Robert Scheer: Obama By Default

[babylonsister]

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obama_by_default_20120405/?ln

Obama By Default
Posted on Apr 4, 2012

By Robert Scheer


The Republicans are a sick joke, and their narrow ideological stupidity has left rational voters no choice in the coming presidential election but Barack Obama. With Ron Paul out of it and warmongering hedge fund hustler Mitt Romney the likely Republican nominee, the GOP has defined itself indelibly as the party of moneyed greed and unfettered imperialism.

It is with chilling certainty that one can predict that a single Romney appointee to the Supreme Court would seal the coup of the 1 percent that already is well on its way toward purchasing the nation’s political soul. Romney is the quintessential Citizens United super PAC candidate, a man who has turned avarice into virtue and comes to us now as a once-moderate politician transformed into the ultimate prophet of imperial hubris, blaming everyone from the Chinese to laid-off American workers for our problems. Everyone, that is, except the Wall Street-dominated GOP, which midwifed the Great Recession under George W. Bush and now seeks to blame Obama for the enormous deficit spawned by the party’s wanton behavior.

snip//

The incumbent president has his failings, but compared to Mitt Romney he is a paradigm of considered and compassionate thought. As Obama put it in a speech before a journalism group this week, we are saddled with a national debt “that has grown over the last decade, primarily as a result of two wars, two massive tax cuts, and an unprecedented financial crisis, {and} that will have to be paid down.” But instead of dealing with the causes of that debt, Romney has called for an increase in military spending, continued tax breaks for the rich and reversal of the very limited restraints on corporate greed that Obama managed to get through Congress. He has endorsed the House-passed Paul Ryan budget, which, as Obama noted, even Newt Gingrich once derided as “radical” and an effort at “right-wing social engineering.”

Such radicalism leaves Obama as the “moderate” choice in the coming election, defending centrist programs that Republicans in the past helped originate. Indeed, the big attack on Obama will involve what the Republicans call Obamacare—which was modeled in every important respect on Romneycare, enacted when the GOP candidate was governor of Massachusetts.

The overarching lesson of this primary season is that Romney and the Republicans he seeks to win over are incapable of embracing the very moderation that, particularly in the golden era of Dwight Eisenhower, defined the party. Instead, they are now a reckless force bent on destroying the essential social contract that has been the basis of America’s economic and social progress.

As Obama said Tuesday in addressing the editors and reporters: “... We’re going to have to answer a central question as a nation. ... Can we succeed as a country where a shrinking number of people do exceedingly well, while a growing number struggle to get by? ... This is not just another run-of-the-mill political debate. ... It’s the defining issue of our time.”

[pangaia]

1. Scherr says...

"The Republicans are a sick joke, and their narrow ideological stupidity has left rational voters no choice..."

So true but----
THAT is the problem.. 'rational voters."" Hum.....

[zipplewrath]

2. All joking aside

This is a real problem for America. You have a country constructed upon a two party model, and you have one party that is irrational. That is a perscription for disaster. It is what is behind much of Rachel Maddow's book. We developed our "permanent war" structure in a very "bipartisan" fashion because when both parties "agree", there is no discussion and dissenting voices are shut out. Look at all the discussions that aren't being had AT ALL in Washington. Yes there are individual voices, but you won't find congressional or White House "action" at all on many of them.

You need two "real" rational parties so you can argue:

Single payer
War powers
GITMO
Energy policy
NAFTA
Immigration Policy
The Drug War

[libinnyandia]

4. I also blame the voters. They base their decisions without any real thought. A person may

consider the rational stand on an issue and then realize that if they vote rationally they will be punished at the polls. If the MSM did their job maybe things would be better. Locally we have a right wing newspaper and it seems every radio satation carries Limbaugh and Hannity.

[jade3000]

3. GOP is a train wreck

Even if you're a Republican, I don't see how you can be happy with the field.

[JohnnyChill]

5. It's not the engineer though, it's the actual train that's the problem...

It's not so much the field, it's more to do with what the party has morphed into. They could prop any Republican up as their leader and with the ideology they now support, they all would be seen as being a sick and unfunny joke.