It's time to give up on Barack Obama. The man we elected with so much hope back in November--and how long ago that seems now--has utterly failed. After six months in office, he has failed to turn the United States into the Big Rock Candy Mountain that we all hoped and believed he would. Our economy, wrecked by eight years of tax cuts for the rich, housing bubbles and wars on an abstract noun, has not rebounded to 100% employment, highest-ever GDP levels and an average personal net worth equal to Bill Gates's. Obama has failed to utterly revamp a pervasively dysfunctional healthcare system that has evolved over decades and has powerful supporters and lobbyists working tirelessly against any change. We expected that by now, for the price of a Big Gulp, every American would be able to have an organ of his or her choice replaced with a brand-new transplanted organ just for the hell of it, every American would be able to have his or her fat sucked out in massive liposuction factories, and every American would be able to have his or her penis relocated to the top of his or her head. I have been waiting patiently to have my penis moved to the top of my head, President Obama, and I'm tired of waiting. Perhaps most egregiously, we the people have owned General Motors for some months now, and we don't even have flying cars yet. I want my flying car! (A red one.) Dammit!
What has President Obama been doing these past six months? Does our President not realize that by now a President McCain would have brought the economy back to health by immediately and drastically cutting taxes on the wealthiest 2% of the population, just the way George W. Bush did? (But this time, it would have worked.) Even if the tax cuts wouldn't--couldn't--take effect until next year at the earliest, just knowing that rich people would have a little bit more of our money in their pockets would have made all of us feel so much better that we'd have gone out and bought a shit-ton of crap that we don't need. If Obama had cut taxes on the wealthiest 2% of families, I would totally have bought a microwave lawnmower, and I don't even have a lawn.
Plus, Vice President Sarah Palin would have kept our spirits up by shooting animals on the White House lawn and might perhaps have also potted the occasional member of the White House press corps. Has Joe Biden shot anything on the White House lawn? (I mean, besides his mouth off.) I think not. Not so much as a squirrel. Shame, shame on President Obama, and on his Vice President.
I will concede that it is true that it took several long years for the economy to start perking up when Franklin Roosevelt pursued the exact same Keynesian stimulus policies that Obama is now pursuing, but we do not live in the 1930s. (Well, my Great-Uncle Frank does, but he has shrapnel in his head.) We live in the 00s, um, the Oughts, the, er…years between 2000 and 2009, inclusive. This is the age of FaceBook and the iPhone and Twitter, not the age of…what was the 30s the age of, anyway? Talkies? Speakeasies? (I would totally go to a speakeasy, even though I live in the years between 2000 and 2009, inclusive; usually it's very hard for me to speak.) (But I digress.) We expected the stimulus to have an effect on the economy immediately, damn it, despite the fact that the vast majority of the money hasn't actually been paid out yet. So? As they say on some reality show that I don't watch, "Make it work!" Why has no one gone back in time and spent that money in the past? I'm not waiting years for the stimulus to work; I'm dumping Obama now, before he has a chance to fail. How much more disappointment can I take?
Don't even get me started on what a crushing blow Obama's healthcare plan has already dealt me. Nowhere in his plan do I find any money for Ebola research. What if I go to Africa, eat a nice dinner of roasted monkey brains, and contract Ebola? Am I expected to just bleed out from every orifice because the socialist government won't pay for Ebola treatments? Let's say I get a slight ache in, for example, just for the sake of specificity, my left heinie-cheek. How do I get three separate MRIs and an exploratory surgery if that's what I choose to do? I don't, that's how. I want my MRIs, unless it's the MRI of Doom on House, which seems to blow up quite a lot. What do I care if a thousand kids in the ghetto have to go to the emergency room to be treated for the flu, and some of them die of whooping cough? I don't know them. I do know that my ass-ache could be cancer. Or Ebola. And I'm not willing to take the chance that under the President's healthcare plan, which I don't know all, or even any, of the details of, I would not get hundreds of thousands of dollars of expensive and unnecessary treatment. Plus, I expect to live forever; where is the provision for that in Obama's so-called healthcare so-called plan, huh? Most importantly, I want to be able to choose my own doctor, not have my doctor chosen by the government. I choose Dr. Christiaan Barnard, the pioneering heart-transplant surgeon. Just to be clear, I don't need a heart transplant; I just want one. And so what if Dr. Barnard has been dead for several years now? I have insurance; dig him up. Would Obama's healthcare plan dig up a famous dead surgeon for me? I don't think so. Throw the bum out now, that's what I say. He's had his chance.
