Tiresome, I know. But since I started this, and read Paul Krugman's excellent piece this morning, I might as well finish it.My question about Obama before the election was: Is he tough enough? I think he's proved that he can be, but he's also shown a tendency to get over confident and sloppy, and forget just how dangerous and amoral the enemy is.
The #1 enemy of the United States is still the GOP and its media allies and enablers.
I think it was good of him to let go of the Clintonesque tit for tat war with the GOP. Doing so could bring around voters who are not confirmed dead-enders ready to help Rush, Palin and the rest shove this teetering bus off the cliff. And you can't win a war like that, with people living a lie, because you wind up fighting on their terms. The GOP never argues the merits of an issue, and always seeks to invalidate civil discussion with emotional triggers based on distortions and lies. It can't stop lying because it has nothing else, and arguing with a liar is a waste of time.
The only way out, for both Obama and America, is for him to go all the way with something he's already shown he can do: Talk to the public in an honest and adult way. Repudiate the destructive "philosophy" the GOP's been selling since Reagan, top to bottom, and call on media to behave like real reporters and not tabloid gossips, spinning phony controversies that make facts immaterial and make the "news" networks a lot of money.
He should tell Americans it's time to grow up, that there's no such thing as government without taxes and regulations; that there's no civil society without government; and that you cannot have a civil society when a sizable proportion of voters and 99% of GOP politicians, for their own cynical reasons, claim that the instrument of order and civility -- government -- is the "enemy," somehow stealing their birthright.
Americans have been spoiled by lying demagogues who've convinced them they can "have it all" without lifting a finger or making the slightest compromise with the factual world (the world that other people can live in).
From the Wall Streeters who "innovate" new means of systematic theft and believe they have the born right to be billionaires, to Palin's phony "real Americans" who think the simple act of being born white in America, coupled with the ability to lift a gun and jerk their knee, makes them rightful heirs to the Founding Fathers' legacy, even as they make it clear their beliefs are a better fit for a two bit fascist dictatorship.
From one spoiled, self-serving brat to another -- and including all the congressional Democrats resigned to cynicism and consoling themselves on the lobbyists' gravy train -- they all need to be set straight in front of the whole world.
Update: I see Obama is having trouble motivating the "netroots" that helped get him elected (Health Debate Fails to Ignite Obama's Web). How can he expect to get people pumped up, especially about something as complex as health care, when it seems like he's ready to give up the "public plan" -- the one thing that could simplify the issue and get people excited?
[ Paul Krugman: Republican Death Trip ]
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