Fuck Obama

[Elihu]

But it's a damned funny thing when you think about it. I mean, all you white folks are sitting around bitching because the black fellow didn't save your asses. He let you down. How thoughtless of him . . .

and

Whatever his ancestry is we see him as a black man, so he represents,

i tried hard to find the scene where homer is on the government lab operating table. all the docs are standing stoically in scrubs and masks. he's completely in their power and about to be sedated. at this point he demands sprinkles for his donut. doc raises a culinary application device. click! homer is doused with a burst of candy sprinkles, we can hear them cascade off the floor and roll around. a generous portion of multi-colored variety adheres to his gooey upheld doughnut: "he he he, suckers!"

[Brentos]

whats fucked up, is that if they had filled in the loopholes for the wealthy and got more taxes, this debt rating drop may/probably would not of happened. The big boys are multinational now anyways.

[Simulist]

But it's a damned funny thing when you think about it. I mean, all you white folks are sitting around bitching because the black fellow didn't save your asses. He let you down.

How thoughtless of him . . .

ahem

But you have said that Obama is the best president in thirty years.

And, depending on whose side you're really on, I suppose he might be — average Americans and the poor have gotten poorer and the very rich have gotten even richer.

By the way, Freemason9, whose side are you on?

[2012 Countdown]

Wow, so now its gotten so desperate that you have to use implied racism and white guilt? It won't work, much more the apologist...and you are looking like the racist here.

Pathetic.

[freemason9]

But it's a damned funny thing when you think about it. I mean, all you white folks are sitting around bitching because the black fellow didn't save your asses. He let you down.

How thoughtless of him . . .

ahem

But you have said that Obama is the best president in thirty years.

And, depending on whose side you're really on, I suppose he might be — average Americans and the poor have gotten poorer and the very rich have gotten even richer.

By the way, Freemason9, whose side are you on?

that's a fine fuckin' question. let me think on that for a while, and i'll get back with you.

hey, who put the celery in the salad? that's just wrong

[elfismiles]

Found em... well, the Ron Paul one ... and a Wall Street one:

Fuck Ron Paul
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13022

Fuck Wall St.
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=20581

Still scroogling like crazy for the old FUCK BUSH thread.

I am positive there was a FUCK BUSH (and a FUCK RON PAUL) thread that was the reason behind there being this FUCK OBAMA thread. And this all led to Jeff's request to not create new FUCK SO-AND-SO threads.

Moving forward:

Please refrain from obscenity in the subject line. (I'm talking Carlin's seven words here.)

Please refrain from directing obscenities towards other board members in the body of the post.

the use of obscenity (added Dec 3, 09)
viewtopic.php?f=36&t=26112

It's like its been memory-holed and there are just too many posts with Fuck and Bush in the threads to come up in the search engines.

Not sure if you are really serious, but I'd have to say that I think by virtue of RI's entire 'body of posts', there is an implied 'fuck you' to Bush and his entire crew. Maybe there was a 'fuck Bush' thread on the old board, I cannot recall one though. Bush is/was a clown or puppet just idiotically doing what he was told. With Obama, there is a sense of betrayal, so this thread is a natural consequence of that, imo.


btw, Obama, at this very moment, is selling us out yet again. We are about to be royally fucked.

[2012 Countdown]

Maxine Waters Says Congressional Black Caucus "Getting Tired" Of Covering For Obama
Zeke Miller | Aug. 17, 2011

Rep. Maxine Waters, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, says the group is "getting tired" of making excuses for President Barack Obama's job creation record.

Speaking at Wayne State Community College in Detroit yesterday along with other members of the caucus, Waters, who is under investigation by the House ethics committee, said "we don't put pressure on the president."

Waters said Obama is not paying enough attention to the problems of some black Americans — with his three-day bus tour not stopping in black communities.


The exchange, transcribed by The Washington Examiner, is below:

"Let me tell you why. We don't put pressure on the president because ya'll love the president. You love the president. You're very proud to have a black man -- first time in the history of the United States of America. If we go after the president too hard, you're going after us."

