David Corn writes: "The Obama Hate Machine is never slowed by the absurdities it manufactures. It just keeps spewing crap. The accusations don't have to be proved. The game plan is obvious: Even if he sidesteps the individual charges, Obama will somehow be dirtied by the ceaseless flow of mud. Meanwhile, the OHM professionals will reap profits, as they feed the irrational paranoia of their believe-anything anti-Obama audience."
Video image from an interview by Stuart Schulzke of Fora.tv with American political analyist David Corn, 12/18/09. (image: Fora.tv)
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President Obama is Commander of our Armed Forces, now conducting an unprovoked, BY THE PEOPLE OF AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ, war of aggression against their nations. He is, in this capacity, from his first day in Office, responsible for every death, innocent and militant. Ours and theirs. Is there anything more needed?
Ok; he also gave away the US treasury to his Banksta Friends.
End of need for Hate Machine.
Yes, he originated neither, but is responsible for implementing both.
o Obama & the Dems have failed to repeal any of Bush's heinous Bills such as the Patriot Act, the Mil Commissions Act, or the FISA Bill, just for starters, the very Bills that have completely destroyed our Constitution & our Bill of Rights. What's worse is that they've embraced them all.
o Obama has failed to nullify any of Bush's EO's & SSs, & has added some of his own.
o He maintains Bush's unlawful practices of torture, indefinite detention, extrajudicial assassinations, & extraordinary renditions, even against U.S. citizens.
Due to lack of space, I've only been able to add 3 more to a very long list, and there is so much more.
The Patriot Act is bad news, but the right wing is just too strong to let it go away.
FISA is actually a good thing -- it restrains secret abuses of power, rather than enabling them. Bush got away with some of his worst abuses by bypassing FISA; the fault was that he wasn't impeached for violating that law, not because the law was bad.
Obama has done some disappointing things in the way of executive orders, failure to stop abuses of detention and prosecution, and so forth. However, his failure to shut down Guantanamo is partly because the Republicans slipped in a "Ha ha you can't spend money to shut down Guantanamo" amendment into a bill that Obama couldn't afford to veto.
As for the hate machine, it's accusing Obama of pretty much everything except failure to be liberal enough.
The Repubs made it very clear that they were going to do whatever it took to block any progress by Obama. They made it very clear that they were out to destroy Obama & the Dems as political entities.
Bush steamrolled over the Dems & publicly & loudly threatened them with the nuclear option, the nullification of the filibuster when he thought that they would become a threat to his agenda, & the Dems completely capitulated. Instead of compromising with the Repubs, Obama should've implemented the nuclear option right away & steamrolled over the Repubs as Bush did to them. No compromise, period, but he was too weak to implement it.
As far as the Patriot Act is concerned, not only has Obama not made any attempt to reduce its power or repeal it altogether, he & his DOJ & the FBI have fully embraced it.
I will continue with the FISA Bill in my next posting.
I noticed that you quickly ran over the fact that Obama hasn't nullified not one of Bush's EOs or SSs.
The Mil Commissions Act gave Bush and his co-partners crime complete immunity against his crimes of torture and prisoner abuse, and almost legalized torture.
Obama has continued Bush's criminal activities in almost every way when it comes to gross violations of international law & our Constitution & our Bill of Rights.
As far as Gitmo is concerned, it's the House that appropriates money for govt operations, not the Senate, & no such thing exists as a filibuster in the House.
I need one more posting here.
Obama & his DOJ, headed up by his "Roberto Gonzales," have not only refused to investigate Bush & Cheney's war crimes & crimes against humanity as well as their treason against the American people, Obama has done everything in his power to protect the Bush admin from the very victims of their crimes by using the states secret act & national security as Bush did & pressuring foreign countries, like Spain, from carrying out their own investigations & prosecutions of these crimes.
In terms of what Obama and his DOJ are doing as far as Assange is concerned & how they've treated Private Manning who has yet to be charged with any crime. I give you the following URL to investigate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Yee
This is what Bush did to a U.S. citizen for complaining about treatment of Gitmo detainees.
Instead, it was like watching a boxer fight with gloves of cotton candy.
We're in for a s%&*storm in 2012; any ideas?
Yes, I have a great idea. Even if it's a complete waste of time and energy, find someone like Congressman Kucinich, who looks like he might lose his job as Congressman in Ohio when the Republican controlled state legislature deletes his district from the map, or perhaps Congressman Alan Grayson, who has lost his lob, or Senator Sanders, to run against Obama in the presidential primaries in 2012. What can we lose? Obama might be forced to shift his stance to the left in order to win the primaries with a strong liberal challenger. And, if the challenger wins, then what have we lost? Without a challenger, Obama will not change his stance.
Another possible challenger, if you want a female to run against him, might be Congresswoman Donna Edwards. She's female, Afro-American, & a liberal. I believe that she could get strong support from the minority vote.
I never said that Kucinich had any chance of winning, although I wish that he did. I'm not naive. I've been around the block too many times to know the whims of the typical U.S. voter. When it comes to voting for lower-echelon political offices, they're not too picky about physical stature or how a politician comes across, but, unfortunately, when it comes to voting for a presidential candidate, people are very picky. The candidate has to have certain physical characteristics & a certain way of presenting themselves, & Kucinich is missing those important characteristics even though he says the right things.
If I could bring him back to life, the best candidate that I'd like to see running against Obama would be fmr Sen Paul Wellstone of MN. Unfortunately, his Dem successor, Sen Al Franken, comes in a very poor 2nd. To me, in terms of capitulating to the Repubs, Al Franken has done it way too many times.
The Minority vote alone, cannot elect Rep. Edwards. In 2012 you'll have some choices. If you choose not to vote at all, then you will likely serve the interests of the Far Right agenda.
Perhaps you'd feel more comfortable with them in charge than you do with a consensus builder who's succeeding in making many of the promised changes he campaigned for.
Obama is not a consensus builder. His agenda is to pass any Bill that, on the surface, appears to be fulfilling his promises, but, deep down, are as full of holes as Swiss cheese. Included in my charge against Obama that his hand-picked cabinet reflected both the Bush admin in terms of foreign policy & the Clinton admin in terms of financial policy, which is no change, his hand-picked members of both his Health Care Commission and his Deficit Commission reflected more the corporate interests than that of the American people.
You also have conveniently forgotten the bloodbath that took place on Nov 2nd of 2010 which I had nothing to do with. His voting base doesn't think like you, & that's reality. If Obama maintains the path that he's on of no change which, with a House so filled with Repubs, is a strong certainty, what happened on Nov 2nd, 2010, will seem like nose bleed come Nov of 2012.
The timing would be right if the extreme right runs a candidate.
I hope you are right about your prediction and the"spoiled and impatient" amongst us will by 2012, see the light.
I agree, Glen. Many in these liberal sites always want to criticize the President to no end, failing to realize probably only 20%, at best, agree with our leftist agenda. Obama is what we call in football, a grinder. He keeps plugging along with some incremental changes that have focused on the public good. He can win in 2012 and to believe in a strong progressive challenge from the likes of a Feingold or Kucinich(both very worthy iberals) is only a set up for defeat. I feel we need to keep grinding away with him. The change can happen this way, albeit a bit slow for some of us. But I am a progressive radical. Of course I would prefer a social agenda that parallels Sweden in its scope. But I understand we exist in the land of the "pull yourself up from your own boot straps" philosophy. Obama is my only choice, particularly since he is the only one capable of getting out the vote of the youth and minorities. Would Kucinich attract these voters?
I think he will win Daniel if he maintains the 48% or so overall popularity he has maintained.I completely agree with your views, however,I guess I have been beaten down by my perception of what I see as apathy and ignorance in our citizenry. The middle and working class masses are being played for fools, by design. They have been effectively propagandized to think that progressive policies are socialistic. So I believe we will always be stuck with a corporatist Democrat who, at best, will attempt incremental change and regulations necessary to reign in the corporatists at least a bit. Sorry, but a true blue firebrand like Kucinich will never win.Also don't under rate Obama's popularity with African-Americans and the youth (if these two come out to vote again-he will win.)
I believe they/we all deserve better anyway, and like I say, if Obama runs, I will vote straight Rethugliecon in protest because I believe that we may have to bottom out in order to wake up.
Hopefully people will begin to question what is basically gossip and look for facts.
How can anyone with a brain above room temperature not understand that our dear country was taken over lock, stock and barrel by $$$ MONEY and POWER of the Fourth Reich wings of the MIC Empire which beyond any reasonable doubt orchestrated the events of 9-11, and by their Amairka Inc. $$$ payola political base, and by their brain-washed / brain-dead citizen political base, .....via that Fascist, Coalition Empire's in-common, filthy and filthy-rich, talking head prostitutes speaking from an expertly built, Empire owned, media machine that hoses our country with literally expert, high-tech, and profoundly lying Psy Ops brain-washing propaganda. That pretty much wraps up the 70 year history of the MIC Empire / Fourth Reich / Amairka Inc. that Dwight Eisenhower and countless others have warned us about in countless irrefutable volumes of proof that such claims are indeed True. It's summed up quite well and rather briefly at:
http://www.fightthereich.net/MICspendingLies1.html
Obama is no longer my leader. Obama is the designated leader of the One Party oligarchy. True progressives, enlighted t-party people, and workers, will no longer support this obscene system. V
I don't think the Democratic rank and file get it yet...that Obama's days are numbered, but they are. What he could do is accept this and make a hard left now.
What happened on Nov 2nd, 2010, was no fairy tale, no illusion. It was reality hitting you right in the face. It wasn't just because of the right-wing hate machine. It was, more importantly, because many fmr Obama supporters stayed home (like fools) because Obama did in fact betray them & me & you.
If you continue to stick your heads in the sand like Ostriches, then so be it & watch what happens in Nov of 2012. It will make what happened on Nov 2nd look like a tea party, excuse my play on words here.
