Oy, the moaning, the wailing, the gnashing of teeth! Spare me. Particularly spare me Shepard Smith's feigned shock, his inarticulate teen-age girlspeak "What was that?" in reacton to Nader's well-explained reasons for his rhetoric. Obama has already proven to be what Nader only warned against him becoming. Obama presents as a progressive but votes as a moderate Republican: FISA vote granting greater wiretapping power to government and providing retroactive immunity to telecoms for illegal wiretapping...votes for continued funding for Iraq War...plans to keep "residual forces" in Iraq and to shift more troops to Afghanistan...assertion he would breach borders of Pakistan to pursue bin Laden or associates...opposes gay marriage...expected appointments of longtime Washington insiders to administration positions, and maintenance of war criminals such as Madeline Albright as advisors...and so on. Here's more from today's COUNTERPUNCH: http://www.counterpunch.org/menetrez11062008.html

and, with more vinegar, from Chris Floyd:http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1641-wibdi-a-prism-for-the-new-paradigm.html

More, as did the Clintons with Lani Guinier, Obama cast aside his pastor of two decades, the Reverend Wright, and acts as if the Reverend's righteous denouncements of American racism and imperialism are news to him. One might argue that no contender for President can afford to maintain association with a fiery truth-speaker such as Wright, and that's probably correct; after all, Presidents are in the business of concealing the truth of things from the citizenry. However, as Obama is obviously an ambitious man, and probably had sights on high office for years, one would think the prudent thing would have been for him to discreetly find another church, preferably Episcopal, that he could have transferred to years ago, to avoid the spectacle of his public repudiation of a close personal acquaintance. Perhaps the better term here for him would be: Judas.

Certainly, rational people will prefer Obama in office to Bush or McCain, but it is foolish to idolize him or see him as anything other than a smooth, practiced, and ambitous politician who has done what any serious seeker of the hightest office must do: sell out his principles to win approval by those who confer the crown of power...the corporate moneymen and the political establishment. Let us maintain hope that exigencies of global and domestic crises will impel Obama to act on his better impulses and for truly enlightened and progressive policies, to become a better man and public servant than his own votes and rhetoric indicate he will be, but, if past is prologue, let's not hold our collective breath.

If anyone is assuming (or hoping) Obama will pursue Bush and his criminal co-conspirators for their crimes, don't count on it. In fact, Obama has countenanced and aided them in their crimes in his votes to continue funding for their illegal war, as well as in his vote for the revised FISA law, which grants greater both evesdropping powers to the government and retroactive immunity for their illegal acts to the telecom companies who aide and abetted Bush's illegal wiretapping program. Obama seems to agree with Nancy Pelosi that Bush hasn't really done anything much that merits real investigation or punitive action.

Don't assume I favored McCain--I didn't--and I do think Obama will bring improvements to Washington. But don't let the stars in your eyes dazzle you into thinking Obama is going to fundamentally change America's imperial agenda or corporate underpinnings. His oath of fealty to Israel at AIPAC and his anti-Iran yammering, as well as his support for the $700 billion financial bailout, give the lie to that.

As to the question about the purpose of this cartoon, well, it's to entertain, obviously; if the questioner really meant, "what's the cartoon's point?", it's quite plainly a swipe at the deluded rightwing nutjobs who are feverishly going insane over Obama's election.

In my previous post, the word "both" should precede "greater" in the sentence about the FISA law.

It's hardly "obsessing" over Bush to want to see him (and his criminal cohort) tried and punished for their crimes. They're war criminals and mass murderers, not just garden variety grafters and influence peddlers! That Bush will escape without even an inquiry into the crimes of his administration is dismaying for two reasons: the first, lesser reason is that it is always upsetting to see criminals escape justice; the second, greater reason is that it will establish as official policy and precedent that America is a lawless nation, where the President may defy the law, invade nations at will, unleash mass murder and mayhem, render millions (who have not been killed or maimed) homeless and destitute, destroy entire cultures, all without judicial consequence at home. The President will have ceased to be a creature of the law and will have become above the law, and only the indidual restraint of a given sitting President will govern the degree and nature of America's lawbreaking in the world.