"The Congressional Black Caucus loves the president too. We're supportive of the president, but we're getting tired, ya'll. We're getting tired. And so, what we want to do is, we want to give the president every opportunity to show what he can do and what he's prepared to lead on. We want to give him every opportunity, but our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don't know what the strategy is. We don't know why on this trip that he's in the United States now, he's not in any black community. We don't know that."

"All I'm saying to you is, we're politicians. We're elected officials. We are trying to do the right thing and the best thing. When you let us know it is time to let go, we'll let go."

Watch the video of the exchange below:


Link-
http://www.businessinsider.com/maxine-w ... z1VJfZi1S4

[2012 Countdown]

What Might Martin Luther King Say To Obama Now?
August 18, 2011 at 08:07:17
By David Ruhlen

Much else has been forgiven, or blithely ignored, but for many this was the last straw.

Obama's failure to mount even a mild defense of the social contract during the fake debt ceiling crisis has caused many to ask if the man ever really wanted to be president, or was he simply delivering exactly what was expected.

Before we get to the matter of his intent, let's state the obvious, that, of course, Obama wanted it. Like Sauron in search of the One Ring, Obama bent all his will toward the presidency. His rise to prominence could not have been better scripted -- early years as a community activist, seven years in the Illinois state senate, and two years as a US Senator set the stage for his presidential bid. Along the way, he crafted a compelling narrative which culminated in his keynote address to the 2004 Democratic Convention. He became the rising star of the Democratic Party on the basis of his style and oratory and message of hope.

More interesting than whether he wanted the presidency, is what he wanted to do with it when he got it. And candidate Obama was quite clear about what he would do:

- "We need a President who sees government not as a tool to enrich well-connected friends and high-priced lobbyists, but as the defender of fairness and opportunity for every American;

- We cannot settle for a second Gilded Age in America. And yet we find ourselves once more in the midst of a new economy where more wealth is in danger of falling into fewer hands; where the average CEO now earns more in one day than an average worker earns in an entire year;

- It's time we had a President who tells the drug companies and the oil companies and the insurance industry that while they get a seat at the table in Washington, they don't get to buy every chair;

- I know that in every campaign, politicians make promises about cleaning up Washington. So it's easy to become cynical. I know that for me, reform isn't just the rhetoric of a campaign; it's been a cause of my career;

- As a candidate for President, I've tried to lead by example, turning down all contributions from federal lobbyists and the political action committees that the special interests use to pass out campaign money;

- We will return government to the people by bringing government to the people -- by making it open and transparent so that anyone can see that our business is the people's business;

- It's time to renew a people's politics in this country -- to ensure that the hopes and concerns of average Americans speak louder in Washington than the hallway whispers of high-priced lobbyists;

- Early in his presidency, Teddy Roosevelt gave a famous speech before farmers and factory workers that laid out his vision of what government at its best should be. He said, "The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us, and therefore in public life, that man is the best representative...whose endeavor it is not to represent any special class or interest, but to represent all...by working for our common country." It's time to get to work once more for our common country. It's time we had a politics that reflected that commitment."

These remarks, from a 2007 campaign speech called Taking our Government Back, are consistent with his repeated themes of hope and change; they are also completely at odds with the present-day reality of his administration. Of all the statements above -- and all should now make Obama wince in shame -- the last is particularly disheartening. At no point since his election has Obama "laid out his vision of what government at its best should be", much less has he defended it. The "audacity of hope", the "fierce urgency of now", "Yes, We Can" and "Change We Can Believe In" -- these phrases have long-since been sacrificed on the alter of expediency. Worse still, they have become gag lines, joining other fan-favorites like "read my lips".

------

And among Obama's failures are these. His health bill, the signature accomplishment in his first term, is a boon to Big Pharma, Insurance, and the health operators. He is a Nobel Peace Prize winner who has doubled-down on Afghanistan, continued the war in Iraq, and started new actions in Yemen, Pakistan, Libya and perhaps (soon) Iran. He has not closed Guantanimo as promised; he has extended the Patriot Act and he continues the surveillance of American citizens on an industrial scale; his administration has pursued whistleblowers with an uncommon zeal; and his use of drone attacks is unprecedented, and in countries with which the US is not at war. He has chosen austerity over employment, as he delivers to the monied elite on virtually every domestic issue. And from the 2008 campaign, again in his own words, this is some of what he promised:

- "You said that the time has come to tell the lobbyists who think their money and their influence speak louder than our voices that they don't own this government -- we do. And we are here to take it back.