Like all Americans, I have the attention span of a gnat on crack, and a vast need for immediate gratification. If President Obama can't satisfy me immediately--and I don't mean just politically, but also emotionally and sexually--I will vilify him in the press and in blogs and in graffiti; I will refer to him as the Obamanation, a pun that never gets old or stale and was never lame to start with, or even kind of crazy and creepy with its biblical end-times resonance; and I will never vote for him again, even if the person who runs against him is an American Nazi or a fungus creature. I hope he keeps this in mind as he attempts to meet these deadlines I am about to lay out for him:
End of July: bridge the racial divide that 400 years of slavery and institutional racism have left as their legacy.
Mid-August: end all wars everywhere; ensure eternal peace.
Final day of August vacation: personally find a cure for cancer.
Thanksgiving: go back in time to kill Adolf Hitler when the future German dictator was still a child. (Because of the difficulty of this, I'm willing to wait until maybe the end of the year, but not a minute longer; I'm very busy around the holidays.) (Also, he could go back to last year and start distributing the stimulus money then.) (See above.)
Plus, he had better not preempt or postpone any episodes of How I Met Your Mother with any damn speeches, even if they're to announce that he's killed Little Hitler. I mean, who listens to that crap?
You know what? Forget the deadlines; I'm sorry, but I'm just giving up on the guy. We need closure and we need to move on from this Presidency. So let's do as the Brits do--very smart people, the Brits; invented English Leather and the English Channel, and also have those cute little accents that make us feel so inferior--and not wait any longer; let's have the 2012 election now, today.
The public ice-cream fountains and the new top tax rate of -5% that Obama promised have simply not materialized, and I say I've had it. I say I'm done waiting. I say I'm ready to give President Palin a chance.
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And how come he can't throw a 90mph fastball? What kind of President is that?
I hope the professional Obama haters of the LEFT read this essay...and that reading it causes them to want to get their collective heads out of their collective asses!
And, ohmigod, yes! If Pres. Obama interrupts one more episode of How I Met Your Mother, I'm totally voting for Palin. It would be much more entertaining, which is really all I want out of life: entertainment. Thank you.
marytkelly, I just calls 'em like other people see 'em.
VR, even about the time travel? I thought that might be a little radical for some people.
Thank you, Harp.
ocular, seriously, man. Mark Buehrle for President!
Yes, T.S., your views just suddenly made all kinds of sense to me. Of course, I'd been hitting myself in the head with a shovel just before that.
Also: Bush's tax cuts were in the range of 2.8 trillion, which is 4 times the size of the so-called Wall Street bailout, most of which was, as you correctly pointed out, initiated by the Bush administration, and so should be totted up to him, not Obama.
Myriad: I think we knew you were kidding.
Thank you for getting it, Frank. I hope the people you mentioned read it too.
Mrs. Michaels: I know. I forgot about that. All the menus are falling off my fridge.
Bill, it's not just conservatives.
Julie, how true is that? We will be the laughingstock of the world if we have a President wearing mom jeans. Think what the French will say.
Gwendolyn: entertainment and drugs, yes. And porn.
Thank you, Steve. (And yes, it's "whom." The internal syntax of the clause controls the case.) (I did indeed notice the serial parenthetical.) (It's like catnip to me.) (And now to you. Bwahahahahaha!) I presume in your clinic I would be able to have my penis moved to the top of my head?
