“Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers “at the expense of hardworking Americans.” Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it’s not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing. Then he got elected.”
Oh dear. Who’s my favorite political reporter? Who’s the guy I always turn to for the hard, profane truth? That’s right, Matt Taibbi. The graf above is the lead to his latest piece in Rolling Stone. And this, sums it all up:
“What we do know is that Barack Obama pulled a bait-and-switch on us. If it were any other politician, we wouldn’t be surprised. Maybe it’s our fault, for thinking he was different.”
It is an excellent article. I worry that he’s not taking financial reform seriously. The middle class has been bombarded and is growing restless. Washington better get busy regulating Wall Street or there’s going to be blood in the streets…
All that Sunny says is true. And I DO hope he manages to do some good things. But nobody seems able to provide reasonable explanations for the decisions described in Matt Taibbi’s article. Does “realistic expectations” mean don’t count on anything he said (spirit or letter) during the campaign?
A former boss described me as a big, soft pillow. I keep the impression of the last person to sit on me. I really need to start thinking of government the way I think of commercial air travel. I don’t know who’s flying the plane and –once in the air– it doesn’t matter. He might be depressed or hung over sound asleep (like our previous president). Yelling or banging on the cockpit door won’t make the ride less scary. I gotta learn to stay in my seat, read my book and shut the fuck up.
It is difficult to turn a huge ship quickly. Don’t write him off so soon. Remember the chaos he inherited. Consider the forces working against him and the fact that he probably cannot accomplish any real good until a second term, if he gets it. And there is a distinction, in my mind, between the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. And finally, of course he is a politician. He wouldn’t have been elected otherwise. But he is also a brilliant and good man. Give him some time and try to keep realistic expectations. I am still proud of him.
“more of the same”
So it would seem. As for your other point…
We ALL get what we deserve. Always.
“Change we can believe in”……. just more of the same. Glad I have no investment here. Those of you that do, get what you deserve.