The Poor Get Poorer, Presidents Get Worse
I miss Bush.
Stop the presses and shut off the RSS feeds: the bashiest of the Bush-bashers is starting to appreciate the Exile of Crawford.
I haven’t forgiven George W. Bush for stealing two elections, starting two wars, bankrupting the treasury and doing his damnedest to turn the U.S. into a fascist state. He deserves one of hell’s hottest picnic spots for refusing to lift a finger to bring the 9/11 murderers to justice. Bush was stupid. He was vicious. He should be in prison.
He was the worst president the U.S. had ever had. Until this one.
On major issues and a lot of minor ones, Obama is the same as or worse than Bush. But Bush had an opposition to contend with. Obama has a compliant Democratic Congress. Lulled to somnolent apathy by Obama’s charming manners, mastery of English (and yes, the color of his skin), leftist activists and journalists have been reduced to quiet disappointment, mild grumbling and unaccountable patience.
I don’t care about window dressing. Sure, it’s nice that Obama is intelligent. But policies matter—not charm. And Obama’s policies are at least as bad as Bush’s.
Guantánamo was but the beginning of Obama’s betrayals. First he ordered the camp closed—not immediately but in a year. Now he’s expanding the U.S. concentration camp at Bagram—where 600 innocent men and children are being tortured—so he can send the 245 Gitmo prisoners there. In the Bush era, Gitmo POWs received legal representation. Obama has ordered that the POWs sent to Bagram not be allowed to see a lawyer.
You saw the headline: “OBAMA BANS TORTURE.” But it was a lie. Obama’s CIA director told Congress that there’s a “review process that’s built into [Obama’s] executive order” that allows torture to continue. Leon Panetta said the Obama Administration will keep using at least 19 torture techniques against detainees. In addition, Team Obama will “look at those kinds of enhanced techniques to determine how effective they were or weren’t and whether any appropriate revisions need to be made as a result of that.”
As editorial boards of liberal newspaper tut-tut and the feds convene committees, the screams of the victims pierce the night.
Bush was the biggest spender in history, running up a $1.8 trillion deficit with wasteful wars and tax cuts. But next to Obama, Bush was a tightwad. Glamour Prez hasn’t been around six months, yet the Congressional Budget Office reports that he already has quadrupled the deficit by an extra $8.1 trillion. “The total debt held by the public [will] rise from 57 percent of GDP in 2009 to 82 percent (!) of GDP in 2019,” reports U.S. News & World Report.
Obama is sinking us into financial oblivion 72 times faster than Bush.
Where’d the money go? Mostly to insurance companies. Banks. Brokerage firms. Who used it to redecorate their offices and give themselves raises.
Against logic and history Obama claimed his bailout package would create jobs. Instead, unemployment has risen by 1.3 million. Has Obama’s plan saved a single homeowner from foreclosure? Reporters can’t any.
I liked Bush better. He wasted our money when the economy wasn’t quite as sucky. And he didn’t insult us by pretending to care. Come on, Barack, smirk! Truth in advertising!
I know: he’s a politician. Politicians break promises. As the presidential scholar Stephen Hess says: “There are some pledges that a candidate reverses when he becomes president because things look different. He knows things that he didn’t know then.”
“Some”? Obama hasn’t even tried to keep a single major promise. He hasn’t gotten rid of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” His ballyhooed “cap and trade” law on emissions is toothless. Remember Obama’s pledge to renegotiate NAFTA to strengthen environmental regulations? Forgotten.
In Obama’s case, “things look[ing] different” has meant giving in to entrenched dirtbags, like the spooks who read your emails and the entrenched Pentagon torturers who don’t want us to see photos that make Abu Ghraib look like child’s play.
(An official familiar with the photos in question tells me they include, among other atrocities, U.S. personnel sodomizing a child.)
Obama has done more damage than Bush. And no one’s stopping him. Which makes him worse.
Sorry, Mr. Bush. If I’d known what was coming, I would’ve been nicer.
COPYRIGHT 2009 TED RALL
28 Comments.
Thanks for spelling this out.
It drives me nuts to hear neo-cons criticizing Ted Rall for criticizing Obama of foot dragging. Foot dragging? If only Obama were slowing going the right way.
$8.1 trillion to keep the rich rich!
Is Obama ever going to have a Ceauşescu Moment? I don't mean from the nut-jobbers who call him a socialist, but from those who heard him promise something like a CCC that would build an alternative energy infrastructure (he promised a lot things like that, remember?). We have had a long period of all industries out-sourcing, a jobless recovery, and now a Depression, and he seems content to be Herbert Hoover.
—
When you vote Democratic or Republican, you are just throwing your vote away.
All I can say is…what took you so long to see what was obvious about Obama before the election?
I'my trying to spread this meme around- Obama promised change. Things ahven't changed. Can we sue him for false advertising?
And lord help you if you complain about President Barry with any of his loyal followers.
I have been called racist because I dare question his policies.
Thank you. It takes a great courage (and brain power), I think, for an American to be as objective as you are.
It is not easy to admit that your country is wrong.
Because of people like you, USA is really "beacon on the hill" for all humankind.
