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To: bentway who wrote (259278)	7/8/2010 12:30:46 PM
From: yard_man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

yeah, I don't think it is that explicit ... but sometimes one starts to wonder.

To: bentway who wrote (259278)	7/8/2010 12:45:04 PM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

I think a lot of us that voted for Obama hoped for better.

To: bentway who wrote (259278)	7/8/2010 1:39:43 PM
From: Metacomet	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

- he HAS the power. Well actually he doesn't. First as a Constitutional scholar, and not a nitwit cowboy, he tends to operate in a manner bound by the existing legal framework. We were used to other modes. As far as dealing with a Congress, he by no means has a working majority. With the number of Blue Dogs in his own party coupled with a declared strategy by the GOP of opposing anything proposed by the administration, with the primary objective being to cause a failed presidency, (screw the country) it is amazing that he has fared as well as he has. Add to this the tide of undeclared racism that colors so many opinions, expressed here for instance, but probably best summarized by the Tea Party agenda of "Taking our country back", from you know who, and you get a sense of the headwinds he has encountered, trying to salvage the country from the shambles it was left in by the previous administration. The fact that a predicted full blown depression has been sidestepped, at least temporarily, 2 inherited wars have been handled, if not satifactorily in my view, at least with a stated goal of ending, and a step toward a contemporary national health agenda has been taken, not to mention dealing with the residue of a decade of failure to operate the government, which was in a full neglect mode, needs acknowledgment. It's easy to blame the incumbent for everything that is going wrong. I think he's doing OK given the steaming pile of shit he was handed.

To: bentway who wrote (259278)	7/8/2010 2:38:35 PM
From: koan	Respond to of 306849

Like you, I think, I am a hard core liberal. 50 years. And I have to ask, what did happen? Next post I will post an interesting piece. Must read! >>I voted for Obama because, the way I see it, the ONLY vote I can cast that can actually change our doomed course is for POTUS. I hoped Obama would be the ONE - the one that was going to take that presidential power and start FIXING the total mess we are in. He's PRESIDENT - he HAS the power. He's been a total disappointment. What happens when a man becomes president? Do they sit him down, force him to watch "JFK", emphasizing the scene where Johnson is told the rules by the shadowy figures that actually run the country? Then tell him, "Mr. President, that ISN'T fiction.">>

To: bentway who wrote (259278)	7/8/2010 2:41:14 PM
From: koan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

This is an excellent piece. I liked his talking about how the kids were right and "The best and the Brightest" wrong about the Viet Nam war. Wharfrat and I were two of those kids. And how many times have I posted this? And I emphasize "loyal opposition!" I have also watched Obama's loyal opposition -- people like Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren, Sheila Bair -- be proven right by events, again and again. So there are alternative paths, as there always are. But the White House has disdained them All many of us have been saying for a long time. I am a progressive first (50 years), a democrat second (50 years) and an Obama supporter third. My Private Obama by Robert Kuttner commondreams.org Now, who am I to second guess the cleverest politician to come along in decades? Well, I am old enough to remember the Vietnam era when the Best and the Brightest were just dead wrong, and the kids had a surer sense of American foreign policy than the experts. I have also watched Obama's loyal opposition -- people like Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren, Sheila Bair -- be proven right by events, again and again. So there are alternative paths, as there always are. But the White House has disdained them. And I've noticed that it is the populists among Democratic elected officials who are best defended against defeat in November. That tells you something, too. Why should the project of rallying the common people against elites in Washington, on Wall Street, and in the media, be ceded to the far right? But that is what this White House is doing. Progressives by nature are optimists. We believe that things could be better than they are, and that a decent society is worth fighting for. We're hopeful, sometimes bordering on wishful. A counsel of despair is not our thing. We tend to look for the best in people. That's why we keep playing Charlie Brown to Barack Obama's Lucy. Obama was consistently underrated during the 2008 campaign. Nothing would make me happier than to say in six months that I was underrating him on July 4th, 2010, and to eat a big helping of crow. But I reluctantly conclude that whatever progressives might desire in our private visions of who Obama could yet be, he is who he is. It is like watching a needless accident in slow motion. Without a drastic and abrupt course correction, the missed opportunities will continue to accumulate this summer and fall. The whole country, not just the progressive movement, will pay dearly. Robert Kuttner's new book is A Presidency in Peril. He is co-editor of The American Prospect and a senior fellow at Demos. © 2010 Huffington Post