I'm Sayin It

I'm gettin on the record. Right now. I'm puttin on my raincoat and staring into the sun. If the clouds and the drops don't come, I might look silly, and not for the first time.

President Barack Obama: just another politician.

Historically, first African-American president. Major achievement for him, his community, and for all of us non-racists.

Better than George Dubya Bush. Definitely.

But that doesn't mean he's not just another politician.

Either he's not really a fighter, or he's not really a progressive.

Which one is the masquerade?

• We got a second-term nomination for the Fed Chief who said on record that he didn't know which foreign banks got money from the bailout deals.
  
• We got a huge stimulus package that represented mainstream economic philosophy at the time, and for which the Democrats are getting little if any credit.
• We got a President who stood up in his first State of the Union and got the entire Republican side of the aisle standing and cheering for him - on national TV - when he talked about reigning in out-of-control banks, and then followed up on that by introducing no significant investigations or regulation.
  
• We are in the process of closing Gitmo, but Obama has extended the use of extraordinary rendition (aka kidnapping people) and overseas interrogations.
• We got a drawdown in Iraq, but a draw-up in Afghanistan with no clear definition of victory.
• We got a President who seems content to let the rabid minority party gnaw his leg and double-deal with him all over the place, and who won't issue even the most perfunctory smack-down when people he is "negotiating" with run all over the country spreading vicious lies.
• We are in the process of getting health-care legislation in which the President has promised big things to big industry players and has refused to even use that leverage to squash the insane rambling complaints of the opposition.
  

And that last one is maybe the worst (except for extraordinary rendition). There is something very shrewd about making promises to Big Pharma with the idea that they will help you fight the propaganda of the health insurance industry and their Republican pals. If you hold their feet to the fire, that is. These "partners" of yours are still giving money to fight against the government plans! This makes the President look like a big sissy.

I sincerely hope that he has some political ninjutsu going on, and that, a few months from now, I'm going to look damn foolish for saying what I'm saying. I hope that in his big Healthcare Address next week, and in his actions following, Obama shows the true value of patience, that he reveals (like Mohammed Ali) the virtue in allowing your opponent to exhaust themselves attacking you.

And then, when they have nothing left to say, you strike with a hard and lasting impression. You shame them for their ill behavior, and you doom them to irrelevance with a powerful mandate. You punish the backstabbers to whom you lent your good faith, and cut them out of the deal.

You show some fortitude, and some principle, and you show the people who put you in office that you have their backs.

But I'm betting that, based on what we've seen so far, Obama will not do that. That was the Obama of the campaign trail, not the Obama of the White House. That's what makes him just another politician.

So I'm putting on my raincoat and watching the horizon.

Prove me wrong, Mr. President. I hope - remember that word that Obama of the campaign trail used to love? - that you do.