy would not be an improvement. So why not a challenger to Obama from the Dems?

Spud - can you point me to that list of 151 promises? I did not think he made more than a handful.

I have to agree with Zacherydtaylor on this one and I want to say to Frank why can't a third party survive here. For those who have been watching the campaigning thus far one thing is clear, money hasn't always been the deciding factor in who wins a primary. The electorate likes a fighter, and they have turned on a dime regardless of the odds of one of those fighters capturing a national election. I don't understand how the Left can embrace both the Occupy movement and the Occupiers at the same time.

I think President Obama is far more adept at maneuvering the political landscape than people give him credit for. In large part because he is half black, and was raised by white people who could not identify with him, as he had to maneuver through life, and being the object of scorn. His mother unlike any black mother I know, was able to shrug her shoulders and say, "he's used to it" when Malaysian boys would follow them heckling her son.

He never embraced Occupy but knew not to speak against it because his administration had been so accommodating to revolutions across the Middle East. He also never spoke against those police forces who used excessive force to quell dissent, just as he has never spoken against Stop and Frisk and the killing of unarmed black men. His skin color is an accident of birth, his person was incubated in a cauldron filled with hate whether it was coming from outside his family or as he has said his grandmother's racism towards blacks.

When he signed NDAA he said that he hoped to never use it, then why sign it? Maybe because we presume to know who will use it and to protect ourselves we will vote for the person who has said they never want to use it. Diabolical, put the threat out there then give us the option to choose who we think will use it against us. Personally I think any of them will use it if it protects their neo-liberal world view.

Basically what we have been given is the option of voting for people who aren't on the fringe of the Right, they define it, and a man so mutable that those on his side can't agree on where he stands. For me this is exactly where we should be, we have been lying to ourselves about our choices since this country began. But in my lifetime the trajectory since Ronald Reagan was elected has been downhill. The medium is the message and the message is you have no choice except what the powerful have deemed fit for us. We aren't bystanders we are accomplices, because any bone satisfies us. If we really were in control they would be afraid not to offer a full meal.

Joseph Cole directed a question to me:

Frank - from most liberals/progressives/democrats or whatever the correct term, a GOP guy would not be an improvement. So why not a challenger to Obama from the Dems?

I cannot think of a more certain way to insure a Republican victory, than to throw Barack Obama under the bus and bring in a new candidate. The only thing that would do is to alienate the base that is still with him.

A third party candidate is the stuff of dreams.

In my opinion, a primary challenge (successful or not) by the Democrats…would be so counterproductive as to constitute political suicide.

So Frank your argument is win at any cost even if the cost is your personal freedom so that you can say your side won? Shouldn't your side represent your point of view, especially when rights guaranteed you by the Constitution (which is supposedly the basis for all law) are being augmented if not just thrown away by Executive Order? I don't see the "if you think he's bad imagine what the other guys would do" argument as a winner. It is like a slave who determines to stay on the plantation telling the one who determines to runaway "you know what you have here with massa, you don't know what it out there, or if you will make it if you leave." Maybe for some of us finding out what is out there if we leave is better than what massa has to offer. Maybe some of us believe that fighting for freedom on foreign soil, but voting against it here, is an oxymoronic world view.

No offense, Desnee, but You're talking to a moron who thinks morals are a kind of mushroom and principles are people who run schools.

fRANK has no shame.

Desnee, you wrote:

So Frank your argument is win at any cost even if the cost is your personal freedom so that you can say your side won?

I didn’t say anything of the sort, Desnee. In fact, I cannot think of anything I said that would come even close to that.

Pick out something I actually said…quote it…and tell me why you disagree and we can discuss it.

Shouldn't your side represent your point of view, especially when rights guaranteed you by the Constitution (which is supposedly the basis for all law) are being augmented if not just thrown away by Executive Order? I don't see the "if you think he's bad imagine what the other guys would do" argument as a winner. It is like a slave who determines to stay on the plantation telling the one who determines to runaway "you know what you have here with massa, you don't know what it out there, or if you will make it if you leave." Maybe for some of us finding out what is out there if we leave is better than what massa has to offer. Maybe some of us believe that fighting for freedom on foreign soil, but voting against it here, is an oxymoronic world view.

What you are doing here is suggesting I said something I did not say…and then arguing that “what you said I said but did not say” is stupid. That doesn't make sense!

Identify something I actually said…quote it…and tell me why you disagree. Then we can discuss it.

