What's all this "government" stuff?

"It's not your health that the government is focused on..."

Is Obama no longer the head of this "government" thing the article continuously focuses on, or is it that the messiah is untouchable? If Bush were still in office, the article no doubt would scream "Bush is ripping you off", but Mobama, now that's different. He's a goooooooood guy. More evidence of liberal duplicity, and hypocrisy.

I'm a lifelong liberal and I agree with you completely on this one. Obama is conspicuously missing not only in Kroll's writing here, he's missing in nearly all the comments, too. All I can think is that all those letting Obama off the hook (again) are not suffering nearly as much as some of us are in this economy. Yes, words matter, but actions count infinitely more. Obama's actions - and lack of them - on the economic front have been nothing less than appalling. Many in this country are paying, and will continue to pay, big time - and for a long time - for Obama's near complete sell-out to Wall Street and the banksters. It's time for the Obama adoration smokescreen to be retired once and for all. A tremendous amount of damage is steadily accumulating behind it.

What does that phrase mean, anyway? Obama lived in Chicago, true. But while there he was primarily engaged with power brokers and Big Money, with those who could help him climb the political ladder (not to mention facilitate buying some fancy real estate). Just how "engaged" was Obama with the citizens of Chicago? Can anyone name anything he did, any political capital he expended, to improve the lives of poor, often desperately poor, blacks living in the city's South Side? How did Obama improve the lives of urban dwellers as a member of Illinois state government, or as a U.S. senator? In what ways did he recognize, and work to help solve, the numerous problems besetting modern American urban centers?

Setting up Obama as an a priori champion of legislation benefiting cities, simply because he lived in Chicago, is very similar to the fallacy set-up witnessed in the presidential election: Obama is a liberal because he's black.

People need to understand that they may finally have to sacrifice something (a measure of personal security) as a consequence of the "War on Terror."

Do you even begin to understand the meaning and import of habeus corpus? Apparently not. How about we just shred the Constitution and go for full-out fascism, in the quest to ramp up fear of terrorists? That'll show 'em.

What a sell-out you've become, Joe Conason. Maybe it's time you met Glenn Greenwald. You know, the guy who tells the clear-eyed truth on this site, ferociously defending the Constitution and human rights - while you continue playing SpinOBama.

How about addressing the here and now? Maybe it's time read up on Obama's (mis)handling of the torture issue, which is being discussed at length - and in depth - right here on Salon in Glenn Greenwald's blog. Cheney isn't president, Obama is, and if you were reading Greenwald regularly, you'd realize the problem is not just what happened yesterday, but very much what is and isn't happening today directly because of the current occupant of the White House. Unloading on the Republicans might feel good, it might be justified, but it also serves as a handy way to ignore what looks to be going terribly wrong on the Democratic side of the aisle.

From commenter James Levy, responding to Glenn Greenwald's post on Obama's speech:

The nefarious part was when Obama likened people who support the Constitution and the Rule of Law with those who say "anything goes" as both EXTREMISTS! And that he will adopt some golden mean of only occasionally and of course for our own good throwing out the Constitution and the rule of law in order to make us safe. As one poster earlier today said, give me my freedom and I'll worry about my safety. Obama completely repudiates here his oath of office and his primary responsibility to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, not violate it for some higher good of "protecting" us. Every despot you can think of believes he is acting in the public good and to protect the citizenry from some dire evil.

James Levy has it exactly right. We are in big trouble here.

An apology such as yours is more scarce than proverbial hen's teeth on this site; it is appreciated in proportion to its rarity. Thank you for having the courtesy to post it.

Why the skewed headline? As usual, Obama throws something out there to garner "hopeful" headlines which make him sound something like a Democrat, then promptly does nothing or, in some cases, does the opposite (of course, the opposite is rarely covered). As Obama well knows, this is enough to satisfy his entirely uncritical fan base, a largely passive group which will be responsible for the death of genuine liberalism.