This diary is actually "piggybacking" off TomP's excellent earlier diary, now on the Rec list entitled-
Obama: Bush Tax Cuts "Offend My Conscience" (In 2008). PLease take a look at it, and watch the 30 second clip attached if you can. If you can't, I'll describe it briefly. It's an impassioned Candidate Barack Obama (remember that guy?) saying how McCain would continue the tax cuts for the wealthy, although he (McCain) voted against them 2001 because their benefits were so far skewed to those who didn't need the breaks that it "offended his conscience."
And Candidate Obama goes on then to proclaim that George Bush's Tax policies may have stopped offending McCain's conscience "somewhere along the road to the White House," but they still offended his (Obama's), and they offended ours as well, he proclaimed to wild cheering from the crowd.
Obama promised us back then that he would end the tax breaks for those making over $250,000/yr. This was one of the cornerstones of his campaign. It was a promise repeated over and over and over again.
It was to the Obama campaign what this promise was to the Daddy Bush campaign of 1988:
READ.MY.LIPS.... NO.NEW.TAXES!
And along with the US being in Recession in 1992, Read My Lips... was a HUGE factor in Poppy's defeat that year because he reneged on a promise passionately made to the Nation, over and over and over again.
Is this beginning to sound familiar?
But in George Senior's case, it was more than reneging on a promise to the Nation. What he did was an out-and-out betrayal of his base, on one of their core principles. He reneged on a promise that in part defined then (and still does), what the GOP is about.
Is this sounding even more familiar? It should because in 2008, Barack Obama stood up there for all to see quite clearly and deliberately repeated his mantra in much the same way. He didn't use the exact verbiage, but he may as well have:
READ.MY.LIPS.....NO.MORE.UNCONCSIONABLE.TAX.CUTS.FOR.CEOs!
Will this President use the same excuse when he runs for re-election as George the First did, "The Democrats (in Obama's case the Republicans) made me do it! I really didn't want to!" Perhaps he will. Will it work? It'd be as likely to work in 2012 as it did 20 years before.
What's worse though is that in our case, we'd have less reason to believe President Obama, and less reason to easily forgive because this is not his first broken promise. This is actually for many of us, myself included, the straw that broke the camel's back.
Speaking personally, I was most stung by the treacherous reversal on the promise made to "Re-establish the Rule Of Law" in America, after that principle was abandoned in the Bush/Cheney years. And this is specifically in regard to their policy of torturing "detainees," and in their related lying us into an illegal, illegitimate, senseless, and costly war.
And then there was the total abandonment of even the notion of looking into Single Payer HCR, followed by the absolute betrayal of the "compromise" position, i.e., the Public Option. And the accompanying lies and doublespeak.
Funny how little power the President had then when something he "wanted" wasn't getting passed when Congress actually stood ready to pass it, and how much power he has now, when Congress does not want to pass the "deal" he concocted with that happy bunch of Rpublicans.
These are a sampling of broken promises, there are many others, coming under the general heading of CHANGE YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD BELIEVE IN.
The question is, can anything be done now to avoid what appear to be predictable as well as catastrphic results?
Yes, we can up the pressure on on elected Reps to reject this abomination of a "compromise" which the White House is trying to shove down their and our throats.
And we can show the President the "Tough Love" that he needs from us, so that he might remember why he was elected, and the huge support the People will give him (again) if he picks up the sword now and fights, rather than lying down with the dogs (so to speak) and waking up with fleas.
For those who will continue to "Enable" the President, you do him the same favor you'd be doing an Alcoholic, drug addict, or severely acting out child whom you shield from the natural consequences of their actions. You act to insure that the crap continues, and that the eventual fall is a huge one.
Look, almost all of us here believed in that Candidate Obama who ran against McCain in 2008. We were proud to have helped to elect him.A large percentage of us cried the night we succeeded. We just want that guy back, and just as before, we want him to be VERY successful.
But if he won't come back, if he won't stand with us, we in the end will not stand with him.
As Keith Olbermann said, we support principles, not individuals, and when the individuals we supported will not defend those principles, we look to men and women who will.
Fair warning.