- Change is building an economy that rewards not just wealth, but the work and workers who created it. It's understanding that the struggles facing working families can't be solved by spending billions of dollars on more tax breaks for big corporations and wealthy CEOs, but by giving the middle-class a tax break, and investing in our crumbling infrastructure, and transforming how we use energy, and improving our schools, and renewing our commitment to science and innovation. Its understanding that fiscal responsibility and shared prosperity can go hand-in-hand.

- And if people tell you that we cannot afford to invest in education or health care or fighting poverty, you just remind them that we are spending $10 billion a month in Iraq. And if we can spend that much money in Iraq, we can spend some of that money right here in Cincinnati, and in big cities and small towns in every corner of this country."

The disconnect between President Obama and Martin Luther King Jr. is enormous, almost as great as the disconnect between President Obama and Candidate Obama. More than just his failure to deliver on anything that remotely resembled his campaign rhetoric, Obama's betrayal has disenfranchised and disheartened millions, both at home and around the world. Afterall, if Barack Obama turned out to be such a monumental failure, and a calculating one at that, what possible redemption is there for electoral politics anywhere? Obama told us that "reform isn't just the rhetoric of a campaign; it's been a cause of my career". And by skillfully mimicking the tone, language and symbolism of the most distinguished black man in history -- one of the most singularly distinguished men of any color in history -- people believed him. Turns out he was actually the Manchurian Candidate for the monied class.

So, what would Martin Luther King say to Barack Obama? We'll never know, but the Reverend might remain tactfully silent about endorsing him for a second term.
-----
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/What ... 5-765.html

[Bruce Dazzling]

Obama, Monsanto, GMOs, the private/corporate revolving door, etc...

You’re Appointing Who? Please Obama, Say It’s Not So!
By Jeffrey Smith
Institute For Responsible Technology
Friday, Aug 19, 2011

The person who may be responsible for more food-related illness and death than anyone in history has just been made the US food safety czar. This is no joke.

Here’s the back story.

When FDA scientists were asked to weigh in on what was to become the most radical and potentially dangerous change in our food supply—the introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods—secret documents now reveal that the experts were very concerned. Memo after memo described toxins, new diseases, nutritional deficiencies, and hard-to-detect allergens. They were adamant that the technology carried “serious health hazards,” and required careful, long-term research, including human studies, before any genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be safely released into the food supply.

But the biotech industry had rigged the game so that neither science nor scientists would stand in their way. They had placed their own man in charge of FDA policy and he wasn’t going to be swayed by feeble arguments related to food safety. No, he was going to do what corporations had done for decades to get past these types of pesky concerns. He was going to lie.

Dangerous Food Safety Lies

When the FDA was constructing their GMO policy in 1991-2, their scientists were clear that gene-sliced foods were significantly different and could lead to “different risks” than conventional foods. But official policy declared the opposite, claiming that the FDA knew nothing of significant differences, and declared GMOs substantially equivalent.

This fiction became the rationale for allowing GM foods on the market without any required safety studies whatsoever! The determination of whether GM foods were safe to eat was placed entirely in the hands of the companies that made them—companies like Monsanto, which told us that the PCBs, DDT, and Agent Orange were safe.

GMOs were rushed onto our plates in 1996. Over the next nine years, multiple chronic illnesses in the US nearly doubled—from 7% to 13%. Allergy-related emergency room visits doubled between 1997 and 2002 while food allergies, especially among children, skyrocketed. We also witnessed a dramatic rise in asthma, autism, obesity, diabetes, digestive disorders, and certain cancers.

In January of this year, Dr. P. M. Bhargava, one of the world’s top biologists, told me that after reviewing 600 scientific journals, he concluded that the GM foods in the US are largely responsible for the increase in many serious diseases.

