Next Year, Pamplona

australiantimes.co.uk

Hey, first thing today I get an email from some Obama functionary which has in it a video of the President explaining the situation re the Great Compromise just past.  Delete.  Whew, that wasn't so hard.  As to the general situation, as it stands.  Well, personally, McCain would still have been even worse, and on top of that, Mrs. Palin would have had a national office instead of a tour bus. 

On the other hand.  Mr. Obama has proven to be profoundly naive when it comes to dealing with the Republican Party and long-time professional politicians.  This was actually one of the criticisms of him going in--it came in the form of, "he has no experience."  We saw this same problem in the protracted Health Care Bill negotiations.  Yes, eventually something called a Health Care Bill got passed.  In the mean time, the whole process came to look anything but transparent, and millions of voters were galvanized to put in power the raging no-nothings who have just been the engine of yet another piece of murky legislation posing as a solution to something or other that might have been a crisis or not.  Even Lawrence O'Donnell, who was Mr. Obama's biggest supporter, said last night that "the President blinked." 

Continuing to make every effort to look at the world as we find it realistically, I have to say that at the very least, Mr. Obama lost sight of the forest while studying certain particular leaves with the intensity only a 5th year botanist grad student can bring to a leaf.  And a body of elected Congresspersons have successfully held our economy hostage, and are even as we speak making plans for the next heist.  As to the Presidential choice which looms next year, it's looking more and more like a sunny day in Pamplona.   No one on the GOP side should ever be elected to anything, since they all believe in the destruction of the government and all its functions save possibly running aspects of a military industrial complex that prove structurally resistant to all out privatization.  That is--how can anyone seriously run to destroy the office they seek? 

But on the other hand.  Four more years of this kind of "leadership?"  What a tragedy that is.  Mr. Obama was probably suited to lead a body of people will true common interests who in fact all wished to achieve good outcomes.  He can give a good speech, and without a teleprompter.  He would probably be the greatest Secretary of State ever, under the command of a leader with a vision.  But Mr. Obama has now proven to be unable to lead against forces of malevolence and ill will.  And that capability is what America desperately needs today.  Mr. Obama is Polonious.  (That he didn't dither with regard to the bin Laden assassination or the Somali Pirates rescue says precious little about his skills at statecraft--a decent county sheriff could have made those two calls, let's face it.) 

These facts do not change another fact--in the United States we have a two-party system, and in the end we have to choose a Democrat or a Republican.  The so called third party option is in reality a fantasy vote, soothing the psychological discord which comes with internal conflict while masking the fact that voting for the third guy usually gives aid to the guy you would never vote for.  In other words, Nader not Gore = Bush. 

Next year, Pamplona.