Raw Story has an article up this morning - mostly a re-cap from Politico - about falling poll numbers among independents for Barack Obama.
Poltico's spin on the numbers is the usual - independent voters worried about excessive spending - but a look at the comments section tells an entirely different story.
Rick says:
I'm an independent...who didn't vote for him. He lost me when he voted for telecom immunity and stated his support for the faith based initiative. And, he's continuing to fail on my top priority, which he campaigned on, government transparency.
jhoffa offers:
This guy could have gone down in history as one of our greatest Presidents.. Following on the heels of Bush's disaster, the stage was set. Then he blew it.
The worthless spending gamed via the bid process to "stimulate" cronies and multi-nationals, the flip-flops, continuing the wars, the failure to re-regulate Wall Street, no accountability for the crimes of the previous administration.
grindermonkey:
Send a signal to Obama, a signal that says his tacit support of the corrupt, centralized established order will not wash. Secrecy will not be tolerated. Wars will not be tolerated. Unbridled spending on weapons and intelligence shams will not be tolerated.
J'dub:
I'm an Indie voter that voted for him, because I would have voted for Bozo The Clown before voting the Republi'crooks back in. Obama is losing me because he hasn't gotten us out of Iraq yet. We didn't belong there in the first place and he should have gotten us out of there, completely, in the the first 90 days
truthfool:
Its the WAR Stupid. Stupid and wasteful resources used up w/o gain a travesty of proportions not seen since Vietnam with as much gain at end, as that war.
Herschel Krustovski:
Yep, he lost me too. Specifically, these on-going rip-offs in the form of bailouts and rubbish stimuli which heap rewards upon failures. Add to that the keeping and abetting of crony-Goldman Sachs-capitalists' lootings, embrace of dirty BushCo unconstitutionalities, and the cover-up of Torture, Inc.
Do we see a pattern here? Do we see what is turning off his independent constituency - the one that put him in office?
Part of it is the stimulus money going to the very assholes who caused the financial meltdown. But the primary theme is Obama's failure to stand up and address the crimes and unconstitutional activities of Bush and the intelligence community. And his continuation of two stupid and illegal wars.
We now have a situation where the White House says it will veto any effort to broaden the circle of intelligence insiders in the House. If Pelosi had any guts, she'd tell the president to go ahead and veto and we'll get the votes to override and cram it down his throat.
We see the Obama WH and DoJ argue the president has the right to indefinitely detain. DoJ argues that a confession obtained from a 12 year old by torture and thrown out by a military judge can be used against the boy to keep him detained. A DoJ that has expanded Bush-era claims of state secrets and fought to withhold relevant photographic proof of torture from the public, a public that has every right to now how and upon what their tax dollars are being spent.
I did not expect Barack Obama to make an overnight makeover to the best of all possible administrations in the best of all possible worlds. I did expect him, however, to live up to his oath of office and to see to it the laws were faithfully executed.
Instead we have seen expansion of soulless Bush-era claims of state secrets and national security, and a conscious effort to shield the executive office, and in doing so Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, from any accountability for their actions, up to and including torture and war crimes. And lest we forget - no troop withdrawls from Iraq, an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, and the continuing killing of Afghani civilians.
Fixing the economy will take time. Apparently Obama's plan is to forego doable but politically inexpedient actions like prosecuting torturers or warrantless wiretappers in the hope he can fix the economy over an 8 year period. He has badly miscalculated - just like he and Biden miscalculated the depth of the economic problems.
Obama is not going to be able to fix the economy by 2012; his clueless adherence to the worst excesses of the Bush Administration in national security matters and his toeing the DoD line in Iraq and Afghanistan may very well lead to a one term disaster for his presidency.
Independents are being turned off in large numbers, and contrary to conventional wisdom, I believe it is his failure to re-instate the Rule of Law, rather than the economic mess, that will be the nail that loses the shoe that loses the horse that loses the battle that loses the war.
It is not too late to turn the ship around and do the job he was elected to do:
Change. Transparency. Rule of Law.