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As I told the Speaker this summer, I’m prepared to make more reforms that rein in the long-term costs of Medicare and Medicaid, and strengthen Social Security, so long as those programs remain a guarantee of security for seniors. That’s the Best Possible President once again cutting off power to the Third Rail. Enthusiastic . . . → Read More: Annoying tics among supporters of not the worst so hence the best possible president Now that Newt Gingrich has won the first round in the Confederate States primary contests—and O! what a victory it was; America’s demons are on the prowl and Newt is their advance man—it’s time to look at the various possible fates of the Soul of America depending upon who wins the battle for it. A quick word (two, really) for liberals incensed that other liberals and leftists are attracted to the anti-imperialist, anti-authoritarian soundings of Ron Paul: fuck off. If you don’t like that people are praising a guy they would otherwise regard as just another demented freak filling out the field of demented freaks (and the one . . . → Read More: Why panicked liberals hate Ron Paul The Obama campaign has drawn a line in the tar sand, and if you’re reading this you’re probably on the wrong side of it. A former lobbyist for TransCanada, the giant energy company desperate to build a pipeline from Canada’s oil tar sand fields through the US to Gulf Coast refineries, is the latest high-powered addition to the campaign. I just completed a frank exchange of views with a devout Obama supporter who believes her president is curbing his liberal impulses from respect for the views of the losing voters on the right (they did lose, didn’t they?) and in order to establish a dynamic in which subsequent right-wing presidents will moderate their own ambitions from respect for Obama’s example and the voters who support it. Well. Not exactly her president. She’s Canadian, although also Floridian. Hot Sun Bakes Canadian Brain. In the end we agreed that when Rick Perry invades Iran in five years after taking office by winning 45% of the popular vote, I will deserve to be drafted and sent off to fight and presumably die in that war because I think Democrats should pursue big projects like universal health care, the cramming of which down American throats led George W. Bush to invade Iraq. Damn you, Harry Truman! This country is in trouble. Our economy is on life support; our foreign policy is on autopilot and there are mountains dead ahead. What the country needs now is a proven winner, an economic innovator, a foreign policy genius, a man who knows how to more or less end pointless and interminable wars. Now more than ever, that man is Richard Milhous Nixon. That’s Jim Messina, Barack Obama’s campaign manager, speaking to me. Actually, not so much speaking to me as billing me. I’m chronically insecure so I feel as though there’s some truth to his accusation. I’ve tried to annunciate the ways in which I think the president’s rhetoric and policies are destructive and in some instances of the latter, blatantly illegal. I’ve tried to demonstrate the remarkable continuity this administration has maintained with the previous one, particularly in the endless war and national security arenas but, to no little extent, in domestic policies as well. But have I done enough? Jim Messina thinks not, and I have to agree. Still, I resent being pressured for a contribution. I’ll do what I do when I’m good and damned well ready. Sometimes people chastise me for focusing so much on Obama’s sins, and Democrats in general, and hardly ever on the loyal opposition’s. My current understanding of the roles of everyone who holds elected federal office is that they’re all the opposition. My goal these days is to try to alter the perspectives of . . . → Read More: Yes, they’re despicable, and so are they Yesterday I wrote this somewhat carefully considered thing about how Obama’s reelection prospects aren’t as bad as a lot of people think because he’ll have many boatloads of money and the only official GOP candidates who aren’t too obviously insane to win in the general election are saddled with a Mormon problem that will probably doom them in the primaries. That could change, but so far none of the Republicans who don’t have those problems seem to think they can win, so they’re not running. What never occurred to me is that Obama might run on his record; I just assumed he would run a two-pronged effort to paint Republicans as the slavering sociopaths they are while he proposes popular legislation that he can’t and probably doesn’t want to get passed. I forget that some people still take him seriously, and that presumably he and his staff do as well. Barack Obama has two huge disadvantages going into the 2012 election: The economy and the economy. He also has two huge advantages: The Republicans and the Republicans. Despite the administration’s addiction to neoliberal crack, economic conditions could, possibly, in a perfect world, by accident, improve before the election; the Republicans can’t, and they’re what’s driving the Obama fundraising machine so far. Make that three advantages: Few of his potential supporters seem to care much about his militarism—imagine the infuriated cries of liberals had George Bush been the president who decided to exclude the (no doubt furiously protested) bombing of Libya, and hence future air campaigns against whichever states are pissing him off, from Congressional oversight the way Obama did—or his national security excesses, or his refusal to prosecute even publicly confessed war criminals, or that he claims the right to execute Americans without due process. Turns out Democrats aren’t much different than Republicans when it comes to forgiving the hypocrisies and sins of their own. So all is well on that front. |
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