Can we learn from the Obama tent-show?

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

We came into power and in a matter of months managed to create a situation where a republican party on life support finds itself with a real chance to re-do 1994.

This isn't a joke. This isn't a student council election or American Idol or choosing a Prom Queen. This entire political situation is a real-world disaster that will affect real-world people.

Everyone deserves blame, no doubt. But blame most sensibly attaches to the person who could have possibly done something to avert disaster... the person with the most power. That is why we blame head coaches, CEOs, captains of ships and generals.

When a CEO takes over a thriving company (as the Democratic Party was in 2008) and it goes bankrupt within a year or two it is theoretically possible that he did everything right, but it's an extraordinary claim.

Our problems were not beyond anticipation. In fact, everyone who is not a blithering idiot saw all of this stuff coming a mile away.

Republicans would not cooperate. The economy was heading for double-digit unemployment even with the tame stimulus. The American people were not suddenly committed progressives but were temporarily following a silly, transparent marketing scam out of shear desperation. And since none of that foolishness was required to win the presidency it's a self-inflicted wound. Anyone other than Kucinich and Gravel would have won the Presidency in a walk.

The hope-show revival meeting approach that amuses for a while but tends to end in bitter disillusionment wasn't necessary to elect a Democrat, it was necessary to elect a particular Democrat. Tent shows are held in tents for a reason... they are temporary. You blow into town, peddle heaven for three loud days and then move to another town before reality reasserts itself.

And surprise, surprise... people desperate enough to seek faith-healers and motivational gurus are serial suckers. They will drop your vapid con for another vapid con without turning a hair.

What's to be done? Maybe nothing. But perhaps at some future point a critical mass of people will have been burned often enough that they seek something other than quasi-religious hokum.

Nah. That won't happen either.

I'll let Paul Simon sum it up for me... he's a lot more talented then I am:

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to its knees
but it's all right, it's all right
for we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what's gone wrong

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/American-Tune-lyrics-Paul-Simon/47872910DB0822C54825698A000B45AC

[swilton]

1. Snake-oil salesmen

We got rid of one and hired another.

[IndianaGreen]

2. We replaced Bush with Elmer Gantry

A Chicago con man!

[Donnachaidh]

3. oh you betcha we did! And we got sold a real bill of goods

Of course, we're still supposed to believe the mythology. :eyes:

[cliffordu]

4. We have learned that there is no santa.

Only the struggle.

I stopped believing in Santa when I was a kid.

I'll be glad when this season of bitter disappointment is over and the confrontation of our delusions eases so we can get back to work.

This system is too far gone to give you what you want.

It cannot survive without unemployed, it cannot survive without the criminal class, and since the '50s it cannot survive without wars.


I am AMAZED that anyone is surprised when the populist candidate turns out to be less than that.

A progressive will NEVER attain the white house. EVER.

[xchrom]

5. Recommend

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Quixotic of you, but thanks

[xchrom]

8. Because we don't always agree doesn'

Mean we won't ever agree.
When we agree I'm likely to say so.

[Thickasabrick]

7. I'm disappointed in our "CEO"...but in reality - the situation that Shrub

set up for the incoming party...two wars, deepest recession since the depression, near global economic collapse, etc., I don't think even Superman could have managed the situation.

The question I keep asking myself....what would this situation look like if McCain and Palin were in power....possibly 3 wars, the economy would probably be worse...

There are many who think that it might have been a good thing for the republicans to win last time just to have to deal with the ugly mess they created....I dunno.

We'll see what 2010 brings.

[readmoreoften]

9. No one was asking for Superman. They were asking for an Honest Man.

And what we got was a shill for corporations like Humana and BlackwaterXE.

[Neecy]

10. You make a good point

A year ago, the postmortems were being written for the Republican party - a shrinking base, a regional party, doomed to extinction by changing demographics.

And it's not as though they've done anything since except reject and delay. They've presented not one single workable idea for health care, or job creation, or a coherent plan for Bush's wars.

By all rights and all logic, we should be on the cusp of a Democratic decade. You bet I blame the CEO. He allowed the Republicans back into the game with obtuse calls for bipartisanship with a crowd that doesn't want to play. The policies are as corporate-centered as Bush. Standing for nothing is hardly a winning political strategy.

[laughingliberal]

11. K & R nt