Someone sent me the following information in an email. It's all fictional, right?
WHEN - he refused to disclose who donated money to his election campaign, as other candidates had done,
people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he received endorsements from people like Louis Farrakhan, Moommar Gadhafi and Hugo Chavez, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - it was pointed out that he was a total newcomer and had absolutely no experience at anything except
community organizing, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he chose friends and acquaintances such as Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who were
revolutionary radicals, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - his voting record in the
Illinois Senate and in the U.S. Senate came into question, people said
it didn't matter.

WHEN - he refused to wear a flag lapel
pin and did so only after a public outcry, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - people started treating him as
a Messiah and children in schools were taught to sing his praises,
people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he stood with his hands over
his groin area for the playing of the Nat ional Anthem and Pledge of
Allegiance, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he surrounded himself in the
White House with advisors who were pro-gun control, pro-abortion,
pro-homosexual marriage and wanting to curtail freedom of speech to
silence the opposition, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he said he favors sex education
in kindergarten, including homosexual indoctrination, people said it
didn't matter.

WHEN - his personal background was
either scrubbed or hidden and nothing could be found about him, people
said it didn't matter.

WHEN - the place of his birth was
called into question, and he refused to produce a birth certificate,
people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he had an association in
Chicago with Tony Rezco - a man of questionable character and who is now
in prison and had helped Obama to a sweet deal on the purchase of his
home - people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - it became known that George
Soros, a multi-billionaire Marxist, spent a ton of money to get him
elected, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he started appointing White
House Czars that were radicals, revolutionaries, and even avowed Marxist
/Communists, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he stood before the Nat ion and
told us that his intentions were to "fundamentally transform this Nat
ion" into something else, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - it became known that he had
trained ACORN workers in Chicago and served as an attorney for ACORN,
people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he appointed cabinet members
and several advisors who were tax cheats and socialists, people said it
didn't matter.

WHEN - he appointed a Science Czar,
John Holdren, who believes in forced abortions, mass sterilizations and
seizing babies from teen mothers, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he appointed Cass Sunstein as
Regulatory Czar who believes in "Explicit Consent," harvesting human
organs without family consent and allowing animals to be represented in
court, while banning all hunting, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he appointed Kevin Jennings, a
homosexual and organizer of a group called Gay, Lesbian, Straight,
Education Network as Safe School Czar and it became known that he had a
history of bad advice to teenagers, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he appointed Mark Lloyd as
Diversity Czar who believes in curtailing free speech, taking from one
and giving to another to spread the wealth, who supports Hugo Chavez,
people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - Valerie Jarrett, an avowed
Socialist, was selected as Obama's Senior White House Advisor, people
said it didn't matter.

WHEN - Anita Dunn, White House
Communications Director, said Mao Tse Tung was her favorite philosopher
and the person she turned to most for inspiration, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he appointed Carol Browner, a
well-known socialist as Global Warming Czar working on Cap and Trade as
the nation's largest tax, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he appointed Van Jones, an
ex-con and avowed Communist as Green Energy Czar, who since had to
resign when this was made known, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - Tom Daschle, Obama's pick for
Health and Human Services Secretary could not be confirmed because he
was a tax cheat, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - as President of the United
States , he bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia , people said it didn't
matter..

WHEN - he traveled around the world
criticizing America and never once talking of her greatness, people said
it didn't matter.

WHEN - his actions concerning the
Middle East seemed to support the Palestinians over Israel , our
long-time ally, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he took American tax dollars to
resettle thousands of Palestinians from Gaza to the United States ,
people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he upset the Europeans by
removing plans for a missile defense system against the Russians, people
said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he played politics in
Afghanistan by not sending troops early-on when the Field Commanders
said they were necessary to win, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he started spending us into a
debt that was so big we could not pay it off, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he took a huge spending bill
under the guise of stimulus and used it to pay off organizations,
unions, and individuals that got him elected, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he took over insurance
companies, car companies, banks, etc., people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he took away student loans from
the banks and put it through the government, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he designed plans to take over
the health care system and put it under government control, people said
it didn't matter.

WHEN - he claimed he was a Christian
during the election and tapes were later made public that showed Obama
speaking to a Muslim group and 'stating' that he was raised a Muslim,
was educated as a Muslim, and is still a Muslim, people said it didn't
matter.

WHEN - he set into motion a plan to
take over the control of all energy in the United States through Cap and
Trade, people said it didn't matter.