In May, the American Academy of Environmental Medicine concluded that animal studies have demonstrated a causal relationship between GM foods and infertility, accelerated aging, dysfunctional insulin regulation, changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system, and immune problems such as asthma, allergies, and inflammation

In July, a report by eight international experts determined that the flimsy and superficial evaluations of GMOs by both regulators and GM companies “systematically overlook the side effects” and significantly underestimate “the initial signs of diseases like cancer and diseases of the hormonal, immune, nervous and reproductive systems, among others.”

The Fox Guarding the Chickens

If GMOs are indeed responsible for massive sickness and death, then the individual who oversaw the FDA policy that facilitated their introduction holds a uniquely infamous role in human history. That person is Michael Taylor. He had been Monsanto’s attorney before becoming policy chief at the FDA. Soon after, he became Monsanto’s vice president and chief lobbyist.

This month Michael Taylor became the senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA. He is now America’s food safety czar. What have we done?

The Milk Man Cometh

While Taylor was at the FDA in the early 90′s, he also oversaw the policy regarding Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone (rbGH/rbST)—injected into cows to increase milk supply.

The milk from injected cows has more pus, more antibiotics, more bovine growth hormone, and most importantly, more insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1). IGF-1 is a huge risk factor for common cancers and its high levels in this drugged milk is why so many medical organizations and hospitals have taken stands against rbGH. A former Monsanto scientist told me that when three of his Monsanto colleagues evaluated rbGH safety and discovered the elevated IGF-1 levels, even they refused to drink any more milk—unless it was organic and therefore untreated.

Government scientists from Canada evaluated the FDA’s approval of rbGH and concluded that it was a dangerous facade. The drug was banned in Canada, as well as Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. But it was approved in the US while Michael Taylor was in charge. His drugged milk might have caused a significant rise in US cancer rates. Additional published evidence also implicates rbGH in the high rate of fraternal twins in the US.

Taylor also determined that milk from injected cows did not require any special labeling. And as a gift to his future employer Monsanto, he wrote a white paper suggesting that if companies ever had the audacity to label their products as not using rbGH, they should also include a disclaimer stating that according to the FDA, there is no difference between milk from treated and untreated cows.

Taylor’s disclaimer was also a lie. Monsanto’s own studies and FDA scientists officially acknowledged differences in the drugged milk. No matter. Monsanto used Taylor’s white paper as the basis to successfully sue dairies that labeled their products as rbGH-free.

Will Monsanto’s Wolff Also Guard the Chickens?

As consumers learned that rbGH was dangerous, they refused to buy the milk. To keep their customers, a tidal wave of companies has publicly committed to not use the drug and to label their products as such. Monsanto tried unsuccessfully to convince the FDA and FTC to make it illegal for dairies to make rbGH-free claims, so they went to their special friend in Pennsylvania—Dennis Wolff. As state secretary of agriculture, Wolff unilaterally declared that labeling products rbGH-free was illegal, and that all such labels must be removed from shelves statewide. This would, of course, eliminate the label from all national brands, as they couldn’t afford to create separate packaging for just one state.

Fortunately, consumer demand forced Pennsylvania’s Governor Ed Rendell to step in and stop Wolff’s madness. But Rendell allowed Wolff to take a compromised position that now requires rbGH-free claims to also be accompanied by Taylor’s FDA disclaimer on the package.

President Obama is considering Dennis Wolff for the top food safety post at the USDA. Yikes!

Rumor has it that the reason why Pennsylvania’s governor is supporting Wolff’s appointment is to get him out of the state—after he “screwed up so badly” with the rbGH decision. Oh great, governor. Thanks.

Ohio Governor Gets Taylor-itus

Ohio not only followed Pennsylvania’s lead by requiring Taylor’s FDA disclaimer on packaging, they went a step further. They declared that dairies must place that disclaimer on the same panel where rbGH-free claims are made, and even dictated the font size. This would force national brands to re-design their labels and may ultimately dissuade them from making rbGH-free claims at all. The Organic Trade Association and the International Dairy Foods Association filed a lawsuit against Ohio. Although they lost the first court battle, upon appeal, the judge ordered a mediation session that takes place today. Thousands of Ohio citizens have flooded Governor Strickland’s office with urgent requests to withdraw the states anti-consumer labeling requirements.

