Thursday, November 20, 2008

Progressives are getting absolutely nothing from Obama

I completely understand those who could never vote for McCain who felt that compared to the Republican platform that Obama would be much closer to their goals if they were progressive, or what we now call progressive which means liberal, actually very liberal. The reality is Obama is not nor was he ever considered a progressive, even by those who consider themselves progressive. Progressives did not rank Obama as their first choice, or even their second choice, or even their third choice.

What happened though is it appears some did really believe that Obama was progressive, or that he would at least throw progressives a bone because they did help him win. Which is completely true, well except those who voted for Nader...

When is Obama going to appoint someone who reflects the progressive base that brought him to the White House?

He won the crucial Iowa caucuses on the strength of his anti-Iraq War stance, and many progressive peace and justice activists worked hard for him against John McCain.

So why in the world is he choosing Hillary Clinton to be Secretary of State when she was one of the loudest hawks on Iraq and threatened to obliterate 75 million Iranians?

And it’s not just Hillary.

Obama’s OMB pick, Peter Orzag, is a Clintonite disciple of Robert Rubin.

Obama’s AG pick, Eric Holder, is a Clintonite who represented Chiquita Bananas.

And Larry Summers’s name is still being bandied about for Treasury, even though Summers, while Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, forced the deregulation of our financial markets and imposed disaster capitalism on Russia.

Worse still, heading Obama’s transition team on intelligence matters are two former deputies to George Tenet, of all people.


Articles like the above one and like this, Bracing for a Major Disappointment are becoming more common place. Though there are still a few like Corn who hold some hope for potential harbingers of change.

2 comments:

Nunzia Rider said...

I think this is what typically happens on the far left -- not too dissimilar, when you get down to it, from what happens on the far right. Except the far right seems to hang on for longer. The far left tends to start disemboweling their chosen one almost immediately upon any hint that they might not get every single thing they wanted.

Barack Obama is a far sight more liberal than John McCain, and certainly than what appears to be the GOP base these days. I think he'll likely prove more liberal than Bill Clinton, who, in my humble opinion, could only just barely be referred to as a liberal in a whisper. Hillary Clinton is far more liberal than her husband during his presidency.

But look at it this way. It's been eight years since a Democrat was in the White House, and 20 years since the one before that one. Where exactly do these folk think Obama's going to find experienced government people? Or would they rather he picked only people who have no Washington experience. Maybe they would, but to my mind, that's pretty damned unrealistic. And I think Obama, if nothing else, is a pragmatist.

Unknown said...

Having been around people who create unrealistic expectations for quite some time and at one time being guilty of it myself...I understand why they feel disappointed but I agree with you that if they made the decision that they felt a Democratic President and a Democratic majority was what they wanted, then considering Obama did not really pretend to be overly progressive (let's face it from a policy perspective he was not that different from Hillary and he was not really anti-war like Dennis) they should expect what's happened to a certain degree. Corn raised some good points as to not everyone being from Chicago or Washington insiders.