WHEN - he finally completed his
transformation of America into a Socialist State , people woke up--- but
it was too late. Add these up one by one and you get a phenomenal score
that points to the fact that Barrack Hussein Obama is determined to turn
America into a Marxist-Socialist society. All of the items in the
preceding paragraphs have been put into place. All can be documented
very easily. Before you disavow this do an Internet search. The last
paragraph alone is not yet cast in stone. You and I will write that
paragraph.

Will it read as above or will it
be a more happy ending for most of America ?

Don't just belittle the opposition.
Search for the truth. We all need to pull together or watch the demise
of a free democratic society. Pray for Americans to seek the truth and
take action for it will keep us FREE. Our biggest enemy is not China ,
Russia , North Korea or Iran . Our biggest enemy is a contingent of
politicians in Washington , DC . The government will not help, so we
need to do it ourselves.

Question....will you delete this,
or pass it on to others who don't know about Obama's actions and plans
for the USA , so that they may know how to vote in November, 2012 and
the ensuing years?

It's your decision. I believe it
does matter. How about you?

WHEN - November 2012 comes, it will
matter who you vote for!

"he didn't even try to fix a broken system?" And how would you know that? You might say he failed to meet his campaign promises and he was not the president I expected but as he said in speech after speech this would not be a short road to change, nor an easy road, and certainly not a road created by one man. A politician does what can be done and even as he met with the conservative leaders at George Wills house, there was a meeting of the Republicans as to how to make him a one term president. Should he have been more forceful, used the bully pulpit- certainly but being president is a learned behavior and most first term presidents fall short. You really thought Washington would be fundamentally changed in four years?

@Frank I know that sometimes it is hard to remember what you write but you should be able to remember your own positions.

"Peter, a realistic assessment of the situation comes up with: It has to be either the Democratic Party candidate or the Republican Party candidate who will win. A third party may some day be able to upset one or the other, but that is not going to happen in the short time between now and Election Day. It comes down to voting for Obama…or enabling the Republican nominee." ------ You claim that you didn't basically say we should be voting for Obama because the Republicans are much worse and you don't think a 3rd party is viable (maybe because people like you are throwing their vote away, rather than voting their conscience). When in fact that is what you are saying right here---------
"You do not wish the Republicans to win…you “most certainly” do not want that to happen." -------Here you insinuate that Democrats have a different worldview. If that was true why do they help pass Republican bills?---------

"You really have to suck it up and start supporting Obama. He is NOT a war criminal…and quite frankly, neither is George W. Bush. The United States is guilty of some grievous things…but that is the United States…not any one individual. "--------I threw this in because not only is George Bush a war criminal he is an admitted war criminal and he published his crimes in a book about his life. ----

I don't think you are a moron by any stretch of the imagination, I would suggest that before asking someone to cut and paste what you said you go back first and make sure they really can't find it though.

@cg quick tell me everything you know about Farrakhan before a google search!!! Then tell me what his endorsement means about Obama. This should be rich.

Yes. Obama is a GOP wet dream when one looks at his actual record of governing on the issues.

My constant wonder is why people who identify themselves as liberal still support him given that he has "not lifted a finger", as you said about the useless gun regulation you wrote about, on the issues of raping and discarding the civil liberties that liberal democrats who exclusively watch MSNBC, like their GOP counterparts exclusively watch FOX News, purported to care about 4 short years ago when Obama was elected.

The shittiest part of that is that these lemming neo-libs don't even necessarily have a completely distorted view of Obama, and yet they continue to defend him and support him doing the same things they admonished for doing.

Why is that? Why did the Obama apologists support issue A in 2008 but now support the opposite of issue A now, simply because the president who leads their political party of choice, as well as the majority of those same party members in Congress, do?

How can someone how such easily and completely malleable senses of morality and ethics?

No one seems to be able to answer this question for me. I'm hoping you, as someone who just defended Obama for being exactly the thing that Republicans say they want, can.

there are some typos in there I don't feel like fixing...you get the gist.

@cgvoice I would post up every crazy thing said by a Republican but I don't think they have that kind of space on a single post. Sorry I didn't see if you mentioned his phantom Kenyan birth and how he was spirited back into the country bypassing immigration, running to a Hawaii hospital long enough to have his birth recorded as Hawaiian. All thanks to his mother's obgyn Dr. Magic Man, whose slight of hand allowed all the hospital personnel to think she had given birth. No one questioned his credentials because he was also expert in mind control. If this sounds crazy to you your list was like reading a Twilight Zone script.

@Malcom, the answer is easy: brainwashing. What were "unconscionable" wars under Bush became efforts to "stabilize the region" under Obama. What were outrageous repealings of civil rights under Bush suddenly became necessary steps to "make us safe". To allow the insurance industry and big Pharma to write the health care laws would be considered a huge betrayal of the public under a Republican but was deemed "pragmatic" by the Obamanuts.

You have to separate leftists from liberals. Leftists are about getting political power whereas liberals fight for principles and don't switch sides based upon who is in office. Then you have people like Frank who openly despise liberals but like Obama because of his conservative policies. No true liberal supports Obama, just wishful thinkers, the lazy left, and the brainwashed.

It is rather interesting the difference between who the Right wants to believe Obama is versus the actual leader. I've seen many comments on forums or on blogs around the internet that dive into these attacks on Obama that make one wonder, "Where are they getting this stuff?" The claims are so varied and have no basis in fact whatsoever.
It is truly amazing what people will so easily believe.

Except, Ghost, 53% of self identified "LIBERAL" respondents who also self-identified with the DNP in a recent ABC Poll, SUPPORT THE CONTINUED OPERATIONS AT GITMO. 67% of "moderate" DNP members also support them.

I support waterboarding or executing/assassinating 100% of those idiot pukes.

I don't want Gingrich to be president, and given the choice, I suppose I would be forced to begrudgingly vote for Obama again, against my better judgement, but the fact that he is not facing charges for murder over al-Alwaki, or at least harsh enough criticism that he would have a serious challenge amongst the more liberal members of the DNP like Kucinich, is disgusting, and if waterboarding is what it takes to wake these zombies up, then waterboarding is what I advocate doing to them.

If that doesn't work, kill 'em all before their approval of these fascists and their fascist laws become the death of all of us.

It would be so much easier to be either totally against Obama or totally for him. When you’re in the middle you attract attacks from both sides, which I suspect is why so many people are much more comfortable choosing a side and remaining there even if it means ignoring a few facts or compromising a few principles.

UncleChri, I tailored my response to the level of maturity I felt your comments warranted—you can keep your shovel.

Joseph Cole, you asked me why I’d vote for Obama when I’m so adamantly opposed to so many of his actions, and then you answered your own question by saying given the choice between him and Romney you’d vote for him if it came to it. You then asked me why I believed anything Obama said in his campaign. Whether or not I believed he would keep his campaign promises is irrelevant—when you make a campaign promise you are creating a benchmark by which everyone is entitled to judge your presidency whether or not they believed you.

Desnee, thank you for your excellent comments. I agree with everything except that Obama is “far more adept at maneuvering the political landscape than people give him credit for”. All he does is take the path of least resistance in every single situation, trying to find the mean between both sides and ending up pissing off both.

Frank, regarding the idea of a primary challenge to Obama, I’m not convinced a more liberal challenger would be electoral suicide AT ALL. To the contrary, I think that a more liberal person in the race would destroy the right’s ability to run against their fictional Obama. By having to compare him to someone more liberal, the right-wing media would have no choice but to reveal to their audience all the ways in which Obama is not as fringe as they think. Moderates and Independents would line up firmly behind Obama, and after the primary most liberals would reluctantly come around and vote for Obama over the far-right Republican candidate, who will appear even more of a fringe-character to the public.

Cgvoice, thank you for posting that e-mail, as it was a perfect illustration of my point. That laundry-list of BS is the quintessence of the fictional Obama. And you post it with the challenge: “It’s all fictional, right?” as though the mere length of the list endows it with credibility. I could go piece by piece and cite legitimate sources to expose all the half-truths, distortions, and outright LIES on that list, but that would take far more time than it’s worth because you probably won’t check back and read this anyway, and even if you didn’t you’d go on believing what suits you. I find it supremely ironic that the writer of the e-mail implores people to do the research themselves. If they were to actually do real research instead of just Googling these things and assuming they must be true because a few right-wing bloggers have mentioned them, they’d see it for the baseless nonsense it is.

Kenneth Houck, how would I know that Obama hasn’t even tried to fix the broken system? Just think about it. He knows that the reason he can’t get anything done is because Congress is bought by special interests, but he acts as though the gridlock is about honest ideological differences. If during the health care fight he had simply pointed out how much money all those legislators opposing the public option were taking from private insurance companies, I would have given him credit for at least “lifting a finger” but he treated them like honest actors and he continues to do so. And by ignoring the cancer at the heart of the system he is allowing it to perpetuate. No, I didn’t believe he could turn the ship-of-state completely around in four years, but he hasn’t even prodded the wheel.