Perhaps the governor has an ulterior motive for pushing his new rules. If he goes ahead with his labeling plans, he might end up with a top appointment in the Obama administration

[Simulist]

Even if Obama said it wasn't so, why should anyone believe him?

[StarmanSkye]

IMHO, Obama is the living proof that the gap between Republican and Democrat is so infinitesmal you can't even slip a razor-blade in between them -- like those massive Aztec and Mayan stone walls made of huge blocks fitted so tight, without mortar, that a knife-blade can't be slipped between them.

For over 60 years, there has been only ONE party leading in America, and that has been the 2-party-front monopolism of special moneyed interests, ie Corporatism. The facade has been getting more and more obvious every election cycle, to the point where they hardly even TRY to keep the con going, the psyop has worked so well much of the public persist in their deluded belief out of intellectual momentum, or with the passionate intensity of True Believers who unconsciously KNOW they can't bear the truth so they cling to the well-worn lie with the stubborn tenacity of desperate zealots.

I suspect if Martin Luther King could weigh-in on Obama, he'd be sorely tempted to show he could swear a blue-streak and hold his own among even the most seasoned multilingual tatooed sailor, 30-year career first sergeant or tobacco-spitting wagon-driving teamster (though he probably wouldn't out of deference to his principles and faith).

Just sayin'.

[Simulist]

Right on, Starman.

As if on cue*, some of the many flapping mouths that oh-so-luv to lecture (On. And on. And on and on…) about "all the very REAL differences" between "the two major parties" will be emerging again over the next several months to gin up support for "the lesser of two evils" shtick.

(Personally, I'm looking forward to them.)

_________
* And I'm no longer at all sure that much of this isn't cued up and orchestrated by some flunky division in Cyber Command.

[Nordic]

I'm currently visiting my super-right-wing Dad and stepmom, both of them serious heavy-duty Obama haters and fearers.

Today I asked them "what liberal things has Obama actually done? Name one."

They were silent. They couldn't think of any. It was actually a perversely pleasurable moment for me

[Gouda]

[Meddling] Attorney General of N.Y. Is Said to Face [White House] Pressure on Bank Foreclosure Deal

By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: August 21, 2011

Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, has come under increasing pressure from the Obama administration to drop his opposition to a wide-ranging state settlement with banks over dubious foreclosure practices, according to people briefed on discussions about the deal.

In recent weeks, Shaun Donovan, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and high-level Justice Department officials have been waging an intensifying campaign to try to persuade the attorney general to support the settlement, said the people briefed on the talks.

...

Mr. Schneiderman and top prosecutors in some other states have objected to the proposed settlement with major banks, saying it would restrict their ability to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing in a variety of areas, including the bundling of loans in mortgage securities.

...

Not surprising, the large banks, which are eager to reach a settlement, have grown increasingly frustrated with Mr. Schneiderman. Bank officials recently discussed asking Mr. Donovan for help in changing the attorney general’s mind, according to a person briefed on those talks.

...

Terms of the possible settlement under consideration center on foreclosure improprieties like so-called robo-signing and submitting apparently forged documents to the courts to speed up the process of removing troubled borrowers from homes. Negotiations on this deal have been led by Thomas J. Perrelli, associate attorney general of the United States, and Tom Miller, the attorney general of Iowa.

...

Characterizing her conversation with Mr. Schneiderman that day as “not unpleasant,” Ms. Wylde [Kathryn S. Wylde, a member of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York who has criticized Mr. Schneiderman for bringing the lawsuit] said in an interview on Thursday that she had told the attorney general “it is of concern to the industry that instead of trying to facilitate resolving these issues, you seem to be throwing a wrench into it. Wall Street is our Main Street — love ’em or hate ’em. They are important and we have to make sure we are doing everything we can to support them unless they are doing something indefensible.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/busin ... hneiderman

A couple of days later...

Top New York prosecutor removed from committee investigating mortgage abuses.

By REUTERS
Published: August 23, 2011

Eric T. Schneiderman, the top prosecutor in New York, was removed on Tuesday from a committee of state attorneys general investigating mortgage abuses.

In recent months, Mr. Schneiderman has voiced concerns over a proposed settlement between major banks and a coalition of federal and state officials over claims of foreclosure abuses. He has come under increasing pressure to approve the deal.

