"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." - Sir Winston Churchill
Maureen Dowd in her op-ed in today's Times made an interesting observation. Dowd's column was mostly about the potential for Hilary to make a stink at the convention, but she also had this to say about the state of the Democratic Party:
"The Clintons know that a lot of Democrats are muttering that their solipsistic behavior is “disgusting.” But they’re too filled with delicious schadenfreude at the wave of buyer’s remorse that has swept the Democratic Party; many Democrats are questioning whether Obama is fighting back hard enough against McCain, and many are wondering, given his inability to open up a lead in a country fed up with Republicans, if race will be an insurmountable factor.”
This appears to be the real story, if you ask me. Obama is languishing in the polls and his tepid response to McCain’s nasty ad campaign is giving the Patriot that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he remembers from election season 2004. In fact, if I squint hard enough when watching Obama on TV, I notice a heretofore unrecognized resemblance to John Kerry.
Obama may be a great orator and a charismatic man, but he is a center-right Democrat who has come out recently in favor of the death penalty and the so-called “compromise” on warrantless surveillance. He is running a fairly traditional campaign from the ideological center and in this respect he is no different from Kerry and Pelosi, and Reid and the rest of the feckless Democrats who sold out the Constitution for a few more years of personal power. Those remnants of the Democratic Party who were still able to conjure up some sense of hope that all is not lost (and for a while I counted myself among them) are starting to realize that they were duped into supporting a sheep in wolf’s clothing.
Obama doesn’t represent change so much as the illusion of change. This has secured for him the backing of a percentage of the corporate elite that he needs to make a good run; they know he’ll play ball once he’s elected. The problem is he ahs to get elected. By allowing his followers to get a glimpse of the man behind the curtain so early in the election cycle, i.e. before the convention, he runs the very real risk of reenergizing the nutty Clinton supporters, making a huge mess at the convention, and ensuring another 4 years of right wing hegemony. This is a mistake that only a neophyte politician would make. It took Bill Clinton well over his first 100 days in office to exhibit the Republican-lite attributes that alienated the left wing of the party for a generation. It has taken Obama about three months.
Despite my revulsion at Obama’s stance on the death penalty and most constitutional issues, I may be forced to vote for him anyway. The Supreme Court must not be allowed to suffer any more Republican appointments in the next four years lest we run the risk of descending into complete, overt, totalitarian rule. Can we stand to allow McCain’s finger on the button with a conservative Court rubber-stamping every unilateral expansion of executive power? Not with a resurgent militaristic Russia in Europe. Not with the middle-east still in a state of near chaos, and certainly not with a weak Democratic Congress who has clearly indicated that they will not confront the President on issues of “national security”, or anything else.
1 comment:
I agree that Obambi's candidacy so far is lacking greatly. Perhaps, this may not have been the best year for the dems to run a woman or an african american. Running Obama makes it, due to his race and massive ego, a referendum on Obama and not the realities we are facing and have endured. This election should be about how badly the republicans have f*cked up this country and what, exactly, he and his party are WILLING to do to change that. We can only hope that they turn to the hard nosed realities of reasonable, sensible and sometime unpopular policy making and away from pandering to the center and the enhancement of Obama's celebrity. We can only hope that "yes we can" doesn't mean get elected but rather yes we can steer this nation toward the promise it has always held and away from the ignoble practices it has shamefully adopted.
And it goes without saying that as we head deep in to this election season, my heart is happy to see that the Patriot has decided to come out of retirement and pick up his pen. Gad yer back!
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