I only would point out that what Bush started Obama is finishing and in either case it can't be good for us. Think about it, some predict a debt of over 25 Trillion dollars. That means China is the next Superpower.
And don't fuck with How I Met Your Mother.
Indeed. It's time to impeach Obama, and re-elect Dark Lord Cheney, and Rush Limbaugh, Leader of the Republican Party.
Stephen: Exactly. Has he no decency? Why can't he be more like the Republicans who preach moral values, then take wide stances in the toilet or a hike up the Appalachian Trail?
What has this country come to when the President actually loves his wife and family, but doesn't preach about it until I want to gouge my eyes out? Where is the sanctimony, I ask you?
Mr. Mustard, well, Give-'Em-Hell Harry was a little before my time, but I did really like James Whitmore's one-man-show.
Dr. Spudman: exactly; the man is shameless. And--seriously for a moment here--I'll be pretty angry too, but perhaps not so much at Obama as at certain members of Congress.
T.S. I was aware that your comment was tongue in cheek. I was serious about hitting myself with a shovel though.
Stim, you are so far ahead of the curve that the curve has come back around and tripped you from behind.
I had forgotten that, consonantsandvowels. Perhaps when he's done with his ESL class, things will accelerate.
Meander61, Dark Lord Cheney can never be President, as he was not born in the U.S. He was born in Mordor. Well, not so much born as conjured.
Elisa, thank you very much.
Now, where do I sign up for that flying car proposal?
The complaints I have seen are about his lack of intent to implement true fixes and and that what little he has done has been detrimental (e.g. funneling trillions to banks and insurance companies).
I despised the blind Bush loyalists and I despise the blind Obama loyalists. That's the problem with blindness: it leads to misplaced faith (and sarcasm) like this.
I believe you'll have to sign up for the flying car right after President-Elect Palin. She wants one for shooting stray cats from.
aim: You are more than welcome.
Aw, sweetfeet, that is, as your name implies, very sweet of you.
bobbot, I am on record as supporting the candidacy of Sheldon the Wonder Horse, but I'm willing to entertain other offers. What's in it for me?
cruelwench: Exactly. As I mentioned above, I think he'll do better when he learns our language.
Thanks for coming by, Harry Homeless. It's good to be despised for the right things. Usually it's just because of how much I fart.
JustJuli: You know, I was just thinking, I don't have enough inbred no-neck racists in my life, and you suggest joining with the BMs. It's like...serendipity!
Lemon, Lemon, Death.
Damn.
Missed again.
I never quite get around to filling out the forms to get my VAT back anyway.
God Save the Queen.
Uncle!!!
However, I do have to say how disappointed I was to not find any Ebola penis jokes. You had your chance, and you blew it.
I hope this takes off on the intertubes.
We ca all be invited to a White House overnighter ...
We can enjoy a Mooseburger midnight snack with tarter sauce ...
Our nation needs a pajama party. It's about time! A PJ slumber party!
I think you transposed a couple of letters in the last word of your post... just saying...
Jodi, I'd love to be British (I'd immediately start speaking with an accent), but I suspect they might not take us back, or at least not all of us. "Well, we'll take the blue states, but I'm afraid Alabama is right out."
Damn. I never win at those scratch-off cards. Do you need a kidney to live?
Thanks, EEP. I appreciate it.
Exactly, Donna. Guy can't even start a war right. Jeez.
What is the Project Runway of which you speak? Top Chef Las Vegas (Bay-bee) starts August 19th, though.
Thanks, Lea.
Bill, there is nothing funny about a penis bleeding out. Learn from my pain. And penis.
What with those specks and that stomach pain, I think you might need an MRI or three. Check with Dr. Blevins, though.
Thanks, MJwhycha. From your keyboard to the Interweb's um...routers?
Aw, man, RavingBits, I feel your pain. I kicked my daughter out of my house so the pony could have a room of her own. I kind of miss the kid, but having a pony would totally make up for it.
