Thursday, August 20, 2009

A Nation of Rubes Deserves No Better

During the Bush administration, there was a general feeling that "terror" levels were being manipulated to benefit the president and his party. As it turns out, we were right. I conclude that these manipulations are in fact evidence there is no "terror" threat at all, just part of the propaganda.
At least the Republicans got it right. In President Obama's attempt to gain support for his escalation in Afghanistan, he has first told us the war against the Taliban secures America . Then, backtracking, he tells us al Qaeda did 9/11. No wonder that the majority of Americans oppose the Afghan war, Obama went off message. By now we all know that if it isn't about the UNOCAL pipeline, it's about the lucrative opium trade. I guess Agi was right: the Democrats have no running game.
In spite of the fact that a majority of American support health care reform, the Democrats having a filibuster-proof majority, a 40-seat advantage in the House, and a president who was once really popular, those town hall protesters shown to be fake, Obama still can't get it together and "reform" health care. That's why his approval rating is slipping, while being good at speechifying, Obama seems unable to stick to a lie or accomplish anything he was elected to do. Which is not a good thing when you preside over a nation of rubes.

2 comments:

Snave said...

I'm not surprised about the Ridge revelations, and also about a recent poll showed that most Americans are not in favor of the war in Afghanistan. It is my hope that Obama was floating a trial balloon when he mentioned the public option as basically not being an end-all, maybe trying to fire up some people on the left. Who knows? When it comes to Democratic strategy... who knows? Is there any?

We had the devil CNN Headline News on a couple of days ago, and they were talking about Obama maybe being able to "ram through" a health care plan anyway, even without GOP help, by using some procedure called reconciliation which would only require 51 votes to pass.

I hope that is true, and that he will give those of us who gave him our votes (hoping for universal health care) what we want. I won't hold my breath. Despite the large margin of victory in the election, which suggests a mandate for keystone Democratic ideals, it seems as if Obama has been more about appeasing the knuckledraggers than satisfying those who gave him their votes.

I still like Obama a whole lot better than Bush. I just wish his learning curve as president wasn't so steep. Is he really this naive, or is he just calculating, doing some kind of a rope-a-dope thing before making a major counterpunch? Again, who knows.

Tom Harper said...

RNC Chairman Michael Steele has dared Obama to pass a health care reform bill without the Republicans. I never thought I'd agree with Steele on anything.

He said something like "go ahead, you've got the votes, go ahead and pass a bill without us."

I don't have a link; I think I read it on Think Progress. I sure hope the Dems will take that advice and just pass the bill.