Over the last few months, as he pushed the Afghanistan war and let Netanyahu have his way with settlements, I’ve gotten a dubious look whenever Obama comes on the TV at dinner time. Then I look over at my wife and try and recruit her in my disfavor and she says, "I love him. I don’t care what you say, I love him."
Well now she might be falling out of love. She is reading the bestseller about the 2008 campaign, Game Change
, and is revising her character judgments on the basis of its reporting. The Clintons have a really f’d-up relationship in the book, but there’s something to be said for Hillary, she actually cares about some political values. McCain and Biden are both very chippy–thinskinned–but they both come off as both appealing. And Obama? "He’s someone whose entire thing is keeping cool. And he’s cool, but maybe he’s a little bit veneer-thin. Maybe the fact that McCain and Biden are chippy and dirty and fightery shows that they care. The telling scene is, Obama was already completely sick of the Senate inside of a year, the rules, the engagement. And famously Harry Reid says, ‘You don’t like it here, why don’t you run for President?’ And then he doesn’t like Biden and Biden chafes under him, with his logorrhea and his gaffes, but you feel like Biden’s an honest human being, but Obama– I feel like, ‘Who are you?’ And Bill Clinton sort of hates Obama. And how can you not love McCain…"
"But you love Obama," I reminded her.
"I know. I’m having complete cognitive dissonance. And I think everyone’s turning against Obama now. Everyone at that party is turning against him."
We had gone to a party of left-liberals the other night. We talked it over a little more, and agreed that Obama probably got help writing his soulful first book, and that this book has the Clintons’ fingerprints on it. And repeating something else from Game Change she said that FDR and Abe Lincoln had bad first years, and she said that Obama could help himself with her by actually trying to be more folksy, risking more, showing emotion.
About Philip Weiss
Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Hope springs eternal. Both parties are jockeying, coming out of their respective bubbles, to try to take advantage of what is basically a rising populist anger. So far, the issues are domestic–with the single exception that Israel Firsters will play both parties, resulting in no change for US rubber stamping Israel right or wrong. What’s the chance the Israel factor in what would otherwise be pure American domestic politics will be parsed by any
populist spoke person; and the even more remote chance our MSM will pick it up for US mass consumption?
Hope? Hope is for suckers. Obama played the world for a sucker. He should be indicted for bait-and-switch.
Exactly. You don’t get to be President without selling out and being a total hypocrite, intellectually dishonest Zionist apologist.
Our leaders reflect the level of honest in our political culture.
Which reminds me, what’s Chas Freeman up to these day?
He was comfortably retired before reluctantly agreeing to chair the NIC. Maybe he went back to the grandchildren and golf clubs. :)
I’m getting really worried about Obama. He seems to think the US elected him because of who he is, instead of because of who Bush is. That takes a monstrous amount of ego and self-delusion.
Such a big ego and such self delusion, Obama didn’t even bother to get all the Bush burrowers out of the government and military.
He left all his worst enemies in position to screw him up.
He’s a chump.
…, Obama didn’t even bother to get all the Bush burrowers out of the government and military.
He also added quite a few bad apples of his own, e.g. Dennis Ross.
Don’t forget Hillary – My Mom’s favorite. He’s gotta grow up and stop playing cool. Let hope this year is like a new football season and he’ll come-out hard hitting. Joe (the zionist) Biden can hold his jacket, when he make his first decision to fire Emanuel. Then they can debug his office.
If I were him I would just go for three years and start acting tough. 8 is completely overrated and you lose your wind, being around so many evil-doers in Washington.
Ross was Clinton’s wormy apple.
Mooser, concerning Obama I have this line on my mind at the moment.
You ain’t seen nothing yet. , ba-ba-ba-baby ….
Landmark Supreme Court ruling allows corporate political cash Polite society and it’s courtiers.
But actually, I only returned to save the book link. And yes, another wonderful little icon of the Weiss’es everyday live.
Absolutely hilarious: “Then I look over at my wife and try and recruit her in my disfavor and she says, “I love him. I don’t care what you say, I love him.”