Thank you, Arthur; as always you are both deep and impenetrable.
Aw, cartouche, thanks. I heart you too. And given all that you all did in Las Vegas, I'm surprised you're not still asleep.
I blame Obama.
"Sshh, dear, don't cause a fuss. I'll have your spam. I love it. I'm having spam spam spam spam spam spam spam beaked beans spam spam spam and spam!"
perhaps we could have our tear ducts removed too, so we can cry and not muss our faces with all those tears, like glen beck does.
What nobody seems willing to admit is that Obama is just another politician, and the early judgement is that he's not a very good one. But, whatever your personal judgement on him is as a politician, he is of a species that requires the citizenry to hold his feet to the fire, as we must with any and all politicians. Why is the left so averse to that idea?
Because we lefties have been wandering in the wilderness for eight years does not mean that, having found our way, we can allow our leaders to do as they please. Obama has lost the health care reform battle because he never really took ownership. That's why there are countless bills on the matter wending through committees, and none of them originated in the White House. This loss will erode his political capital and thus make the rest of his agenda almost impossible to enact.
He has continued the worst of the Bush policies on warrantless surveillance, torture, rendition and military commissions. On economic matters, he has allowed himself to be encased in a bubble tended by gatekeepers who are consummate Wall Street insiders. I'm referring to Robert Rubin, Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers.
He's long on ideas, short on detail. He holds no chits with congress and has no idea how to handle them. Congress has already taken his measure and concluded that they the White house is rudderless and that there is no risk in ignoring him.
Its absolutley pointless to speculate what McCain/Palin might have done. Obama is the president we've got and he sucks at the job. I dare say that most of you will eventually come around to this view before 2012, or at least express concern that he might not get re-elected.
By far my favorite line of everything I've read all day!
Safe_Bet: ah, those pesky transposition typos.
bobbot: mandatory pot it is. I'm voting the straight Sheldon/bobbot ticket in 2012--well, not straight, but you know what I meant.
That is, if Obama doesn't shape up.
Cap'n Parrotdead: exactly. Why should fat rich guys get all the head-penises?
alsace man, I don't disagree with you that Obama is a politician and like all politicians needs to have his feet held to the fire, but I do disagree with you that he's already "lost the health care reform battle;" was there a vote I missed? And, yes, I've read Parikh's post, and Walsh's and all of Glenn Greenwald's, and I don't think they're suggesting that all the facts are in and Obama just "sucks at the job." Is it possible you're imposing your view on their rather more specific writings?
Sometimes I think those of us on the left reserve our most vicious vituperation for those who are closest to our own views, but not quite as extreme, or a bit more extreme. The point about McCain and Palin is that things could be a lot worse, and I for one am not dreaming of a President Nader.
No need for a standing ovation, mamoore. Just click on the "Heart Transplant" ad.
Thank you, sciencechick.
David Cox: Hoover the president or Hoover the vacuum cleaner?
Obama has indeed lost the health care battle. Harry Reid paid a visit to the W.H. today for a one-on-one chat with Obama. How often does that happen, and what do you think they discussed? Expect some sort of face-saving effort for Obama from leadership on the hill when they return from their August break. Mark your calendar for it, just after Labor Day. Mark that as a prediction from a 65 year old who was working political campaigns and attending conventions since probably before you were born.
There will be a bill with a nice sounding title, purporting to be health care reform. It will be eyewash. It will be written, like most legislation today, by lobbyists.
Re: G Greenwald's posts. Did I miss something in his writings? Is he defending Obama's continuation of Bush's use of torture, rendition, military commissions or surveillance? I'll need the citation for that. And when did Greenwald ever say with regard to the first amandment that we can wait to correct the crimes of the Bush/Cheney cabal? I will also need that citation.
Your tone suggests that I missed the point of your post, that maybe people are rushing to judgement. If you reread Raul Parikh's post you'll see that he is saying in a more polite tone what I'm saying about Obama.
