If Obama does have a messianic complex, then talk about it, placing it in the same category as Mein Kampf is not sufficient. Where does Obama give us gems like this?

Juxtaposed to this [parliamentary democracy] is the truly Germanic democracy characterized by the free election of a leader and his obligation fully to assume all responsibility for his actions and omissions. In it there is no majority vote on individual questions, but only the decision of an individual who must answer with his fortune and his life for his choice.

If it be objected that under such conditions scarcely anyone would be prepared to dedicate his person to so risky a task, there is but one possible answer:

Thank the Lord, Germanic democracy means just this: that any old climber or moral slacker cannot rise by devious paths to govern his national comrades, but that, by the very greatness of the responsibility to be assumed, incompetents and weaklings are frightened off.

But if nevertheless, one of these scoundrels should attempt to sneak in, we can find him more easily, and mercilessly challenge him: Out, cowardly scoundrel! Remove your foot, you are besmirching the steps; the front steps of the Pantheon of history are not for sneak-thieves, but for heroes!

(Ralph Manheim translation)

People like Fred Hiatt, David Ignatius and David Brooks are merely the spokespeople for these "advocates of the status quo" -- those whose principal objective is to keep everything essentially the way it is, no matter which party wins, even as Americans become more and more deeply dissatisfied with their political institutions.

Consider Iraq - absolutely no timelines morphed to time horizons to almost a deal specifying a date by which US forces will depart. Already change you can believe in?

Now, along the way, what was happening to the "consensus", the "status quo" (and Hiatt, Ignatius, Brooks, etc.)? Did Maliki agreeing with Obama have any role in this change?

These guys are standing on sand, and a correctly targetted bucket of water will wash out the ground they're standing on.

I think the fact is that the US government and its policies will change much faster than the media and its punditocracy. In the fall, some trees shed their leaves faster than others.

Yes, things are badly broken, but the gloom of some of the commentators here is, IMO, unjustified.

On more than one occasion CounterPunch’s editors have listened to vivid accounts by the recipient of just such advances, this staffer of another senator being accosted by Biden in the well of the senate in the week immediately following his first wife’s fatal car accident.

Why I'm skeptical is not because of any trust in Biden's character, but rather that it would have come up before, if not in two Presidential runs, then during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, which Biden presided over.

Col. Lang at turcopolier remembers:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2008/08/biden-is-a-figh.html

(or click on signature)

Quote:

" I once had the "privilege" of having Senator Joseph Biden rip a strip of hide off me. (figuratively) It was impressive and memorable. I would not want to be the Republicans when he really gets wound up."

Congressional Record, Oct 10, 2002 -

Lieberman arguing against any sunset on the authorization to the President to use force:

"If the mood of Congress should change, if the attitude of the public should change, Congress always reserves, as it has shown in the past, the power of the purse and the power to change its opinion."

Biden's reply included:

"The third point I make in the 2 minutes I have is, we learned from Vietnam the power of the purse is useless. The power of the purse is useless because it presents us with a Hobson's choice. We have our fighting men and women in place and we are told, by the way, the President will not take them home so let's cut off the support for them so they have no guns, no bullets, no ability to fight a war. And no one is willing to do that. This is a prudent way to do this, totally consistent with what the President is asking. I think it makes absolute eminent sense. I congratulate the Senator. Even though I disagree with him on his underlying notion, I do think he is right on this point and I support him."

Previously noted that Congress is not going to strand American troops by withholding funds so that the President cannot continue his war.

But here's perhaps how the Congress can exercise its power of the purse.

This is Sen. Cleland in 2002:

"I might say currently under law there is an untenable situation where, if someone has served 20 years in the American military and additionally gets wounded in that service, they cannot draw their retirement which they have earned and their disability compensation which they are entitled to, concurrently. They cannot do that. So I find it ironic in the midst of the time when the President is calling upon us to authorize the use of force somewhere in the world, he is opposing the use of concurrent receipt or the ability of our troops, our servicemen and women who have served 20 years or more and get wounded in that effort, to draw those entitlements concurrently. He opposes that and has threatened to veto the almost $400 billion defense authorization bill because of that one item. That is unconscionable."

---- Congress can call President's bluff by constantly submitting along with defense appropriations other stuff that the President cannot accept. The veto and no funds for the troops will then be the President's call.