Left Unhappy with PEBO

Pamela Hall and Sharad Karkhanis forwarded links that tell of the left's frustration with President-elect Barack Obama (PEBO). Hall links to her Silent Majority blog and focuses on anti-Iraqi-war activist Cindy Sheehan's article about PEBO and Hillary Clinton. Sheehan writes:

>"After the official appointments were confirmed, I told two of my closest friends that Obama has killed the US anti-war movement that has been on life support while it worked feverishly to elect him. But, in reality, Obama didn’t kill the movement, the movement committed suicide in (again) supporting a non-anti-war candidate solely because he is not George Bush and he knows how to say the words “hope and change” with a straight face and no hint of irony in his voice...

>"I would like to swallow the empty rhetoric of Obama and believe that everything’s going to be fine; but I know better. Even before he takes the oath of office, Obama has already sold us out to the US Military Industrial Complex. He has also sold out the people of Iraq, Palestine (the forgotten oppressed people), Pakistan, and certainly the innocent civilians of Afghanistan...

>"Obviously, Barack Obama does not want to solve any problems or stop, or even retard, the 'institutional momentum' towards disaster because his cabinet picks, advisers and staff (AIPAC hack, Rahm Emanuel) are all deeply mired (quagmire?) in the corrupt institutions and are directly responsible for the profound crap we are in today...If Obama really desired change, then he would appoint people who have been trying to fix the horrible problems that only worsened during the Bush years.

>"Well, I am starting a new group called: 'CWCBIMA' (Quick-be-ma)

>"'Change We Can Believe in, My Ass.'"

On December 8, the esteemed Sharad Karkhanis forwarded a link to a related politico.com article entitled "Liberals Voice Concerns About Obama":

"Now some are shedding a reluctance to puncture the liberal euphoria at being rid of President George W. Bush to say, in effect, that the new boss looks like the old boss.

"'He has confirmed what our suspicions were by surrounding himself with a centrist to right cabinet. But we do hope that before it's all over we can get at least one authentic progressive appointment,' said Tim Carpenter, national director of the Progressive Democrats of America.

"OpenLeft blogger Chris Bowers went so far as to issue this plaintive plea: “Isn't there ever a point when we can get an actual Democratic administration?

"Juan Cole, who runs a prominent anti-war blog called Informed Comment, said he worries Obama will get bad advice from Clinton on the Middle East, calling her too pro-Israel and 'belligerent' toward Iran. 'But overall, my estimation is that he has chosen competence over ideology, and I'm willing to cut him some slack,' Cole said.

"Other voices of the left don’t like what they’re seeing so far and aren’t waiting for more before they speak up.

"New York Times columnist Frank Rich warned that Obama’s economic team of Summers and Geithner reminded him of John F. Kennedy’s 'best and the brightest' team, who blundered in Vietnam despite their blue-chip pedigrees."

The "liberal" antidote to the last problem is to attack Sarah Palin as unqualified because she didn't go to Harvard, and appoint Caroline Kennedy to the Senate because she was on the board of directors of the American Ballet Theater but did go to Harvard and therefore is qualified in the view of pissant propagandists and their brainwashed, soon-to-be-impoverished-by-the-Fed minions. "Liberals" are true geniuses.

I'm sitting here drinking some hot chocolate and thinking--I disagree with Sheehan about the Iraqi War and Israel, but I agree with her in the abstract. I called the change that Obama represents "chump change" in a blog on December 2.

On June 16 I wrote:

"Mr. Obama claims to favor change, yet he is allied with specific economic interests, specifically Wall Street. In 2008, Goldman Sachs so far has given $2.7 million to Democrats and less than $1 million to Republicans. Goldman Sachs's contributions to Democrats has exceeded those to Republicans every year since 1990. To assuage public concern about excessive Wall Street influence on Obama, America's off-the-charts-insipid media provide testimonies from 'principled' Wall Street tycoons like George Soros and Warren Buffett that Obama is for 'change'. Of course, Messrs. Soros and Buffett do not discuss how Obama's 'change' will influence their own economic interests."

The kind of change that we can expect from PEBO was discussed yesterday in a New York Times editorial that I bloggedhere that admitted that the steps that Chair Ben Bernanke, Secretary Henry Paulson and President George W. Bush are taking will be inflationary, but the Times supports them anyway. In this context of saying that inflation is a necessary medicine the Times writes:

"For Barack Obama, the challenge is one of leadership. As president, Mr. Obama will have to convey optimism without over promising. He will have to inspire confidence, even in the absence of a dramatic turnaround — which is simply not in the cards. To his credit, Mr. Obama has already warned the American people that conditions will get worse before they get better."

Perhaps what then-Senator Obama meant by "change" during his campaign was inflation. That was going to happen with or without him, so he wasn't wrong. "Change you can believe in" means "Wall Street, the Fed and I are going to scr*w you, you can believe it".

Ms. Sheehan is right to be angry. When he appointed President Bush's Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, as his own secretary, PEBO confirmed that (a)my assertion back in June that his issues are domestic, economic, and linked to Wall Street was correct, (b) international issues and Iraq are of little consequence to him, (c) corruption will be the hallmark of his administration and (d) his followers are chumps.