My biggest concern about an Obama administration is that, in the end, he won’t make universal health care a priority. My second biggest concern is that “Unity” means never having to say you’re sorry: that in the name of putting past partisanship behind us, the next administration will sweep the abuses of the past 8 years under the rug, the same way Bill Clinton did in 1993; the result of that decision was that the very same people responsible for Iran-Contra showed up subverting our democracy all over again.(My emphasis) Paul Krugman distills what I have been trying to say for months, which is probably why he is a world renown and internationally respected professor at Princeton and I'm just a cranky blogger in the hinterlands.
Obama’s support for the FISA bill intensifies my second worry. He did say some of the right things, promising to work to get rid of telecom immunity and hold people accountable. But caving on this bill is nonetheless not a good sign.
FISA
The problem with Democratic compromises is that they are over things that should never be bargained away, such as privacy, a social safety net, transparent government responsive to the citizenry, and other fundamental principles of liberal democracy.
Compromises are for making choices between acceptable outcomes, but where one may be more to the liking of one party than the other choices. Our rights, such as freedom from unlawful search and seizure, are not on the table.
Anglachel
5 comments:
I love Paul Krugman; I actually got to shake his hand one time. However, I also have considerable respect for savvy, cranky bloggers in the hinterlands or elsewhere.
Starting with the McClurkin episode (where he first lost me), Obama has been playing a Bush redux defense - why, I'm simply too naive and/or isolated to know about all the dirt being done in my name.
Listen, either you knew of and approved of the dirt, in which case you're a scumbag, or you're a clueless naif. Either way, you're unfit and dangerous for such an important office.
Unfortunately Junior got away with it, and Obama until now has done the same. As for me, I'm fumbling with my remote, trying desperately to change the channel.
These are exactly my concerns with Senator Obama. He has no fight in him. When he says "compromise" he means Dems will be doing all the compromising. Now is not the time for post-partisanship, now is the time to hold people accountable.
Have you seen his stance on Bush's impeachment. He apparently sent a letter to a supporter who inquired on what his stance was.
It's at the Cheeto house, so here's the link to the story at Alegre's Corner:
http://alegrescorner.soapblox.net/showDiary.do?diaryId=59
Thank you Paul Krugman! I have been saying that since January, at least! It was, I think, my second complaint against Obama, right after his market-based campaign style. Markets lie, they lie all the time to try to sell you stuff you don't need.
I do wish Krugman had gone a bit farther back in time, though, to a really useful analogy, which is Watergate and Carter. Bill wasn't nearly as slack as Carter, and blatant illegality in Washington should have been addressed at that point. The fact that we let by-gones be by-gones with Watergate is why the Republicans adopted illegal action as a governing technique. It's why they have no fear even to this day.
You do not put a compromiser in to fight real criminality, unless, of course, your own team is so crooked, it behooves you to cover the whole thing up. Increasingly, I'm becoming convinced that is exactly what is happening, and that a Selected, Not Elected Obama is a CYA move on the part of the Democratic party leadership.
It's either that, or they are really are stupid and immature. Either way, the party doesn't deserve my vote.
You do not put a compromiser in to fight real criminality, unless, of course, your own team is so crooked, it behooves you to cover the whole thing up. Increasingly, I'm becoming convinced that is exactly what is happening, and that a Selected, Not Elected Obama is a CYA move on the part of the Democratic party leadership.
Anna Belle, that's an interesting comment, because more and more I'm suspecting the same thing. Too much has happened this election cycle for me not to believe that the fix has been in from the beginning. As far as I'm concerned, Clinton is the one the SD's should have overwhelmingly backed. And because she has EARNED it, not because it was being given to her.
The fact that they have not supporter her - even though it is so obvious that she is the one most likely to win, and have gone to such lengths to help him over the finish line (the RBC comes to mind) makes me ask the question: why? Why would they want a weak nominee in a year that dems should be able to win? Why would they want a nominee who has so many ugly skeletons in his closet? Why would they want someone who has no experience and doesn't even talk like a democrat?
One of the scenarios I've come up with is that they are afraid of being held accountable for their own actions these past 8 years. That would also explain why they would take impeachment off the table. There has never been a President in the history of this country who deserved impeachment more than George Bush. The majority of Americans believe this and have for several years now. So why wouldn't they do it? And why wouldn't they want to nominate someone who has said she will hold them accountable?
Again, possibly because so many of them are complicit in the worst excesses of the Bush administration. I'll never forget that several democrats knew about the torture that was going on and did not try to stop it - Jane Harmon and Nancy Pelosi come to mind. I would bet Harry Reid is also in that situation. And since Reid/Pelosi are in a position to push the party their way, it wouldn't be hard for them to push everyone to Obama, which they surely did.
This has always been one of my nightmares - that when the full horrors of the Bush administation are finally exposed, we'll find just as many Democrats in there with blood on their hands.
I hear you, CognitiveDissonance. Today I've been fanticizing about a Draft Patrick Fitzgerald movement. Heh.
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