Obama Myths and Realities

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.truthout.org/obama-myths-and-realities59514

It was a fairy-tale premise: Once upon a time, a charismatic prince appeared magically and gave an inspiring, instantly famous speech. Four years later, he was leading the most powerful kingdom in the world from the brink of disaster.

Believable, isn't it? But as Ken Silverstein revealed in Harpers, long before the 2008 presidential election, by the time Barack Obama gave his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention he "had already undergone an equally successful but much quieter audition with Democratic Party leaders and fund-raisers, without whose support he would surely never have been chosen for such a prominent role at the convention."

More than a year after becoming president, Obama has done much to justify that early establishment enthusiasm. Health "reform" has passed, but without single payer, a public option or a fundamental challenge to insurance company control of the system. Iraq is no longer front-page news, but the fighting continues; at least 50,000 troops will be stationed there indefinitely, Guantanamo remains open, and US entanglement in Afghanistan and Pakistan is deeper than ever. An economic meltdown has been averted and the president talks tough about Wall Street abuses, but top financial executive still rake in huge bonuses and have easy access to political players.

The nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the US Supreme Court is emblematic of Obama's approach. Rather than putting forward a principled progressive to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, he chose a Democratic insider with an ambiguous judicial philosophy. Described as a persuasive negotiator and "coalition builder," she is associated with the Clinton administration, Lawrence Summers, Harvard and Chicago politics. Although she criticized the Bush administration's position on torture, she is an advocate of executive discretion who thinks the president can hold terror suspects indefinitely and, in her current role, has used state secrets as an argument to suppress lawsuits.


MUCH more at the link -- READ it before you come out flaming please :eyes: