Barack Obama and the failure of leadership: facts are facts
January 20th, 2010
Breathe
deeply and marvel
at the numbers. A year ago today,
Barack Obama was inaugurated after winning
the votes of 90% of liberals, 60% of centrists, 20% of self-described
conservatives, and over 53% of the popular vote, more than any president
in the last two decades and more than any Democrat in the 20th century
other than FDR and LBJ. He won almost every swing state and
captured independent voters by eight points, a landslide
in that demographic. His approval rating on
the day of his inauguration
was 70%.
The mood
has changed so swiftly and
so surely that last night in one of the bluest
states in America, a former nude model who shouts at schoolchildren
and has openly assented to violence against women and political
opponents and who advocates the waterboarding of Muslim
detainees was elected to the Senate seat
that Ted Kennedy held for
46 years.
I’ve related
elsewhere where I got off
the Barry bus: consistent violations of the
Constitution and his own campaign promises on things
like rendition and clearcut timber sales and don’t-ask-don’t-tell;
legally protecting the war crimes of Bush and Cheney at every turn;
the backroom deal with Big Pharma and a simultaneous lie about whether
the deal was being made or not; the shameless fellating of Goldman
Sachs and the rest of the banking industry, who brought not
just America but the entire world to its knees; the
triple-down on senseless war, cowardly drone
strikes that set other people’s children on
fire, and the further alienation
of the world.
Not one of
those is a small
thing.
All that
before we learned last week
that the Obama administration is actively participating
in the coverup of murders-by-torture
at Guantanamo Bay
in 2006.
And all that
was before we learned yesterday
that on October 25th of last year, he surpassed
George W. Bush’s record for the number of rounds of golf
played while in office. Not the number of rounds Bush played in his
first year — the number of rounds he played in
two full terms as President.
Golf, for fuck’s
sake.
There’s leadership,
and then there’s imitation of leadership
to get elected. Now that he has the big white house in which
to entertain his billionaire friends and the world’s fanciest
jet for getting to nice golf courses, neither is
part of Barack Obama’s
repertoire.
My
kingdom for
a King.
Friends
with Barry Magic? Bully for you.
On a charisma level I find him compelling,
too. You’re the ones who will be tested about how to
hang with him when he starts drone-striking
Tehran or Esfehan or Mogadishu or
wherever your particular
sets of cousins happen
to be.
