You hear it everywhere. Democrats are disappointed in the president. Independents have soured even more. Republicans have worked themselves up into an apocalyptic fervor. And, yes, this is not exactly unusual.
[...] It’s not that I don’t understand the critiques of Barack Obama from the enraged right and the demoralized left. It’s that I don’t even recognize their description of Obama’s first term in any way. The attacks from both the right and the left on the man and his policies aren’t out of bounds. They’re simply — empirically — wrong.
Here follows what the right-wing gets wrong. They don't read us so fuck that. You do - read on.
But the right isn’t alone in getting Obama wrong. While the left is less unhinged in its critique, it is just as likely to miss the screen for the pixels. [...] Not for the first time, I realized that to understand Obama, you have to take the long view. Because he does.
Or take the issue of the banks. Liberals have derided him as a captive of Wall Street, of being railroaded by Larry Summers and Tim Geithner into a too-passive response to the recklessness of the major U.S. banks. But it’s worth recalling that at the start of 2009, any responsible president’s priority would have been stabilization of the financial system, not the exacting of revenge. Obama was not elected, despite liberal fantasies, to be a left-wing crusader. He was elected as a pragmatic, unifying reformist who would be more responsible than Bush.
If I sound biased, that’s because I am. Biased toward the actual record, not the spin; biased toward a president who has conducted himself with grace and calm under incredible pressure, who has had to manage crises not seen since the Second World War and the Depression, and who as yet has not had a single significant scandal to his name. “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” George Orwell once wrote. What I see in front of my nose is a president whose character, record, and promise remain as grotesquely underappreciated now as they were absurdly hyped in 2008. And I feel confident that sooner rather than later, the American people will come to see his first term from the same calm, sane perspective. And decide to finish what they started.
Read this. It's a wicked pissah of a defense of Obama and I agree with Andy, er, 99.9%.
Danger lurks for the country again this November. Don't fall for the bullshit, left or right. Don't stay home or vote for some hippie-ass "Peace, Love, and Dope" party that'll never get elected and couldn't do anything if it did.
We're still at war with these right-wing bastards and you better believe they'll turn out, even for Willard, to rid themselves of the Kenyan Muslim socialist. Fuck this one up, you'll be a lot sorrier than if you give Obama his second term.
4 comments:
Fuck this one up, you'll be a lot sorrier than if you give Obama his second term.
Word.
Obama has my vote, I want to give it to him gladly but will do it grudgingly. He's pissed me off enough to call him an asshole but he's my kind of asshole.
My hope is that once he takes the oath for his second term, he faces the people and goes into 'fuck it!' mode. I'm not so naive to think that he'll do everything a good progressive would do but I hope he'll move in that direction.
The one thing that'll put the big brown stripe down the ass of every Republican diaper is Barack Obama with a 'fuck it, I don't have to run again so now, I can do something!"
He's had four years to test their meddle and the bullshit they spin. As long as they don't take the Senate, he can spit in their face and shit on their shoes.
Well said, David.
I'll vote for Obama too, but I don't expect to see any change in direction in him after the election. Being better than Bush was a low bar; being better than the current crop of GOP candidates is an even lower bar. I suspect we'll see additional dismantling of the safety net, shrinking of liberties, and military action.
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