Perle.

It is hard to even be polite as to why he deserves a podium. Salt in wounds still fresh.

Time, hooking with an Obama Polls header, manages to miss the broad side of the barn and frames Obama's descent as mystifying. Where HAVE those legions of enthusiastic Obama supporters gone Time wonders? It could be that those legions elected Obama to change the way Washington works, to elevate political rhetoric all the way up to eleventh grade from the sixth grade level Bush had happily created devolved America to, to end the Iraq war, to not start any new wars, to deal substantively with US energy self sufficiency, to bring compassion back into the former governmental chaos that would elevate the human subset of American "persons" back to a position of primal importance, to recognize the term "economic slavery" and consider it evil, to resucitate the dying hope that America remains a representative democracy. To whit and in short, acting energetically and determinedly on the campaign promises that got him and the rest of the Keystone Cops majority elected.

But instead of the chess that some rabid supporters had hoped Obama might be capable of playing on the world stage dominated by Go, Obama has publically sided with basketball, a mindset where everyone is well paid, there's a breather every three or four minutes so you don't have to think too much or too far ahead, and you can always come back next year. Instead we have bonuses for billionaires, families living in cars, the promise of energy self sufficiency sitting in dry dock getting a Halliburton paint job, Mexicans excluded because they work too hard, Philippinos and Indonesians included because they are cheaper than Mexicans, more contractors than troops, rampant fraud, investigations that aren't, enhanced use and defense of secrecy, continued torture, continued rendition, continued militarization of space, improved surveillence techniques suitable for unruly citizens, extended eavesdroppping, continuation of Presidential signing statements, ineffectual international dipomacy, coddling of economic monopolies, no clue about the distant future of health care, not to mention that of next year, and an Obama Future that every day is more bleak.

True Obama, is not the only problem, and probably not the biggest one. Americans still buy Hummers, and think the modified small block Chevy is the greatest creation on the planet, and are willing to allow peasant child labor in some other destitute country make their knick-knacks, hair brushes, designer jeans, business suits, electric motors, soap, manufacturing machinery, Christmas ornaments, apple juice, party supplies, cars, excavators, computer chips, cell phones, steel rebar, solar cars, on and on and on and on.....Large numbers of Americans still manage to vote against their own well being and chorus their shouted support for tax cuts and all manner of "essential assistance" for billionaires and corporations whose poor decisions are media whiplashed into essential needs for America's survival, to be gratefully paid by those whose labor paid the bonuses and financed the incentives. "Democracy if you can keep it" was the imprecation. And Americans aren't doing a very good job of it.

But Obama is the only President we have and since he has graciously accepted the mantle of the Great Hope, it is incumbent on him, if he cares anything for his legacy or any of the voters who placed hope in him, to get off his butt, kick some ass, take all blows aimed at him and come back fighting.

Alas, it's not happening. Obama has just about shot his wad and it is heartbreakingly apparent to those who voted for him. Of all the people I know who voted for Obama just last year, there are only two--count them--two, people who still support him, and that support is now reduced to the faintest of hopes and the most feeble excuses. That Time is "mystified" is only understandable if one understands that Time 's agenda is not that of the human American populace.

This post is too long now, but it is not nearly long enough to enumerate the disappointments Obama has gifted to the people who elected him. There won't be a second chance, for him or the Dems who were given the key and then lost it in a pile of dirty money somewhere in Washington. Obama is not "down" because of what he has not done, but what he has done.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1948679,00.html

Amen, James, and I love your thoughts on basketball. Also, I am tired of hearing how if only had we actually listened to Obama campaigning, we would not be surprised at his actions since 20 January. Enough with compromises.

He's boldly going where Jimmy Carter has gone before.

The story that tried spike a lot of things about Iran supposedly attacking an Iraqi oil well, it's like the Kuwait-Iraq imbroglio sandwiched around hostage countdowns, revisited.

Don't give neocons the car keys, too late. They've entrenched the direction of foreign ops. No longer foreign policy, that is a peacetime term. It's all about the reality you create...

Osama's family has been found! Hiding in, of all places, Iran!
Who woulda thunk? Israel? Nah...Israel is the Eagle Scout
amongst nations.

The mysterious Iranian "takeover" of an Iraqi oil well didn't work
to churn up the blood lust of the US Untermenschen, so now we
get yet another excuse, gift-wrapped just in time for Xmas
(although a little late for Cha-Hanukkah), to expand the "War on
Turrur"/ Keystone Kops Search for the Caveman on Dialysis, into
Iran!

Yeah, 'cause those Wahabis and Shias are kissing cousins and
the Iranian mullahs secretly long to be annihilated by UsRael to
score those 72 virgins...

From the notoriously and hilariously inaccurate UK Daily Mail
(sadly, the paper is taken seriously, so expect more of the same:

Osama bin Laden's family missing since 9/11 attacks found
living in secret compound in Iran

http://tinyurl.com/yj7qw2j

Outraged, I thought the urban legend was 12 virgins! Is it up to 72 now?

"Imagine if the Palestinian resistance movement were taking place in Iran!
Dashing Mohammad Othman now rotting in detention would be a global cause. The middle-of-the-night arrest of Abdallah Abu Rahmah would be on the Nightly News. The New York Times would tell the stories of international freedom riders, the Gaza Freedom March, and the role of"

http://mondoweiss.net/2009/12/oh-just-imagine-if-the-palestinian-resistance-movement-were-happening-in-iran.html

TPM quote: "Obama: Once senate votes I'll "roll up my sleeves" and get involved in reconciling House and Senate bills."

Hmmm. The car has crashed, finished rolling and shedding parts, four spectators killed, and the hulk's engulfed in flames. And now he's going to roll his sleeves up. Right. Been keeping his powder dry I suppose. It's a Dem thing.