I think this lady is at least as interesting as our host.
damn, I thought this would help me broach the subject of falling out of love with my live in girlfriend. Oh well.
Obama is just another U.S president. What do people expect???
Everyone hates the Senate early. Its a pecking order. “junior-senator”.
Who knew that as president he’d still be subject to the pecking order, and not boss?
So many people have grave distractions their first year as executive. The president of the synagogue that I am now treasurer of had planned a long-term strategic planning theme for her tenure, then literally two weeks in, it was discovered that the synagogue had been embezzled for 10 years by the former very trusted secretary.
Strategic planning, deferred.
Obama has more than similar. Economy still in disaster. (If you think that under any republican leadership the economy would be better, you live on Saturn.) There DEFINITELY are things that could have and should have been done more professionally and assertively. That should have and should be top priority, with Israel/Palestine, even the Iraq and Afghanistan wars/military and health insurance reform both second priorities.
For me, the neglect of sustainability as a REAL issue in the current administration is a big failing, but the addiction to conventional growth and global economy (rather than regional) as norm, are entrenched.
Now, Obama looks like he’s accomplishing nothing of big or medium priority, even with democratic majorities in Senate and House.
Are you, and your wife, falling out of love with him, or falling out of love with America, or the world?
Are you, and your wife, falling out of love with him, or falling out of love with America, or the world?
You left out the final lines of your advertisement: ‘Falling out of love with America? Falling out of love with the World? Come Home: Come to Israel!’
A good comment, presumably because you can think about it without the handicap of your liberal Zionism clogging your synaptic pathways. Ideology is a brain-killer.
I do agree mostly with Witty’s abnormally cogent comment, with the exception of his dismissal of Iraq/Afghanistan as a secondary issue. Setting aside the stupidity of the ‘war on terror’ as the basis for our foreign policy, the financial cost of the war is a economic issue of primary importance.
“then literally two weeks in, it was discovered that the synagogue had been embezzled for 10 years by the former very trusted secretary”
Gosh, another bit of evidence showing us just how trustworthy Judaism as the basis for a state is.
Poor poor Moshe Obama…… he is being sandwiched between the pro-Israelis and pro-Americans – but as a cunning politician – Obama knows that if he decided to please the later – he surely will end up like John Kennedy.
According to Jewish Wall Street Journal – Obama has woken from the Zionist-cooked fairy-tale about the regime-change in Iran. He now realizes that the ‘Green Revolution’ against Islamic regime in Tehran – which planned and bet-on by him has fizzled out. The irony of the situation in Iran is that no one in opposition movement, lead by Mousavi is asking for the US help against Ahmadinejad’s government. All of them are afraid of Iranians bitter memories of the US and Israeli support for the Reza Shah Pahlavi before his overthrow in 1979 as result mass protests in favor of Imam Khomeini. The paper, however, says that Obama is determined to re-energize the already extinct “official” opposition. He hopes that by financially targeting the current regime in Tehran – through more sanctions and bank account freezes – that the US-friendly Iranian opposition will strengthened, while toppling Ahmadinejad regime. However, the independent analyst familiar with Iran believe Obama’s plan is going to backfire – as more and more Iranian nationalists will join the government as result of ‘crippling sanctions’ or an attack by the USrael.
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
‘The Jewish Wall Street Journal’? I had never heard of that publication before. Thanks for the tip.
Whew! I am just glad she’s not falling out of love with you, Phil!
I’m not sure what Obama ever did to convince anyone that he is particularly bright or principled. Obama told the masses what he thinks of them during the elections, so I don’t know what PLAYING folksy would do for him!
Obama did not win because most people hold him in high regard. Obama won because most people hate Bush. Few people knew much about Obama during the election, and the MSM acted as a cheering section. The public will now turn on Obama because he’s proven to be a creature of the elite, which means he is concerned mainly with demographic and cultural change, heavy immigration, wealth transfer through taxation, stupid foreign policy, massive government and protecting the elites at the expense of everyone else.
