Re: (Frank Rich’s) What Happened to Change We Can Believe In?
Aside from midterm talking points/apologetic slants which obscure warranted levels of intense criticism (leading to actual “change”):
“President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for” . . . telling us to “look forward, not backward” – after instilling the “forward” as what would be on election day, instead of the opposite.
“President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for” . . . blocking the release of a second set of torture photos – after promising the opposite.
“President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for” . . . human rights, as he continues the same abuses of his predecessor, with excuses of “possible future threats” (based on Minority Reports?), and information gleaned through torture – after inspiring a hopeful opposite.
“President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for” . . . bailing out Wall Street, without prompting a restoration of the Glass–Steagall Act, or providing relative relief to all the commoners who were purposely plundered – after portraying himself as a special interest opposite.
“President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for” . . . making secret deals with corporate executives, selling out the Public option, then signing a Mandate – after campaigning on the opposite.
“President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for” . . . “the dark cloud cast by” his willingness to defend extensions of unemployment checks, but not a National Jobs Program with teeth (i.e., one that is not $50 billion compared to $700 billion and loaded with even more Cheneyish tax cuts) – after attacking Bush II as his opposite.
“President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for” . . . failing to get his (supposed) party to use the slightest of backbones in letting the Bush II tax cuts expire for the wealthy – after guaranteeing the opposite.
“President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for” . . . appointing a Deficit Commission, dead-set on gutting Social Security as “austerity”/”self-sacrificing” measures (put off until December to guard the midterm results) – after championing privatization’s opposite.
“President Obama, the Rodney Dangerfield of 2010, gets no respect for” . . . refusing to implement a moratorium on foreclosures – after reams of documents and fifty state attorneys general make it certain that those Institutional denials of conspiratorial Fraud actually seal the opposite.
So, yes, within this “relentless drag on a chief executive who promised change we can believe in,” there is a “fatalistic sense that the stacked economic order that gave us the Great Recession remains not just in place but more entrenched and powerful than ever.” And, within this environment, who gets “punished” “for bad behavior”? The “Professional Left.” But, “Should those [Other] forces prevail, an America that still hasn’t remotely recovered from the worst hard times in 70 years will end up handing over even more power to those who greased the skids.” True, “[President Obama] sometimes looks as if he’s fronting for the industry.” Yet, “Voters [somehow] are . . . failing to give the White House credit for its . . . successes,” and “finding it guilty of transgressions . . .” (since the “White House is hardly innocent”). As a result, how could there be an Enthusiasm Gap?
Posted by WindHarps 
Awakenings 