Signing Out by Ken Silverstein ( Harper's Magazine)

[Jefferson23]

September 29, 11:37 AM, 2010

This is my last post here at Washington Babylon and I’ll be leaving my position as Harper’s Washington Editor (I will remain as a contributing editor to the magazine). I’ve received a fellowship at the Open Society Institute and will also be leading special investigations at Global Witness, which has offices in London and in Washington. My work for both will focus on long-term international investigations.

I moved to Washington in 1993, when a young, new Democratic president replaced George Bush and promised to reform politics and be a transformative leader. Backed by huge majorities in Congress and with public opinion squarely in his corner, he had the opportunity to shake things up and change American politics. Instead, he and his party squandered their chance through timidity, weak leadership, a lack of any original ideas and their refusal to confront special interest groups.

Here we are seventeen years later and there’s a young, new Democratic president who replaced George Bush and promised to reform politics and be a transformative leader. Backed by huge majorities in Congress….

Well, by now you can probably guess where this is heading.

I had low expectations for Obama as I always viewed him as a fairly conventional insider. But by any measure, his presidency has been a huge disappointment. It’s true that Obama inherited a terrible economy, but his policies were timid — which is no surprise given that his economic team was composed almost entirely of the same bankers and Wall Street insiders who paved the way for and profited from our bubble economy. There are now 43.6 million Americans living in poverty and more than 15 million out of work; that’s a scandal, and when there’s a Democrat in the White House and the party has ample majorities in Congress, it’s not credible to blame everything on obstructionism by the Republicans.


remainder in full: http://harpers.org/archive/2010/09/hbc-90007662

[grasswire]

1. well done, Harper's.

Thanks for speaking truth to power for so many decades now. Looking forward to many more years of this fine and courageous magazine.

[KoKo]

2. K&R.... Very interesting read and hope to see more of him in his new

role in the pages of Harpers.

[KoKo]

3. Actually, on further thought...some of us do feel like Ground Hog Day

over and over and over.. So much hope we had for Clinton..remember the inauguration where some of us were so pumped just like some of the younger Obama supporters felt. We thought our long Republican nightmare was over....

Little did we know...