The Emperor Has No Clothes (and is acting stupidly)

[Divine Discontent]

When President Obama says that he never campaigned for a public option, despite evidence to the contrary (we all aren't suffering amnesia, but someone on Pennsylvania Avenue is showing they know how to lie), it makes me wonder, does he not see that he's politically naked, and those aren't fine threads of populism that he's wearing but rather the shame of his nakedness regarding the health care lie that he's peddling, not to mention the very questionable policies below?


HEALTH CARE FIASCO - President Obama didn't campaign for the Public Option, except when he did campaign for the Public Option -
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2009/12/23/barack-obama-never-campaigned-on-the-public-option


AFGHANISTAN OCCUPATION - The real terrorist is this occupation - says a very compassionate and measured military Afghan War veteran in a wonderful speech -
http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9880&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0


PATRIOT ACT EXTENSION - Patriot Act used against US citizens, taking away many rights to defend a woman's underaged son who was swept away - watch this local news report -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9zGhYSIAP8


Rachel Maddow blasts two speeches challenging one another that are actually given within the same speech by President Obama! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBdPEK5pNtE
Obama - "We will construct a legal regime" to indefinitely imprison people for preventative reasons.


GAY PERSECUTION - After 18 years of total heroism flying missions protecting America, Lt Col. Victor Fehrenbach is kicked out of military for being Gay. President Obama as CIC of the military, doesn't speak out as president to push a policy of non-descrimination for Congress to vote upon, like he did as a candidate saying he would end "Don't Ask Don't Tell Don't Pursue Don't Harass", the Pentagon said despite the WH saying there's work in progress, there isn't work in progress and signs point this being pushed back another year - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfFpy7utAlE

[theoldman]

1. Some people have nothing else to do but to criticize.

[Solomon]

2. Pretty soon the present fad of gross discontent with the president

will pass, and some will be perplexed at why they're not being lauded anymore for being soooo smart.

[Divine Discontent]

5. and likewise, some do nothing but support highly questionable corporate sellouts

I stand with every soldier who's been discharged for being Gay, for every mother who's had their child swept away by the government without Constitutional rights being honored to protect him, for every friend or family member of an innocent dead Afghan citizen killed by an American bomb, for every crying mother that loses a son or daughter to an ongoing occupation that has no merit, and every person suffering without proper health care who dies while the fat-cat insurers reap billions from their exorbitant uncontrolled premiums.

Critical commentary helps spread information shown in the videos above that showcase very trustworthy sources. I am disgusted by the actions of this WH on these issues.

You have nothing but a one line gripe about me griping with my silly ol' facts. Yippee!



Did you watch the American Veteran give his 1st hand account testimonial about Afghanistan?

Did you watch the 18 year fighter pilot's commentary about DADT, on Rachel's show?

Do you think Obama is being honest about his non-support for the Public Option, for his Gay Rights support, for his reasons to keep the Patriot Act going?

[Hello_Kitty]

3. Someone needs to alert the WH that there's this thing called the "internet"

It's amazing to me that Obama and others tell these easily refutable untruths when the Obama campaign skillfully used it to catch Clinton in her Bosnia sniper fable.

[Orsino]

4. Unrec for the falsehood in the first phrase. n/t

[Divine Discontent]

13. Obama isn't an emperor, it's a story being used to illustrate his behavior

I think it fits rather clearly. He seems out of touch. Just my opinion.

[jenmito]

6. Unrec for hateful and false OP.

[Divine Discontent]

7. would you like to extol whereabout hate occurs in my post for saying he is behaving stupidly?

Hate is a pretty strong & direct word - I do not hate the president. I generally like the president and campaigned and donated to his campaign, and cheered him to victory. See my journal if you doubt.

I consider his actions of claiming that he never campaigned for a Public Option as being rather stupid of him (facts and all). It's insulting to hear him lie like a questionable politician who seems quite satisfied to make the corporations more powerful with 30 million+ new customers.


Also, would you like to point out, jenmito, where the subject matter linked, is false in any way?

[jenmito]

12. It's hateful for you not only to say what you did in your OP but to mischaracterize his

positions on the other topics you cited. He campaigned on adding troops to Afghanistan (which he did), ending DADT and DOMA (which he will do), and did many good things ALREADY which of course, you give him no credit for.

[Divine Discontent]

14. Saying he's being exposed for policy failures & using the illustration of the naked emperor is not

hateful, but, I respect if you think that is, and will just disagree with you. Now to the facts, you say he said he'd add troops to Afghanistan, yes, but he did not state he was going to extend the war for as many as 5 years (which might as well be 50, for when you push back warfare several years, who knows when it will end, take vietnam for instance), and as far as all the concerns stated in the OP - Patriot Act, DADT, DOMA - he has done nothing and until he does, and the people that I respect in the organizations fighting for rights say he is truly changing them, then they are not done - and there's no 'good job!' for him until then.

As for HCR, he worked a big deal with Big-Pharma behind the scenes, and the HCR bill as is, is a huge boon to insurers who have seen their stocks rise 27-35% since Halloween! Trick on us, Treat for them - indeed!


Best to you regardless, in our disagreements, Jen.

[jenmito]

He's NOT a naked emperor. Again-he has already accomplished more than

most recent presidents in their first year. And it's ridiculous to say, "but he never said he was going to stay in Afghanistan for 5 years..." (paraphrased). He said he thought Afghanistan is the right war, that we must concentrate on it, and must add troops.

It's his first year. He told the HRC that by the end of his first term they will be very pleased with him. And word is that he will get DADT and DOMA repealed in 2010.

[Divine Discontent]

19. I refer to the major issues of our time in my OP, not the other things he's accomplished in his 1st

year in office. You can bring those up, I agree with them. He campaigned for, and sign the Lilly Ledbetter Act right away, and many other issues in the 1st several months.


But in regards to how Wall St. has been catered to by his advisors, the health care problems in America and Lieberman getting what he wanted too easily when there were other options Congress had, the still unfulfilled campaign promises to GLBT people who are being subjected to hateful laws and policies as 2nd class citizens, and to all Americans who can be whisked away without reason through the Patriot Act, he has done a less than stellar job in my opinion, of leading boldly on these fronts. The one issue I concur he has the most commentary on that defends his actions, is Afghanistan, but many hoped when they gave him the Peace Prize, he'd be a man of peace and realize, according to so many observers IN the war, and people like Wes Clark, that the war should be ended - instead he listened to B*sh's men who I'm sure you don't approve of either, and pushed forward for up to 100000 more combat troops.

I hope what he does works out to be wonderful in 24 months or so, but it sure seems like we are not receiving a fair shake.

[jenmito]

20. The fact that you choose to ignore the other things that he HAS accomplished is the

reason I called your OP "hateful," saying, "the Emperor has no clothes." He DOES have clothes. You just choose not to see them. And again-if he hasn't repealed DADT and DOMA in his first term, THEN you can say he didn't keep his promises. You're premature with your criticism.

[Divine Discontent]

22. I respect your opinion. And as you state I'm premature in the criticism in holding his feet to the

fire, I say don't give him support for something he hasn't done, and does not appear to be making any attempt to change. This HCR bill appears to be what they've pinned his reelection hopes to, because they had to get "HCR" passed, but if it's a dead duck right out of the chute, he'll lose badly. But, I'm not concerned about his political future, I'm concerned about my future - I want real HCR and I'm not getting a Public Option, Single Payer, or hahaha, so funny, Universal Health Care as hoped when I saw him seemingly pushing for the least offensive of these to the insurance giants, the PO.

Again, I hope I'm wrong in a couple years...

[ima_sinnic]

16. who said he didn't campaign on adding troops to Afghanistan? that isn't the issue

and I won't hold my breath on ending DADT and DOMA, since his administration has already gone to the extraordinary trouble of challenging a court ruling upholding benefits for same-sex federal employees--a basic right that could have added a tint of truthfulness to his "fierce advocacy" BULLSHIT--all he had to do was let it stand. Apparently, within only a few months, he felt he didn't have to "appeat" at least to be "working on it."

I give him full credit for exposing the rotten core of the Democratic Party and its siamese twin relationship to the republican party--two halves of the same body, sharing vital organs of corporate graft, corruption, propaganda and bullshit--and for its eventual well-deserved demise as We The People find our common ground and build something new. See? I give credit where credit is due. And I'm a "hater" and proud of it--a hater of lies and corruption and candidates who exploit my trust for their own ends.

