Read this assessment of Obama first year as POTUS by Michael Lind, who nails it with a seldom mentioned nugget of the 2008 campaign: Obama "received more Wall Street money than his Republican rival John McCain and his rivals for the Democratic primary nomination."
Is this bit of political knowledge in "Game Change"? If you know, please tell me.
*(See "Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," p 115; http://www.wallstreetwatch.org/reports/sold_out.pdf)
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We wanted to end the trashing of the constitution and everything America stands for. We wanted universal health care. We wanted a president to be proud of.
And, also, we wanted a change in the political culture. We wanted Washington to focus on getting things done, not partisan infighting. Not wonderful us versus awful them. Nor the evil, greedy rich versus the salt-of-the-earth, deserving poor. Nor the hard-working, high-achieving, value-building successes versus those lazy, parasitic welfare queens.
We wanted America's future to be built by all Americans, for all Americans. Rich and poor. Black and white. Old and young.
That's why we voted for Obama.
…and I think the so-called liberal/progressives who think he is a traitor and who think hi is screwing the progressive cause ought to continue to savage him as much as they can…and continue to partner with the right wing determined to undermine him at all costs…
…and in 2012 we will finally be rid of him…
…and can get people in the mold of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney back in control so that we can get our country back on course.
That is what I think!
...he said with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek!
The disenchantment the Left now feels can be chalked up to another classic case of unrealistic expectations about a poltician, tho in fairness to the disenchanted, Obama certainly did everything he could to raise those expectations with his rhetorical pandering.
As I put it elsewhere:
As for BHO, the trouble is a lot of people expected him to be the next FDR, but he's only the next WJC -- the other first black president. Let's hope that unlike WJC he has sense enough to keep his nose -- and other parts of his anatomy -- clean -- or the "family values" hypocrites will make the Bill and Monica tragi-comedy look like -- well, a tea-party.
But, hey, none of this matters because the collapse of the world economy is imminent. The "Transformation", as indigenous peoples call it, is coming along with the end of western civilization and especially the end of the USA, a massively corrupt nation, hypocritical, imperialistic, militaristic, a nation that totally defiled and corrupted the ideals it supposedly stood for. There was never any such thing as "freedom and justice for ALL..", never for one tiny second!! So, now, we get what we deserve for allowing such criminals as lobbyists, Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, on and on, to run our country....
"Having actually read The Audacity of Hope (unlike the millions who bought it and didn't read it) Obama's centrist waffling came as no surprise to me. That the rightwingnuts are calling him a communist shows how little they know about him or communism -- or anything else."
Tom, I read the "Audacity of Hope" and saw the same thing: a lot of "on one hand and then the other..." When Obama said that he would take public financing and then danced around it, I thought: "Okay he want to win, but his word to the public apparently doesn't amount to much."
So, I can't say that I'm disappointed. Actually, I have not been impressed with him since the whole health-care policy/politics.