MalcolmXY, I love how you perceived my article as “defending Obama”. It didn’t appear that way to Frank or Dr. Spudman. But if you want to know why some liberals who opposed Bush for certain policies are now defending Obama for the exact same policies, it’s human nature and unfortunately it’s the reason the 99% can’t come together and wrestle our democracy back from the entrenched plutocracy.

Most people follow politics like they follow contact sports, as it’s human nature to pick a team and root for it no matter what. If the ref makes a bad call against your team, you will be OUTRAGED at the injustice. But if the ref goes and makes the exact same bad call against the opposing team, you’ll either find some justification or say it’s not important. In an ideal world, we’d all defend Obama when he’s right and attack him when he’s wrong, but in the real world doing that only ignites the anger of both teams.

I didn't read your conclusion until just now. You took too long with the set-up to get to the punchline and I was too sick of what are so many people with so many easily manipulable ideas and morals that I stopped reading 1/2 way through.

That's my issue, though, not yours.

This is my apology for allowing it to manifest itself.

Unfortunately, this particular site gives me cause to do so, so regularly that I barely self-censor my more aggressive tendencies (and, I constantly advocate for a coming together of the people...birthers put their pants on one leg at a time and all).

Again, my issue, not yours. I leave you by correcting my earlier omission in not rating this post. It's really the only remedy available to me in this plasticine world, so I will avail myself of it now. Thank you.

[r] would that I could give you more than just one! thank you for this sense. what an alice in wonderland world. fictional obama is bought by the Repubs and the obama followers stuck in the "negotiating" stage of the 5 stages of post Obama election grief. battered obama syndrome some pundit has called it. obama is a war criminal. he is bff to corporatists. he deserves impeachment not reelection. the ndaa alone! those who praise him for obamacare don't get what a trojan horse horror that actually is. i wrote this haiku after obama won and i realized what a trojan horse HE himself was. the haiku sums up your point.


View from the Left

Tea bag hatred brews --
wanting Obama not to be
what he sadly isn't.

best, libby

Liberalism is its own greatest enemy. That is why no person who truly wants to see progressive legislation enacted refers to him/herself as a liberal. Only the firebrands who care more about shouting to the world about their anger and frustration than with actually getting anything worthwhile done…proclaim themselves “liberals.”

Because that is the case, the firebrand liberals have allowed the very word “liberal” to become an insult.

Conservative politicians fight to proclaim their conservatism to their base at every opportunity. Liberal politicians hardly ever even mention the word, because it is lethal.

The liberal comments in this thread show that to be true.

Firebrand liberals, like RFK, ask the question "Why not?" instead of "Why?", Frank. That is when real change comes.

If you want “real change” Libby…keep helping the Republicans to win in November. You will get “REAL CHANGE.”

I love ya, Libby. You are a fighter—and “fighters” have my respect. We just disagree about what is the best move right now…and what is the best move for the future.

RFK was something special to me...my heart broke when that scumbag put a bullet in his head. But if RFK had been in office during the last three years, I seriously doubt he would have gotten more done than Barack Obama.

Thanks Kemstone we can't agree on everything, but we agree on enough that the disagreement is of no consequence. And I really enjoyed the post, sorry I didn't say so before.

Malcolm, thank you for your classy apology and the rating, it is much appreciated. And thank you Libby and Desnee for your kind comments.

Frank, I think the killing of RFK ranks up there with one of the most politically devastating tragedies of the 20th century. He was the right man at the right time, and his death let the country fall straight into the wrong hands where it has remained ever since.

I think Obama is the right man but at the wrong time. There was a time when a conciliator-in-chief who constantly reaches out to the other side in search of reasonable compromise was exactly what this country needed. But in these cable-news times with the public so deeply divided and most politicians acting solely in the interests of their donors without an iota of consideration for the merits and flaws of actual policy, we need a leader who will take a side and fight for it.

But since we don't have that option this year, we might as well choose the guy who doesn't fight over someone who will actively fight against us.

I've argued many times that POTUS Obama is actually a Republican in disguise, but his Democrat supporters ridicule the notion. Thanks for dissecting it.

I don't often rate, and I "Like" even less often, but I'm doing both for this piece.

"The real Obama governs like a moderate Republican of former days, before the party drifted off to its right-wing fringe. The real Obama would win a national election against any of these clowns the Republicans have put forward in this primary, and they know it. That’s why they have no choice but to run against a fictional character instead, and it’s why they’re going to lose the general election when the curtain is pulled back and independent voters get a good look at who Obama actually is."
Kemstone

You last paragraph sums up the "choice" voters will be making in November. You see, Kemstone, the "fictional" Obama was the Obama that the public loved and voted for in 2008. His was a promise of "hope and change" and instead we got, "Despair and Discouragement."

There were never any "shovel ready projects" ready to go as long as Obama could get his super majority Congress to vote the Recovery Act of 2009 that was one big lie! Not only were there no shovel ready projects, there was little in the Act in the way of funding for infrastructure, less than 6%. Obama created a new economic data point.."JOBS SAVED"! I dare anyone here to prove the number of "jobs saved" so eloquently told to America by this formerly Charismatic politician. Like the scam of "Global Warming", jobs saved is a theory based on the number of jobs it is "assumed" a dollar of government spending will support.

The real Obama stood up and said (on video) that he would destroy the coal mining industry, that fossil fuel had to be replaced by "green" fuels and alternative energy such "windmills", "solar" and "tidal power.". The real Obama stopped the Keystone Pipeline project after three years of environmental study and approval to bend over and hold his ankles for his environmental supporters. It is an election year, you know.

The real Obama sues American citizens in border States trying to protect themselves from the invasion of illegal aliens, and at the same time offers the full support of the Federal Government to these illegal's. This at a time when minorities of American citizens cannot get jobs because 12-20 million illegal's have those American jobs.

The real Obama is the inept, naive, inexperienced "community organizer" who has led from behind in the Middle East, thrown relationships with countries like Egypt under a bus, and caused revolts all over the region that will only bring the Islamic Revolution to climax decades sooner than otherwise. After thirty years of being forced underground by Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood is not the leading party in Egypt and is threatening the United States, holding hostages that you don't see discussed in the media. Don't these hostages exist? Are they Americans? Where are they? Are they going on trial? Sorry, Obama can't speak to this issue, he is in full campaign mode and speaking at $35,000 a plate dinners for the 99%!

The real Obama has unleashed his Czars and agencies to wreck havoc on American businessmen as no foreign invader ever could, driving firms out of business, and business out of the country!

The real Obama as a young boy, as a young man, as a college student, as a Harvard law grad, is UNKNOWN! Why? Why are his records locked up by "EXECUTIVE ORDER"???
It has become a joke, but really, why did this "unknown" not publish his birth certificate. Didn't mommy have one given to her in Hawaii, didn't grandma put it in the safe, didn't anyone have a copy of the original?
We have copies of birth certificates in our family going back a hundred years!

What was the mother of the real Obama really like, going to Indonesia with a baby during a coup?
What was the father of the real Obama like before he deserted his family and went back home to Kenya?
What were the Grandparents of the real Obama really like, their political views?
What was the young Barack's communist mentor really like, a man whose FBI file has been destroyed.
How did the real Obama get into the schools he attended,what were his grades, what did he ever write in grad school that promoted him to "Editor of Harvard Law". Did anyone pave the way for this bright young
man?

We are still looking at the fiction of Barack Obama. In 2012 we may finally find out who the man is that
is sitting in the Oval Office, or rather sitting mostly on Air Force One campaigning..

There will be no "independent" voters come November. The choice will be clear...

If you believe that liberal policies and theories of Big Government
having all the answers in your life, regulating the temperature in our home, the gallons to flush in a toilet, the electric light you use in your home, the right to build a plant in a non-union State, intruding into every aspect of your life down to the "lunch pail" you give your child is what you believe is the way you want to live...than you will vote for

BARACK OBAMA!


If you believe in your ability, believe in hard work to pursue the "Happiness" that is your right from God, not from Government,
than you will vote for
ANYONE OTHER THAN BARACK OBAMA

Kemstone, thanks for this inventory. I can see some sense in the repeated refrain, "Vote for Obama, because the alternative is worse."

But here's the brick wall for me: cancelling rights American citizens have had since the birth of our nation--and that Englishmen had for generations before that--is a real deal-breaker for me.

I've been volunteering in presidential campaigns since 1968 and voting in them since 1972. Never once yet have I voted for a man who claims the authority to arrest--even assassinate me--based on nothing more than his own say-so. I doubt I'll be able to bring myself to do it next November.