[jenmito]

18. The OP seems to think it's an issue...

and what are you talking about re: benefits for GLBT people/couples who work in the federal govt.? He issued a memorandum to give federally-employed gay couples equal benefits.

I don't care whether you hold your breath or not-he said he will end DADT and DOMA in his first term and I believe him.

But keep hatin'.

[Divine Discontent]

21. it's one of a myriad of concerns (Afghanistan), but my point again is that after he got in, there

were so many non-B*sh appointees who he didn't choose to be his advisers, but he's listening to the B*sh ones still, and he's expanding the Afghan bloody war perpetually for all we know, but that was just one of my points in the OP, and it's the only one where a true argument can be retorted, because he said he'd several more combat brigades over.

I think that the person who commented about the benefits is referring to the Obama Administration defying a judge's order!
see here - http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/12/18/MNSN1B6ISS.DTL&tsp=1

[ima_sinnic]

24. Obama may have "signed the memorandum," but his admin is "duty bound" to resist it

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/21/AR2009122103240.html

oh, yeah, let's hear all the technical arguments about it now. If a "memorandum" is "technically unenforceable," it wasn't that special, was it?

on edit: added the link

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. I don't know, some of us think that actions are wrong no matter who does them

Is it laziness, ineptness, or corruption?

[Divine Discontent]

10. Someone argued, I think Wes Clark, that if you want to know how someone's going to lead, see how

they've behaved in the past. Well, I don't even want to compare him to the fully lazy & arrogant B*sh, and I cannot except he's corrupt - so I'm going to go with ineptness. I think the fact that the other campaigns against Obama in the primaries kept bringing up how he voted "present" so many times, shows his way of governing. Good or bad. And, keeping things pretty much as they were so as to not upset what is already being done.

In the case of the issues above, I think he's doing just that. People can take contention with whether they believe I like the president or not (journal proof I highly do http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Divine%20Discontent/49 ), but the facts cannot be ignored - the president is failing on the issues I posted above, and I'm not the one in those videos, very brave and courageous people are - and the president is letting that mother down who had her son swept away, and the veterans overseas, and the people suffering without affordable health care that are going to be mandated to have insurance.



Thanks for a very good question, btw, I liked the thought process of "Is it laziness, ineptness, or corruption?"

[Orangepeel]

9. He's not an emperor, which is why he has to placate congress

but, "I didn't campaign on the public option" was a dumb and disingenuous thing to say.

IMO, it would have been better to say that he thinks there should be a public option in the health care exchanges (and he still doesn't like the idea of mandates), but the majority of what was in his plan is in the bill, it will help a lot of people, etc., etc.,

[Divine Discontent]

11. agreed, it was a very dumb and disingenuous thing to say, and your thoughts of what he should have

said sound great. Why in the world didn't he say that, is beyond me.

[saracat]

15. Very true and I see the unreccers have nothing better to do as usual.

And they can't even bother to refute facts. They just repeat a mantra. Ommmm.

[Divine Discontent]

17. Thank you. I'm sure few will even watch the heartfelt pleas by those quite heroic veterans, and

that mother who had her 16 year old son whisked away through the Patriot Act, and they cannot defend the indefensible backtracking on the health care needs in this country that the president, then as senator, seemed to be strongly in support of when saying he was against mandates and for a gov't plan.

I guess the saying, "what a difference a year makes!", rings true.

God bless you.

[saracat]

23. Bless you too, and all those who place people over politics.

A very Happy Holiday and Best wishes for real hope in the New Year!

[impik]

25. God bless the "ignore" button. What a load of nonsense.

[Divine Discontent]

26. I challenge you, despite your overly-confident support of the corporate strangle-hold on the

the country, to watch those videos, and make some commentary to each one of them. Otherwise, your 'nonsense' baloney is without merit. Every mother in those videos, every veteran, and every policy that the WH continues to ignore just seals Democratic failure in '10, and I am very sorry for that, because I am far from the only liberal on this website I've known for years, and in my personal life where so few defend the actions of the WH anymore, who is upset with the direction he has chosen. Get back to me if you watch the news clips that I reference in the OP.

[HughMoran]

28. corporatist! DLCer! Failure!

hyperbole!

[HughMoran]

27. White picket fence

[boomerbust]

29. At least

He doesn't wear a pantsuit.:evilgrin: