Frodo and Sam
Pippin: Is there any hope, Gandalf, for Frodo and Sam?
Gandalf: There never was much hope. Just a fool’s hope.
from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
The above quotation has been banging around in my head for days now. It seems to capture so perfectly the despair I have been feeling since Obama was elected, and every single prediction I made about him has come true. But the truth I thought I knew is both more sinister than I ever could have believed, and far beyond the scope of my imagination.
I understood in 2007 that Obama had the same type of personality as Bush: narcissistic, swaggering, fundamentally incurious, far too attached to the religious right, and scornful of anyone or anything that would presume to stand in the way of his pursuit and retention of power. I wrote this comment on the post I linked above:
Ironically, Obama, while promising change, is really showing that he will deliver more of the same we’ve had for the past 7 years – happy talk and good propaganda, with no, or terrible, results. I’d take almost any of the other candidates over him.
I am not trying to toot my own horn here. Millions of Americans realized the same thing I did, after all, and I don’t think that my seeing Obama for who he was took a huge amount of intelligence or analytical ability. I merely used the same criteria I always use when choosing whom I want to be my President: will he or she do a good job? Clearly, the answer in Obama’s case was, “No, he won’t; in fact, he will do a terrible job.” What other criteria would a boss need when selecting an employee?
But for heaven’s sake, did anyone realize he’d be THIS bad? I ask this question often of PUMAs that I meet in person, or speak with on the blogs, and the answer is always, “No, I didn’t.” That’s my answer too. From his unwillingness to keep his promises to overturn the “conscience rule,” promote and sign FOCA, or end DADT; to his embrace of Reagan and Bush’s failed economic strategies (throwing taxpayer money at big corporations while the unemployment rate skyrockets and more and more Americans lose their homes); to keeping the cruel and pointless occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan going indefinitely (even “surging” in Afghanistan) and upping the ante in Pock-ee-ston; to his approval of mountaintop removal and promotion of poor environmental strategies like “clean coal” and corn ethanol; to his hard right turn into Dear Leader territory with his radical claims of executive privilege and attempts to keep Bush and Cheney (and possibly a key Dem or two) from being prosecuted for torture and warrantless wiretapping; to his recently-admitted desire to find “common ground” with Christian fundamentalists and his impending destruction of the separation of church and state; to his hostility towards universal health care, Medicare and Social Security and other “entitlement” programs near and dear to Democrats’ hearts; to his obvious elevation of unfriendly Arab countries over Israel: every day brings a fresh, 360-degree, head-rotating horror.
And yet, people wonder why I don’t give props to Obama for nominating Sonia Sotomayor, or pretty much for anything at all. Apart from the fact that I have very little time to write these days (two jobs, two radio shows and PUMA activism will do that to ya), are they smoking crack? Here’s a question for Obots and those who still think Obama is playing eleven-dimensional chess on Pluto: If Dubya nominated a woman to the Supreme Court, would you applaud him for advancing the cause of gender equity? Or would you think, “Well, Bush nominated her, so I don’t trust her to have my best interests at heart?”
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