The Iowa attorney general’s office is leading the investigation and on Tuesday sent an e-mail to other lawyers involved in the investigation to announce the decision. “Effective immediately, the New York attorney general’s office has been removed from the executive committee of the robosigning multistate,” a lawyer from the Iowa office wrote, using the shorthand for the investigation, which is looking into so-called robo-signing of mortgage documents and other abuses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/24/busin ... hneiderman

[beeline]

Link

Helpless President Lit

Call it "Helpless President Lit." A recent Ezra Klein column is the latest in a growing genre which celebrates our Commander-in-Chief, not as a powerful leader, but as a perennial victim. It portrays him as someone who's powerless over other people's actions, and sometimes even over his own. In this genre the President is forever at the whim of forces beyond his control, even when he has a supermajority in the Senate and a strong majority in the House.

Helpless President Lit is a form of melodrama. It's like an old-fashioned cliffhanger with the President replacing Little Nell, that noble young creature who's forever being tied to a train track or suspended over a gorge by some dastardly villain. Except the country's about to get hurt, not him - and nobody's coming to the rescue.

There'd be no point discussing this backward-looking and speculative genre if it didn't encourage the President and his supporters to continue on such a destructive course of action. I agree with Klein and other critics who say we focus too much attention on the Presidency. But this discussion affects our thinking and behavior at all levels of political engagement.

The only thing more destructive than expecting too much out of our leaders - or ourselves - is expecting too little.

The Rules of the Genre

There are strict conventions in "Helpless President Lit." Its authors must characterize the President's progressive critics as naive. They must say his detractors are expecting more than any President can deliver. The President must be portrayed as a victim of circumstance, powerless in the face of Republican intransigence.

This calls for the frequent use of code words like "realistic," designed to persuade the reader that its plausible to describe the most powerful executive in the world as a helpless creature of our political climate, rather than someone with the platform and the power to reshape it.

Forget all that talk about a "post-imperial Presidency." To them it's a post-Presidential Presidency. Can you imagine George W. Bush's supporters talking this way?

Once the President's helplessness has been attested to, attention is then directed toward the his dissatisfied progressive constituents. The tone that's employed may vary from witheringly critical to mildly and politely condescending.

With each new work of "weak President lit," straw men tremble in fear. But real criticisms, most of which are clear-eyed and practical - and yes, realistic - go unheard. And a Democratic President is encouraged by his enablers to continue down a destructive - and self-destructive - path.

"... shadows on our eyes leave us helpless, helpless, helpless."

Klein's piece is called "What Could Obama Have Done?" The answer seems to be nothing - except possibly to be a little less awesome.

Klein writes:

I've never been able to come up with a realistic scenario in which a lot more got done, the economy is in much better shape, and the president is dramatically more popular ...

Indeed, if you had taken me aside in 2008 and sketched out the first three years of Obama's presidency, I would have thought you were being overoptimistic: an $800 billion stimulus package -- recall that people were only talking in the $200-$300 billion range back then -- followed by near-universal health-care reform, followed by financial regulation ... (don't ask don't tell, Bin Laden, Gaddafi, etc) ... There was no way. And yet all that did get done.

But the administration hasn't able to get unemployment under control -- perhaps it couldn't have gotten unemployment under control -- and so all of that has not been nearly enough.

Something important's being overlooked here. Obama got what he requested - roughly $770 billion - and said he was satisfied with it. That left many voters with no choice but to blame him for the outcome.

Realistic Action

Klein employs another "helpless President" convention when he challenges his readers to rebut him if they dare - but only, he cautions, "if you have a realistic vision for what an actual president operating in the American political system could have done differently."

Ezra, you're on. Here are five realistic things the President could have - and should have - done:

One: Genuinely help struggling homeowners, using funds that were approved and allocated, rather than torturing them with the HAMP "extend and pretend" program which primarily benefited big banks.

Two: Direct the Attorney General to aggressively pursue criminal indictments of executives at major financial institutions, rather than agreeing to 'slap-on-the-wrist' SEC settlements or pretending that minor, separate investigations are part of a broader global mortgage program. (The Attorney General could have started with AIG, moved on to JPMorgan Chase, and then turned to the drug-laundering operations within Wells Fargo Bank. More info on bank criminality here.)