“Obama did not win because most people hold him in high regard. Obama won because most people hate Bush.”
When Obama did not immediately stop Bush’s Wars, he was done. All the rest is just a sideshow. He showed the depth of his courage and commitment, and it was lacking.
I just can’t get over it! Did Obama think all those guys were holding back from giving Bush a victory or good outcome, which they would now give to Obama?
Did Obama think that if he excused them from accountability, they would return the favor?
What a chump. I was going to say that Obama may not even last the single term, and then it hit me: Why would they even bother to impeach him? There’s no need.
Todd is dead right. America was suckered by Obama’s ‘progressive’ image, and its touching faith that the US President has innate real power. In my own personal assessment of his presidency, I allowed him a year to achieve some of his campaign promises, against heavy odds, and he has achieved nothing at all, even with almost rock-solid party control of both Houses.
His pusillanimous turn-around on his Israeli settlement demands fatally weakened the prestige and status of the US presidency, and his bumbling, over-extended ‘consultations’ on the situation in Afghanistan ended in him doing exactly what the militarists wanted; extending the unwinnable war for the sake of it.
I had premonitions about the ‘genuineness’ of his early image after his nauseating appearance at the 2008 AIPAC conference, his ominous silence during ‘Cast Lead’, and his immediate appointment of the son of an Israeli terrorist as his right-hand man, but I still allowed hope to triumph over experience.
That hope has now utterly and completely vanished.
In pre-election November 2008, under the spell of Obama, I posted this image to Flickr:
link to flickr.com
By March of last year, I was already disillusioned and posted this:
link to flickr.com
I should advise that I am not a US national, and therefore have no real rights to complain.
But as a British citizen, even residing outside the country, I have the right to free health care at any time I can show the need, due to a National Health Service that was set up 40 years ago, as in most other civilised nations. (I can even do the same in Spain, and have done). So I am astonished by the mish-mash of a phony ‘Healthcare’ bill of more than 2000 pages that has emerged from the US’s so-called democratic processes, which now will never be passed.
Mooser – sorry, I was writing my message while you were sending yours
He showed the depth of his courage and commitment, and it was lacking….
What a chump. I was going to say that Obama may not even last the single term, and then it hit me: Why would they even bother to impeach him? There’s no need.
He’s too much of a genuine family man to fuck an intern, and that is the only current basis for a presidential impeachment. (Conducting illegal wars isn’t).
A big problem with America is its very right of centre political parties (compared with other civilised countries, which have a far wider political spectrum, many of whose ‘far-left’ groups win elections and govern very well indeed).
So 300 million Americans vote only for personalities (as depicted on TV, where exposure and spending counts).
Obama was pretty so the suckers flocked to him in droves.
Phil,
Tell your wife to also read Glenn Greenwald’s take on that book. ;-)
No truer words, Mooser: “He seems to think the US elected him because of who he is, instead of because of who Bush is.”
Obama has put liberals and progressives in a bind. The bankers’ friend deserves complaint for supply side economic policies, war and timidity towards Israel, yet still has to be defended from his reactionary and racist critics. Obama was 365 days late with his bank regulation proposals, but not too late. Obama can still recover if he acts in the interests of people, but it is doubtful he will. Obama defers to institutional power because he is a conservative moderate. Kucinich had already demonstrated he knew how to stand up to the banks while mayor in Cleveland, while Obama had never accomplished anything near as important. Too bad Kucinich’s lack of good looks kept him from competing for the presidency. He has what Obama lacks.
Here in Cambridge MA, when I saw Obama appear at a rally with Martha Coakley, I realized how rapidly Obama had reached “Dubya” Bush’s poisonous last year in office radioactive aura. Seeing them together I realized Coakley would lose. Obama really comes across now as an empty suit and it seems all we get today in politics are either Democratic or Republican ( Scott Brown) empty suits. How many times during the Bush era did I tell friends that I can admire ONE thing about the Republicans and that is they know how to fight to the end for their beliefs no, matter how stupid or selfish.
Imagine if the Democrats did that starting last January?