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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Roman Berry
Published Letters: 198 Editor's Choice: 10
No matter what he may have said on the campaign trail, many conservatives are convinced President Obama's secret agenda now that he's in office is to suck every last cent out of hard-working Americans through tax increases.
Look, I don't buy into the " Obama's secret agenda now that he's in office is to suck every last cent out of hard-working Americans through tax increases" thing. The mere wording is fringe. But here's the thing: What does what Obama said on the campaign trail have to do with anything? Obama himself has made it clear (explicitly) that what he said on the campaign trail is essentially meaningless.
Example: On the campaign trail, Obama (in courting votes from organized labor and the working class in general) promised to open up NAFTA for re-negotiation. Now? Now he says that was merely "overheated rhetoric". In plain language, that means "You believed that crap?"
Example: Obama's promise tha bills will be posted online in advance to give the public time to read them and have some input before they are voted on/signed into law. Now? The bailout bill had to be rammed through "Now, now, now" (or so the excuse went), but after it was rammed through due to the "dire emergency" and sent to the White House, Obama took off for the weekend before signing it the following week. (This is not the only example of thus, just the most egregious.)
Example: The promise that former lobbyists would not work on policy in the Obama White House. Now? Now it's OK if they get a waiver. And who decided on the waiver? The Obama White House. And yes, there are former lobbyists in the White House working on policy. Waivers granted.
I could go on. I could mention how the man that many voted for because of his seeming opposition to the Iraq War (based on an obscure speech made way before he was even running for the Senate, much less in the Senate where he would have had to take an actual stand) is engaging in double-talk* when it comes to getting out of Iraq, and actually expanding (needless) war elsewhere, but why bother.
*When are combat troops not combat troops? When you call them "a residual force" and have upwards of 60,000 of them.
What dynasty? Bill Clinton comes from the humblest of roots in a small state. He served two terms. Two terms is a dynasty? In what way?
As far as irritation and fury at "hardball tactics", I'll first say that politics is analogous to a contact sport. If you get on the field, you're gonna get hit. But the second thing I don't get with O-followers that were so ready to make these charges on Clinton's tactics was their (still continuing) blindness to the very hardball if not downright Chicago-sleaze tactics of the Obama campaign. Whatever. Some folks are easily fooled. You wanted Obama, you got Obama. Translated, that means you wanted Obama's "liberal" hope and change, but what you wound up with is a guy who gives a good speech and who brings all of the bad of Bill Clinton's circle of neo-liberal DLC advisers and DC insiders with none of the actual commitment to principle that seems to be a part of Hillary's core makeup. Can you say string of broken promises? Sure you can!
"As first lady and later as the first serious female presidential candidate, she put on and discarded so many personas that it was hard to figure out who she really was"
Um...no. The only way that could be true is if you allowed yourself to be led around by the "Yes, we can (but you'll find out later that we won't") BS of the Obama campaign and its own (aforementioned) hardball tactics. (Who inserted race into the campaign? Hint: Not HRC.)
From the firing of Bush's well-liked but compromised global AIDS coordinator, Mark Dybul, to challenging Hamid Karzhai on an odious Aghanistan law severely restricting women's rights, Clinton has been every inch the leader who once proclaimed, in 1995, that "women's rights are human rights." Those who missed her passionate defense of abortion at a Washington, DC, hearing back in April owe it to themselves to watch.
It would have been better if you'd un-hypnotized yourself, recognized what a strong woman and leader she is back when it mattered and voted for her instead. I don't think we'd be throwing trillions at the banks while help for actual homeowners lags, and I doubt we'd be taking the word of big healthcare and insurance companies about cutting costs on the one hand while they work to undermine the push for true universal healthcare (not health insurance) on the other.
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Before I posted this, I couldn't help but be amazed at the asinine comment of JC Miller on the "million dead Iraqi" thing. Does this dimwit lay the entire Iraq War at the feet of HRC? Does he/she not know that Obama wasn't around when the vote for the AUMF took place and has said that if he had been, he didn't know how he would have voted? (I think given Obama's track record on state secrets, FISA, warrentless detention without trial for indefinite terms up to forever, how he would have voted had he been in the senate is not hard to figure out.) Does JC not know about the escalation of the AfPak war and the toll on civilians in terms of lost lives and the displacement of refugees? Gimme an 'effin break!
Every time a set of numbers promising "green shoots" hits the news, I say more or less the same thing: Wait for the revision.
(T)oday's report tells us that last week's number has been revised upward, to 6,757,000, which represented a 7000 increase over the week before, and thus the 18th straight week of rising claims.
Hoocoodanode? :)
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