If Obama had fulfilled the promises he made as candidate Obama instead of compromise & almost total capitulation to the Repubs, the House would still be controlled by the Dems, & the Senate would probably have not lost any Dem Senators.
Unless you unstick your heads from the sand & realize that Obama isn't what he claims to be, the Congressional Dems will be massacred in 2012.
Is David Corn trying to justify, in advance, the decline in Democratic Party support by misrepresenting the opposition's motives (which he cannot possibly know in any event)? I don't know a thing about Corn's motives but I can say clearly that he doesn't know a thing about the opposition's motives either.
Lee Nason
New Bedford, Massachusetts
words on the Know-Nothing, extreme right-wing fact-challenged politicians and media types. One man controlling the political debate in this country right now: Frank Luntz. Why? Because he has understood what Orwell said in his essay on "Politics and the English Language" that "if you would corrupt poltics, first you have to corrupt the language." Secondly, David, your anger should be at the media. Jon Stewart has it right. He is more critical of the media than the right-wing. They have almost totally abdicated their reponsibility to report facts. And by the way, let's reclaim the language and start calling ourselves "liberals" again. Historically we are reponsible for most of the progress in America. But since Newt Gingrich demonized the word, we have been cowering in our "progressive" corners. "Progressive" is such a generalied wishy-washy term. Kucinich is not the savior, either. He caved to Pelosi on single-payer and to Obama on the public option. My choice is Russ Feingold, leaving the Dems and running on a "We the People" ticket. Got any better ideas, David?
saltwind
In my opinion, & I'm not even close to being a master of words, Obama & our Dem representatives in Congress are supposed to be experienced politicians & orators. They either don't know how to fight back, or they're afraid to open their mouths to contradict, in the strongest words possible, the garbage & the propaganda that spews out of Frank Luntz's mouth.
And look at what the Obama admin is about to do. They're going to allow Comcast & NBC to merge & they're also going to destroy net neutrality, & Frank Luntz has nothing to do with this.
We've got to get over the assumption that the right has any intention of fighting fair, or using real facts to back up the spewing of misinformation. We need to demand charts and graphs for every argument, with the numbers from the CBO, not theirs. There is a reason they come up with three page proposals for things like health care. We have allowed them to perpetrate complete fabrication, repeating to cement it in the public mind as fact.
Please name ONE president who has done everything want. And if you can, there will be someone else who says he is a bad president for not following a different personal wish list. President Obama cannot please everyone, and while I would like him to repeal several of Bush's policies, I am adult enough to realize that there may be something going on behind the scenes preventing him from doing so. Our President is not the "be all" and "end all". He cannot do arbitrarily whatever he wants (or whatever YOU want).
That being said, you've completely missed the point of the article! This article was about the UNtruths that have been perpetrated against our President. This article is about fabricated crap, so ridiculous that even my second grader said, "that's impossible, the President can't give New York to the Indians". Sadly, too many adults are too ignorant to realize this themselves!
The OHM is not pointing out what is REAL about Obama, the OHM is all about perpetrating 100% B.S., and watching the citizenry lap it up.
To undo the damage perpetrated by Bush, we needed a strong pres that, like Bush, wouldn't take any guff from anyone, & Obama failed in that regard.
The Dems were massacred on Nov 2nd of 2010, & it wasn't my fault, & it wasn't just the independent voters who voted Repub that caused the bloodbath, it was Obama's voting base that felt deeply betrayed & disgusted, whether you agree with them or not, who decided either to vote against the Dems by staying home & not voting at all, or by voting for a 3rd political party, and I'm not talking about the Tea Party.
I can't change reality. With the House now controlled by the Repubs, I don't see anything else come Nov of 2012 but another disaster.
Obama does not posses that trait.
Oh please! Of course Bush consistently spoke out defending the press...the corporate dominated pro-conservative press. He had no reason to attack a press vastly dominated by right wing ideologues. Why would he?
24 - 30 - 55? Look I don't know - but there is hardly a national name (and staff and support) out there is did not attack conservative policies on a daily basis, and fawing over liberal views.
Can you even imagine any national news outlet - anvhor or correspondent challenging the Democrats on AGW (man-made global lwarming) or challenging the President for suing a very popular immigration bill in AZ, or asking Bill Clinton why he turned his back on HIV/Aids in Africa, or on the DR Congo horrors, or about his role in Blood Diamond?
Harold Mencher isn't asking for the perfect president and I don't know of any progressive objectors to Obama who are. That would be nonesense. Obama is about 3 decisions away from being a great president and until a few weeks ago was 1 away from being the worst we've had second to George Bush. Well, he made the worst and this on top of so many others condemns him. The point of this article covers the right side of the spectrum...Harold covers the left and does so very well.
He keep breaking key campaine promises like the Public option or tax cuts for the rich as if they weren't important. Then treats the Left (his allies) worse than the Right (his implaccable enemies) because they are complaineing about him turning his back on us.
...and we all know for whom. It isn't us.
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