Drew Westen takes apart Obama and I respond

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Saturday August 06, 2011 · 7:59 PM PDT

2011/08/06 · 19:59

But the arc of history does not bend toward justice through capitulation cast as compromise. It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans. It does not bend when the average middle-class family has seen its income stagnate over the last 30 years while the richest 1 percent has seen its income rise astronomically. It does not bend when we cut the fixed incomes of our parents and grandparents so hedge fund managers can keep their 15 percent tax rates. It does not bend when only one side in negotiations between workers and their bosses is allowed representation. And it does not bend when, as political scientists have shown, it is not public opinion but the opinions of the wealthy that predict the votes of the Senate. The arc of history can bend only so far before it breaks.

That is the conclusion of a powerful - and long - piece in tomorrow's New York Times. In the Review section, which contains editorials and op eds, it is titled What Happened to Obama? and was written by Drew Westen.

To put it mildly, it does not praise the President. For example, at the start of the fourth online page we read

Like most Americans, at this point, I have no idea what Barack Obama — and by extension the party he leads — believes on virtually any issue.

It is critical, comparing Obama's lack of eloquence at his inaugural to the kinds of rhetoric offered by FDR at his inaugurals, and at other points in his presidency. And of course he contrasts the focus on the deficit by those in Washington with the concern of ordinary Americans about jobs.

You should read the Westen. What I have to add, below the squiggles, may or may not be of interest. So if you stop now, I will not be offended.

If you are still here, I had expected to write something else this evening. Having listened to most of The Response at Reliant Stadium in Houston, I was prepared to write about how my understanding of the messages of the Bible, both the portion from Judaism as well as the New Testament, would lead me to a very different set of expressions than I was hearing today.

But after reading Westen I am reminded that anyone who pays any attention to what the American people are saying would have had a far different focus in DC than we have seen for much of the current administration. That is not to say the administration is without some successes. But I cannot help but believe that what is happening is people are losing hope, and that is potentially devastating for an administration elected on the promise of hope.

Perhaps I live in too many worlds. As a teacher, I live in the world of my adolescent students, who see what is happening to their families and some of home begin to lose hope in their own futures. As an active Democrat who lives near the nation's Capitol, I spend enough time among elected officials and top staffers to hear their frustrations, their worry that the direction we have been following will make it impossible to have government do the things that make a difference in the lives of ordinary folk. As a senior citizen, I hear the concerns of others my age that the possible changes to the benefits they have been expecting may require them to worker longer than they had planned.

I see no lack of those willing to stand for public office, at local, state and national levels. But I rarely hear from those in office or those seeking it how their (proposed) elected public service will make things better for the folks whose votes they seek - unless you are a wealthy contributor, since those of wealth always seem to benefit.

Westen is powerfully critical of the performance of this President. We elected someone on the basis of the hope he inspired. Now? Some who actively supported him wish he would go away, others will support him solely because the alternatives from the other party are almost too horrible to consider. He MAY get reelected, but people no longer believe he can - or even wants to - change the way government gets done. Oh, there may be the efforts at "bipartisanship" but when one side is willing to be the obnoxious kid on the playground who will take his ball and go home if he does not get almost everything he wants, there is no such thing as bipartisanship, there is only surrender, acquiescence.

I am willing to be partisan - if that's how you wish to label it - on behalf of the future f the students who pass through my care.

I am more than willing to be partisan - if that is what it is called - to stand up for human rights, both of those in the US and those in other nations, whose rights get abused by the rich, the powerful.

I am ready to be hyperpartisan on behalf of the environment - which does not mean we continue to believe the fiction of clean coal - there is only less dirty coal, and even in extracting that we do massive destruction as anyone who has spent time in Kentucky, West Virginia or Virginia coal fields can tell you. Of course on this point I had no illusions - Obama is from Illinois and he supported the continued reliance upon coal.

If standing up for principal is partisanship, then I'd really like to see more of it. In fact, I'd like to see any of it out this administration. I'd like to see it make the case against the Republican obstructionism. Hell, fight for an Elizabeth Warren. Use the powers of the Oval Office to move an agenda that has some relationship to the statements made on the campaign trail.

Tonight I was about to write on something else. I read Drew Westen. I felt others should read Drew Westen as well. If you are reading these words, you decided to see what if anything I had to add. Probably not much.

But even if not much, what I say matters. I may be one drop of water, but put many of our voices together and we become a stream capable of carving great canyons from the hard rock of American politics.

It is not just about money, as much as money matters in politics.

It is also our being willing to stand on principle, if in fact we are going to make a demand upon those we have elected or those who seek our support.

The American Dream is dying. With it, so is hope. What are WE going to do about it?

It has to be us.

If we want to criticize an administration that gives way too easily in negotiations, then we cannot give our political commitment without something in return. If we do not stand for principle, if we do not make the clear case for what needs to be done, how can we expect it to be made for us, no matter how gifted we may believe the speaker to be.

I'm not ready to quit yet. Not yet.

I am old. I am tired. I am worn down.

I am also angry. My anger is a cold fury at the betrayal of hope, the abandonment of too many so that they can no longer see how to achieve the American Dream.

So consider this another of my screeds. Dismiss it if you want. But I suspect the words I offer speak not only for me, even should this diary disappear with little notice.

And with that, I will shut up and post it.

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