There's a very nice diary at the top of the rec list right now that attempts to remind us of why we're so lucky to have Obama. It reminds us that we worked hard to get him elected and that we must never forget the accomplishments he's made in the face of great trouble. I won't refute that diary, but I also think it's off the mark in critiquing the sour mood here at DKos. Let's talk about why...
The diary rightly points out that Obama inherited a mess. A big, bloody mess. We all know this. We organized and campaigned to get someone in office that would be capable of dealing with that mess. We remembered Iraq and Katrina and global warming denials and stem cell blockades and abstinence-only education, and so many children left behind. We remembered the Justice Department being a wholly owned subsidiary of the Executive Branch, and the politicization of the entire government, at every level. We saw CIA agents outed for political revenge. We saw domestic wiretapping and all manner of Patriot Act inspired violations of our civil liberties. We saw arrogant, cowboy diplomacy where neocons led the charge of us against them. Oh...and so much more.
The diary in question lauds our president for preventing a second Great Depression, for which he deserves some credit. It never mentions what he gave away to Wall Street in the process, or how little he did to stem the foreclosures on Main Street. It doesn't deal with Tim Geithner and his backroom meetings with the Fat Cats, and how little transparency or accountability there has been to us. When Wall Street put the screws to New York City in the 1970s and installed neoliberal economic policies on the people, robbing them of the social welfare mechanisms they'd enjoyed, our President said "Drop Dead." When those same guys got themselves into a raft of shit, they got to write all the rules for their own bailouts. I think we can be pissed off about that, even if we still support our president.
The diary salutes our president for getting the 1st ever climate change bill through, although acknowledging it's imperfect. Yes, we can certainly be proud of that accomplishment, but what of mountaintop removal and the farce that is "clean coal?" Maybe we can be just a bit pissed off that our president has seemed lukewarm on the subject, or unresponsive to progressives, while continually spouting the corporate line on clean coal technology. We can still be proud of his accomplishment, but shout from the rooftops to demand better. We have to, or who will? It just might be our sour mood on his shortcomings that will keep the issue alive and that will force someone to address it. The institutional press won't, and with millions of dollars behind industry, the odds are against us.
The diary claims that we have a tougher-than-expected commander in chief, who is also highly respected in the world. Yes, perhaps, but we had plenty of tough for 8 years. We need smart. Is his policy in the Middle East smart enough? Is he trying too hard to be tough by following the Commanders on the ground, rather than leading them? I don't really know the answer to that question, but it must be asked. I tend to think that we can continue to be tough in Afghanistan, even for a longer period of time, but I still don't know what his way out is. Neither does anyone else because he hasn't given us one. I think our sour mood on that front serves a purpose as well. I support his toughness, his intelligence, and his commitment to our troops, but we're no closer to a "winning strategy" or an "exit plan" than we were just a few months ago under W. Maybe we've readjusted our priorities, and thank God for that, but I still feel anxious about what he plans for that theater as he expands drone bombings into Pakistan.
The diary talks about his struggles to deal with the Guantanamo mess that was left to him by a group of thugs that had no interest in the law. Well, is Guantanamo closed? Has our president started to hedge on his promise to close it by January of next year? We all know the answer to that question and so we lament. There can be no justification for preventative detention. None. We continue it at Gitmo, even though our president wants to establish rules for how it can be conducted. We continue it at Bagram, with no discussion of how or when it will be stopped there. To our knowledge, renditions continue to be practiced and our president seems intent on blocking any investigation into torture. Torture that was sanctioned by the US government and carried out in our names in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions and several international treaties of which we are signatories. Maybe we should be a little pissed off about all that, no? Closing Gitmo is the right thing to do. Giving people trials is the right thing to do...on US soil. Holding real terrorists in SuperMax prisons is the right thing to do. Publicly denouncing rendition and pledging to end it is the right thing to do. Keeping us safe is great, but depriving people legal rights to do so is tyranny. Send them home if you can't convict them and kill them on the battlefield if they try to attack us.
There's the issue of transparency. It was a major campaign promise that hasn't been fulfilled and the source of much of this anxiety. If we want to rid the country of the stench of the Bush Administration, we must open the doors and windows and deal with our issues in a visible environment. Where's the negotiations via C-SPAN? We're talking specifically about healthcare and transparency here, so I'll deal with the diarist's point that we've gotten closer to healthcare than anytime in history. He deserves some applause on that front, but the framing is technocratic and only appeals to the wallet. There's a practical nature to that framing, as across ideologies people can relate to their financial circumstances. That's not the point here. The room for progressives to beef with the president is that he's losing the argument in public. Why? Because he's allowing the opposition to frame their fear tactics the same way they've done it in the past. Big government wants to kill you and turn you socialist. Instead of risking the political waves of calling this thing what it is, a human rights issue being confronted by profit-whoring corporations at our expense, he's trying to work with them to keep them happy even while they're undercutting him at every turn.
Okay, we've gotten this far. If we get some reform we can incrementally move things further as time goes by. Yes, good work Mr. President. I, for one, think that Obama needs to have more MLK in his rhetoric on this issue. Hell, he could use a little more JFK for that matter. His political ability is sufficient that we might get a minor reform of some kind, but his failure is the inability to even have a reasonable discussion about single payer. As a progressive who currently enjoys single payer in Japan, I know that the arguments against it are devilish and complete propaganda. If we demand the best possible system, we can still call out out government and its titular head for failing us in this way.
As progressives, leading grassroots action and the conversation for the shape of our nation and our democracy, a little sour grapes and some fist shaking at the president we helped to elect may be just what the doctor ordered. When slinkerwink posts her excellent diaries on action for healthcare and calls out people by name, it's in the spirit of grassroots pressure. Getting too comfortable with our successful, charismatic, sometimes effective, always hard working, Democratic president is a recipe for settling. I am proud of our president. I support him and will continue to support him until he leaves office. I believe in him and I pray everyday that he has a plan to transform our society that benefits the greatest number of people. I pray that he has the energy, charisma, will, and power to effect the real change that we wanted when we gave, and worked, and campaigned. I also know that speaking truth to power is a full time job that sees no allegiance save the people. Washington is Washington and we're pitted in a battle for the good of the people with entrenched powers in the media, business, politics, and other interest groups. If we take our eyes off the road because we want to give "our guy" a break and celebrate his work, we risk too much.
I, for one, appreciate the tone and sentiment of the diary I have critiqued. We have every right to see progress in the efforts of our president, but we have to have the tenacity and fire in our bellies that are required to hold his feet to the fire for the change he promised and the change we demand.