both Obama and Dems are AOK with continuing both wars well beyond their "sell-by dates", i.e. when they promised to "wrap up" both wars, some time around 2011. Now, their reasons for this might not be the reasons that Bush started these wars and Repubs enthusiastically supported it. More likely, their reasons are the exact same ones that led them to support these wars in the first place, albeit less enthusiastically, and continue to vote for them long past the point where it became clear that neither served any valid purpose.

Namely, the fear that if they opposed, or tried to stop them, they'd be accused by Repubs of being weak on national security, and the reality that wars were politically beneficial, in terms of the money they brought to districts and states with a strong military and/or military contractor presence, and in terms of giving "I support the troops!" rah-rah bragging rights.

The thing is, that sooner or later, as the costs of these wars mount, and they fail to produce the desired outcomes, they end up hurting the economy and backfiring politically. These wars are currently backburner issues, but if they go on for much longer, they are going to extract a political toll (we already know that they're extracting a huge economic toll, which itself will extract a political toll), except that it will be on Dems this time, not Repubs. And I expect that we'll see it in the 2010 midterms, in which Dems are almost certainly going to lose house seats, and might not make those 2-3 seat gains that last year everyone was predicting, and might even lose a few seats, giving the GOP far more power to block Obama's agenda.

So, putting aside all moral and military considerations for the moment, I believe that Obama and Dems' apparent policy of perpetuating two failed and pointless wars in order to avoid political fallout and hold onto those mythical national security voters, will ultimately end up COSTING them more politically and electorally than they might gain them in the short run. They are doing almost EXACTLY what LBJ did after he won by a landslide in '64, namely, persuing reckless, irresponsible, cynical and pointless overseas military adventures (along with a quite ferociously far-right legal approach at home on anything having to do with national security) in order to, in their minds, have the political breathing room to enact their domestic agenda. Except that, in their case, they're not even persuing anything even vaguuely approaching what LBJ and Dems persued in the mid-60's, in terms of progressivism. Instead, they're basically persuing a cynical and opportunistic pro-establishment agenda both at home AND abroad.

We're not only not going to get a progressive agenda, but Dems may well find themselves paying a political price for it. As well they should. Except that, the GOP would be the beneficiary of such a selfish and stupid approach. So we're left with a choice between bad and unthinkable. Unless we can find a way to pressure Obama and Dems to do the right thing. And, since appealing to their "better angels" hasn't gotten us anywhere, I think that it's obvious that we need to bring out the political sticks, and hit them over the head with it, until they finally respond. We need an opposition movement in the country, on the left. BADLY. Otherwise, we'll continue this slow slide back to the right, and miss a once in a generation or two opportunity to finally move it back to the left, where the country belongs.

Enough with carrots. We need sticks. Political sticks. And lots of them.

forgot everything you're read since the inauguration, drink enough scotch, and hit your head against the wall hard enough, you just might be able to hold onto the fantasy that Obama is the man that he claimed to be for most of the campaign.

Or you can do the easy thing and just face reality: he's not, and never will be.

And if you still believe that it's some "Master Plan" and that he's got it all figured out because he's BRILLIANT! Please, for the love of god, get back on those meds right now!

Obama is a weak, unprincipled and cowardly Democrat with mildy liberal leanings that he easily and conveniently abandons whenever it becomes inconvenient to have them, i.e. when they get in the way of his path of least resistance to wherever it is that he's taking us.

I just want to know where exactly that is, and what he intends to do when we get there.

But man, what a major disappointment, a mere pale shadow of the progressive fighter that he pretended to be. Not that Edwards or Clinton likely would have been better. But still.

At least we could have done worse. We could have had a stupid unprincipled president.