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It’s this misplaced trust in elites both outside the White House and within it that seems to prevent Obama from realizing the moment that history has handed to him. Americans are still seething at the bonus-grabbing titans of the bubble and at the public and private institutions that failed to police them. But rather than embrace a unifying vision that could ignite his presidency, Obama shies away from connecting the dots as forcefully and relentlessly as the facts and Americans’ anger demand.

I can’t think of a more succinct way to sum up the first eighteen month’s of Obama’s presidency. It’s not enough to figure out that there is a problem, there is a need to forcefully act on it. Unfortunately, Obama seems happy to deign to his advisers and to the rubes that run our biggest corporations rather than just take matters into his own hands and do what needs to be done. Sadly, I think that by the time he realizes this, it will be far, far too late, and we as a country will be far, far worse off for it.

It’s still about change, Mr. President. I hope you can soon realize that.

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President Obama is so wrapped up in his desire to be a different, more conciliatory, beer-summit kind of leader, he ignores some verities.

Sometimes, when you’ve got the mojo, you have to keep your foot on your opponent’s neck. When you’re trying to get a Sisyphean agenda passed, it’s good if people in the way — including rebellious elements in your own party — fear you.

Civil discourse is fine, but when the other side is fighting dirty, you should get angry. Don’t let the bully kick sand in your face. The White House should have impaled death panel malarkey as soon as it came up.

Wanting to set a post-partisan tone in DC is noble, but to have a real post-partisan environment, you need the other side to play ball, and these people don’t want to play ball. When you have that sort of situation, there’s only one real way to handle it. You need to stand up and proclaim loudly, “I want to work with the other side of the aisle, but the obstructionists on the other side have decided to put short-sighted political gain ahead of the needs of the American people, and for this reason, I am directing Congress to forge ahead with this important legislation, whether or not the Republicans want to come along with it.” Tell me that wouldn’t make a statement. Too bad Rahm Emmanuel is calling all the shots from inside the WH and he certainly cares more about what the Blue Dogs think than the people who actually worked to get his boss elected.

Then again, if Obama really did that, DC might explode, and you know the Villagers will never allow that.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, bipartisanship, health care reform

I sum it up as follows: We wanted a leader and we ended up with an idealist. The thing that bothers me is that the Obama administration has become SO hung up on this idea that the legislation has to be bipartisan that he’ll let the Republicans tear it to shreds as long as he can say it was a bipartisan bill.

Well, it looks like the terrorists have won, as today, we hear this:

As to the fate of a government option plan to compete with private insurance, [Obama senior advisor David] Axelrod suggested the controversial concept is gone but not forgotten: "The spirit that led him to support a public option is still very much at play here and so you know he wants competition. He wants choice. "

So we pretty much know the public option, the only real chance that a non-single payer system really ever had in making costs come down without sacrificing care is dead. If it’s not, this is the greatest rope-a-dope ever, but I doubt this. I think what’s really happening is that our Idealist-in-Chief has decided that in order to craft his “bipartisan” legislation (that all the Republicans will vote against anyway, lest they anger St. Rush), he’s scrapping the real reform out of the bill, and the crap we’re left with will be marketed as a real win for the rest of us. Except that, as usual, the only winners here will be the insurance companies and the politicians whose pockets they line.

I guess I’m just a bit sad about this because I stupidly bought into the idea that Obama was going to be a different kind of president. Someone who was going to stand up and fight for things and really deliver the change he campaigned on. While there is still time for him to change all of this, it’s looking more and more like instead of an advocate of real change, we’ve gotten an idealist who has decided his legacy needs to be bringing “bipartisanship” back to Washington, even if it means sacrificing his ideals.

Is it any wonder the Republicans are laughing all of the way back to the ballot box? In January, it seemed like they were a party lost in the wilderness for years to come. Now they look like they could conceivably retake at least one house of Congress next year. Therefore, let’s face the facts: unless things change dramatically, we’re boned.

Will Democrats ever learn?

Technorati Tags: barack obama, change, health care reform

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I won’t lie. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so proud to be American.

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Obama is deeply grounded in the best aspirations of this country, and we need to return to those aspirations. He has had the character and the will to achieve great things despite the obstacles that he faced as an unprivileged black man in the U.S.

He has risen with his honor, grace and civility intact. He has the intelligence to understand the grave economic and national security risks that face us, to listen to good advice and make careful decisions.

When Obama said at the 2004 Democratic Convention that we weren’t a nation of red states and blue states, he spoke of union the way Abraham Lincoln did.

It may have seemed audacious for Obama to start his campaign in Springfield, invoking Lincoln. We think, given the opportunity to hold this nation’s most powerful office, he will prove it wasn’t so audacious after all. We are proud to add Barack Obama’s name to Lincoln’s in the list of people the Tribune has endorsed for president of the United States.

Keep in mind here that the Tribune has never endorsed a Democrat for President. Ever. In 161 years of publication. Let that sink in and then realize what it means for the world. I thought so…

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Now, I don’t believe that Senator McCain doesn’t care what’s going on in the lives of Americans. I just think he doesn’t know. Why else would he define middle-class as someone making under five million dollars a year? How else could he propose hundreds of billions in tax breaks for big corporations and oil companies but not one penny of tax relief to more than one hundred million Americans? How else could he offer a health care plan that would actually tax people’s benefits, or an education plan that would do nothing to help families pay for college, or a plan that would privatize Social Security and gamble your retirement? … Well, it’s time for them to own their failure. It’s time for us to change America. And that’s why I’m running for president of the United States.

Yes, in some ways it lacked the gravitas that his March speech on race had, but this speech was brilliant in its own right.

Yes we can. Now bring it on.

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Alls I know is that the next time I see that stupid McCain ad while I’m trying to watch NBC’s ADHD Olympics broadcasts, I might be liable to hurl.

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You have to give this man props for not being afraid to take these people on head on. The whole tire pressure guage thing is a crock, we all know it, and for once, a politican is not afraid to call bullshit on the whole thing.

Technorati Tags: barack obama, tire pressure guage