Three: Push for a public option in that health bill -- the one that Ezra describes as achieving "near universal coverage," but which really forces many Americans to buy inadequate private health insurance at exorbitant prices. (When everybody else was telling us this bill would eventually be wildly popular, some of us were predicting its political impact much more accurately.)

Four: Press the Senate for a much stronger financial reform bill, instead of consistently trying to water it down through the efforts of Tim Geithner and other Administration officials. We saw a number of Republicans like Tom Coburn and Chuck Grassley cross the aisle and vote for robust reforms, but only if they were brought to an open vote on the Senate floor.

Five: Request a stimulus that was big enough to work, when it had the political capital to do it. Smart economists in the Administration knew that at least $1.2 trillion was needed. Only about $500 billion of his $770 billion initial package was in the form of much-needed spending. The rest consisted of tax cuts, some of which could have had stimulus effect and much of which didn't.

Most importantly, the President could have used his "bully pulpit" to advocate, advocate, advocate -- for jobs, for investment, for regulation, and for the role of government in American life. Instead he has preferred to adopt the destructive "above left and right" posture that's undermined his party and weakened him in the eyes of the public.

Sins of Commission


But the most destructive aspects of this Presidency haven't been the things he hasn't done. They've been the things he hasdone, Here's a sampler:

•Creating a "Deficit Commission" and stacking it with people who are anti-entitlement, anti-government, and oppose reasonable tax rates for the wealthy.

•Repeating the misguided austerity rhetoric of the right.

•Repeatedly targeting Social Security.

•Flip-flopping on key campaign positions - e.g. on the public option and the so-called "Cadillac tax" on health plans, as well as on methodology for cost-of-living adjustments that would hurt the middle class, the elderly, and the disabled.

And that doesn't include his continuation of the Bush anti-civil liberties initiatives, the targeting of whistleblowers, and the aggressive pursuit of independent news sources.

It's Not About Him

This is the point in the conversation where somebody says "Why do you hate the President?" The answer is I don't hate him. We could speculate endlessly about why he's made the choices he's made. But, whatever his motivations, he's made a lot of mistakes and squandered a lot of opportunities. That's hurt the country, and it's also hurt his electoral prospects.

If anybody thinks otherwise, they're not being "realistic." They're not reading the polls - not his approval ratings, and not the avalanche of polling which shows that austerity economics is as unpopular with the public (including most Republicans) as it is with smart economists.Right Action

This is also the moment when somebody usually says "You may be right, but this isn't the time to criticize Obama. Do you want President Bachmann to run this country?"

This is exactly the time to criticize the President, because it's not too late for him to take some aggressive steps to repair some of the damage. In fact, here are some actions he can take right now:

•Use his executive authority to implement a strong, smart, fair assistance program for underwater homeowners - one that helps homeowners and not banks.

•Investigate criminal activity in the nation's largest banks.

•Propose a bold jobs program, even if it will be shot down by Republicans. And if you're as concerned about his reelection as you should be, make that "especially if it will be shut down by Republicans."

•Announce that he will honor his campaign pledges by refusing to raise the eligibility age for Medicare or Social Security, and by ending his efforts to lower Social Security benefits with a cost of living adjustment that's even more unfair than the one we have today.

What the President's defenders don't understand is that he's being criticized for what he does and doesn't do, not for failing to get better results. The Bhagavad-Gita says "a wise person is judged by her actions, not by the fruits of her actions." That's the standard by which the President - or any of us - should be judged.

Co-Presidential No More

I'll say this for "Helpless President Lit." At least it's not "What Would Hillary Have Done? Lit," a genre which is not only speculative but pointless. (I reject the choice anyway, even hypothetically. The right question is, "What would someone who was not a misguided 'Third Way' Democrat have done?" The Barack/Hillary exercise can never answer that question.)

Obama's defenders need to stop being enablers and let him know that this kind of behavior can't go on - for his sake as well as theirs. The "helpless President" movement must be "codependent no more."

The moral? We need to be more a little more self-reliant and a little less dependent on charismatic leaders. A good way to start is by asking White House for more action to fix our broken economy.