I don't see your comments about my critique of Obama's economic efforts. Do you disagree that he's surrounded by consummate Wall Street insiders? I would direct your attention to the three part series from Simon Johnson and John Talbott that appeared in Salon this week.
so things aren't going to get better, even when you elect a man who can finish a sentence. the structure of american society precludes effective response to problems. so the band plays on, while the ship lurches from one crisis to the next.
Thanks, al. Perhaps you're right. But on the whole, while, say, China's responses to problems might be a bit more determined, I'd just as soon stay here. Except for how I'd like to live in Sichuan for awhile for the food.
I cook for myself, David. Extremely skillfully.
Phaedo, I was thinking more on the top of my head, but your point is valid. I thought maybe a sock or something.
Oh, and he hasn't yet pitched a perfect game, either. WTF?
The point isn't that Obama is the bestest President ever; I don't love the fact that closing Gitmo has been delayed, that his administration is keeping the same secrecy rules intact, etc. The point is that crying "the sky is falling" at this point--six months in--is way premature. I have hopes that he will do better, and I suspect that the problems he's facing are deep-seated--like eight years' worth of deep-seated--and pretty damned intractable. Personally, if it were I who was President, I'd still be looking for the White House bathroom. (I speak from my work experience here.)
To bad they don't get it!
But...they apparently are trying to prove that they can do more damage to their pet causes with their intemperance than conservatives can do to their causes with theirs.
What a bunch of schmucks.
Once again...thanks for saying what really needs to be said with such class.
I mean a guy who throws like a girl who isn't me.
old new lefty, thank you. I hear he's doing some incredible work with interferon and gene therapy.
Guess I'll have to do without your rating.
As for those straw men not existing...I offer you the person to whom you alluded. He seems to be pretty flesh and blood to me. Nor do I think his evidence is damning; I think you, and he, are incredibly impatient--the last administration paddled us down a shit river, and now you expect everything to smell like roses? Yesterday? I think you've just proven my point.
And I didn't say I agreed with Greenwald on everything he writes, though I do in fact agree with him on most things; I said I read him and he makes sense. He doesn't for example say the Obama presidency is a failure, just that he is disappointed that they haven't moved faster on specific issues. As am I, in fact, but the President lives in the real world where consequences matter and I, and Greenwald, and you, are all Internet ghosts. We can shout whatever we want at him; he has to steer. At this point, I'm not prepared to say he's driving off the road, especially after the last driver we had. If you are, go in good health. But don't expect me not to mock you for it. And if we get a worse driver next time, one who likes to shoot wolves out of Marine One, say, will you be rejoicing in your correctness?
I'm getting big bucks, women and fan worship? When'd that happen?
And not only has he not done all of what you mention in your post, I've never YET seen the man walk on water or revive any recently dead people.
Note to habitual misquoters: I did not say that I think the Obama Administration sucks. Thank you for your attention, misquoters: please continue talking about how the proof's in the pudding.
Except for yogurt peanuts. I want those NOW!
You're braver than me, mamoore. I would have expected a jolt of electricity through the keyboard.
I for one am anxiously awaiting someone from ACORN to pick up my mother in law for her mandatory death counseling.
Brenda, if you're lucky, it'll be Bill Ayers himself.
Wow, that was a Floydian slip. I meant "Federal courts." And "alleged terrorists."
Ultimately, the President needs support from Congressional Democrats in order to make real progress. The only way he'll get that support is if liberals take the time to call our representatives and pressure them to take voting stances that reflect our views. The "Blue Dog" Democrats are -- in my opinion -- what's really slowing down progress right now. Instead of expending energy grousing about perceived lack of progress, our energy would be better spent taking action that makes a difference.
So, Mr. President, what about that birth certificate, anyway...?
scanner, you know I didn't think of that. God for President! Of course, around the fifth day, I will be grumbling about how slowly he's creating the universe, and what the fuck is up with those humps on camels?
Alan, shhhhh! "Its absolutley[sic] pointless to speculate what McCain/Palin might have done," as one earlier commenter pointed out, somewhat irrelevantly, as he utterly missed the point that you make here (at great length, he missed it): that if we beat up on Obama enough, Palin or whatever nutbag the Republicans run will start looking good to the fickle electorate. As you say, though, by 2020, we'll have a kickass candidate; and I can tell you right now, 12 years in advance, that if that person doesn't deliver on the head-penises in the first six months, they're gone as far as I'm concerned.
And you're right; we all need to become Birthers. I demand that Obama personally show each and every one of the 400 million of us his birth certificate, by tomorrow. That's another deadline.
Well, maybe, "Me, then noah tall first!"
Seriously, though, Laurel: I can't back off writing a piece because it might be controversial. If I lose all my readers, so be it. I'm writing for myself, and if I wind up my only reader, I'll deal. I took Jodi Kasten's recent piece on that same subject very much to heart.
Thanks, Nora. I think it's the subject, not me, that got people in to read this.
But scrolling to the top of your comment thread has become my primary form of aerobic exercise these days (that and laughing), so I thank you.
I found you via comments on Verbals great little (anti-)racism post, and I must say, that in the din of that broken elevator you made me laugh, and cliched tho it is, it was out loud. You were instantly the guy I wanted to site next to during dinner.
As far as your post's point is concerned, and I am near- but not dead- certain I get it, well, Of Course! and Sheesh! and what the heck is up with Americans, left AND right?
I saw A Night at the Opera last night on TCM and I turned to my wife who is usually right there, at night, and I said Wow, what it must have been like to live in a time when you could see people in a movie absolutely rapt, mesmerized, at a man playing the piano, or harp even, and believe it! love it! without a trace of irony.
Back when America gave it up for skill, and accepted the pace of accomplishment.
These days, Adam Sandler is considered a talented Jewish entertainer. As a Jew I am less than thrilled at this. If he played a harp in the movies, today? he would punctuate it with farts, get 2 bars into the piece, snap the strings, and call that "funny".
We don't wait for political success, program success, diplomatic success, military success; hell we don't even wait for real entertainment to build up steam. Fart! and the world farts with you.
Feh.
(and you write with zest, ginger, and impressive technical skill)
Anyway, thanks for the comment, and if we happen to be sitting together at dinner sometime, I'll do my best to make you pass some soup through your nose. Your ENT guy will not thank me, especially if the soup is hot.
and, um, don't eschew farts. I'm just sayin.
I lost it right then and there, my head and neck over the back of the wooden chair, howling with laughter. Great stuff--I'm no longer in a bad mood at all. Go health care reform!!!!!
Lairderg: a head-penis in every pot!
No one on the Left that I know of has argued that Obama should have turned everything to gold in six months.
You have conspicuously and rather amazingly left out in your post any mention (unless I just missed it) of what Obama has done on massive, warrantless surveillance (he's keeping it), on state secrets (keeping it), prolonged, "preventive" detention of even those who have been FOUND NOT GUILTY IN MILITARY TRIBUNALS and CRIMINAL COURTS on the grounds that they MIGHT do something, on the illegal, unjust, wars and occupations (escalating it in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and keeping up to 50k troops in Iraq), and the ongoing torture, as well as his refusal to prosecute those who have been responsible for torture.
You make no mention of his denying habeas corpus rights to detainees being held and tortured in Bagram. Nowhere in your piece have you mentioned the matter of what all of this means after Obama leaves office, let alone while he's still in office. If Obama fails to uphold the rule of law (in actual fact, not in mere rhetoric), then any one who takes office after him can do what Bush and Cheney did and more. Constitution, Bill of Rights, rule of law, separation of powers, civil liberties, all of these are moot. Is it unrealistic, is it fantasy, to insist that these matters be treated with the utmost seriousness? If you don't see this then I'm afraid you're not paying sufficient attention.