I don't understand what there is to lose by just coming clean. Give people due process, admit we screwed up, fight the legal battles, don't let anyone attack us with a military or with terrorist attacks, go after them if they do, and be a consistent fair player. Don't people ever look at themselves and think, "I'm rich and powerful but I got there with a crappy work ethic and bad morals" Taht's where we are in the US right now. Lets roll up shirt sleeves and turn things around and just work hard and smart. I don't want to win by having my oil get sucked out of the ground in countries where people can't afford running water so that I can live in a suburb and have cheap gas. I don't want to protect people who have done bad things just because they "made the tough decision to protect our country"
How strong could our country stand if we had found the 9-11 planners, hauled them to a court in the US, given them lawyers and then used the entire justice department to detail crimes then either sentenced them to death or life in prison and then finished.
What if we had listened to the terrorists before they attacked when they told us "get troops out of Saudi bases" and then we met with the saudi government and told them, You've got major problems here, either clean up this caste system or we're saying see ya and you can deal with these whack jobs.
As long as we hide behind dishonesty and lack of integrity we will continue to have a country and morals based on a shallow form of hypocrisy.
Rahm Emanuel, I think, removed the rear-view mirrors and reversed the turn signal wiring on the US pickup-truck of state. And who's driving?
A)The mans been in 6 months. I can't stand people who expected 8 years of mess to be magically cleaned up by now. If, in a reasonable amount of time, nothing's changed you might have a point. 6 months is not a reasonable amount of time; not with the quantity of the mess he inheredited.
B) You were (and frankly are) never going to get most of your wish list, and hearing you whine about it is taking on the quality of hearing the five year old child whine endlessly about the pony he's never going to get instead of dealing with reality.
C) and speaking of reality, Obama was the best of the two electable choices we had. The sooner you acknowledge that reality and structure your columns to deal with it, the faster you will come back to something approcahing relevance.
Dude!! You should sue!! Somebody named Bromley at the Financial Times just ripped off your "Obama Hello Kitty" running gag!!
Huge long URL to the Article
Huge long URL to the illo
I dunno, in the script-writing business, big studios often evade plagiarism charges by saying they were "simultaneously" working on the exact same concept as a small-time freelancer. A suit might not go anywhere. But you have at least, what, eight or ten months of history invested in this meme, eh?
I often write in to defend digital copying. But would you say plagiarism, or piracy, is the bigger threat to an artist?
The campaign and the administration are run by different people. Obama is actually the sort of lightweight that bureaucrats like to have in "charge". Bush was the same way.
I wonder about the torture thing, though. It would be easy to issue an order banning it. It would be good press and wouldn't effect national security…so, why not? There's got to be some reason, and it isn't "evil" or whatever.
Well, here is what I expected of Obama, at the very least:
To create jobs, and stop the home foreclosures. Would it have killed him to do these two things?
And lord help you if you complain about President Barry with any of his loyal followers.
I have been called racist because I dare question his policies.
Sounds like somebody's been hanging around the HuffPo comments section. I can't handle that place anymore. Nothing but a bunch of robots, no better than Fox News drones. This country is doomed either way. I'm starting to think a right-wing flameout would be more interesting.
P.S. Fuck Rahm Emanuel.
Ah, a column by a true leftist. Good stuff. This and Joe Bageant keep me reading a few columns, at least.
If the money spent to keep the rich rich had been given to projects to help the nation, most of our social problems would be history. Of course when you even so much as mention this, the right starts screaming:
"Class warfare! Class warfare!"
We've been in a "class warfare" for two hundred years. Unfortunately, all of the shooting and killing has been committed only on the poor. Oh, if only there really WAS some serious "class warfare"…
Said Greg:
Is Obama ever going to have a Ceauşescu Moment?
For a moment there, I thought you meant getting shot by firing squad. I don't quite like him, either, but I think that would be going too far…
Ted,
Bob Cesca has taken you to task over at his blog over this op-ed. Called you "batshit". He has some good arguments. Care to read and respond?
http://www.bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2009/06/ted_rall_goes_b.html
Just chiming up to say that this version of the column is the only one I could find which contains the two paragraphs immediately before "(An official familiar with the photos in question tells me they include, among other atrocities, U.S. personnel sodomizing a child.)" I was wondering if that was a mistake on Ted's part when he submitted the column to his editor(s?) or just some sort of clumsy censorship. Censorship because of the topic of the second deleted paragraph, clumsy because the remark in parentheses makes no sense in the amputated column, thus leading me to this site.
Speaking of no opposition…….these are some pretty seething anti-rall comments left by your hungry mindless chickadees. Chirping away waiting for the next batch of wiggly, tired, lazy writing. Find something more progressive to write about. I know you need to bash presidents (is there one you've ever liked? I heard you supported potential presidential sleezebag Edwards who would have handed the election to the republicans) in order to write but it's no accuse.
Is Obama the messiah of hope and change everyone thought he would be, absolutely not. Is his six month presidency worse than eight years of political ass rape from Bush, fuck no!
Obama has disappointed me with his foreign policies and how the bailout money was spent. He's not great by any means but you should be asking yourself, would I rather have McCain in office right now?
What came of the detainee's legal representation under the Bush era, nothing. At least under Obama there's been actual trials.
So you applaud Bush for tanking our economy with deregulation and putting us in two wars on the Chinese coin? Obama is spending ridiculous amounts of OUR tax dollars in hope of fixing things. I'd rather our citizens foot the bill than a foreign power.
Obama hasn't had opposition??? Please, what do you think is causing the lack of healthcare reform, his obedient democratic congressmen? Republicans, along with corporate America, have been giving Obama plenty of opposition.
Why don't you write this article in three to four years.
Jay is right.
The ruthless primary run of Obama was a very clear sign how he would act in power. You called his camp as disciplined. It was disciplined to act in unison to kill the voices like Kucinich very early – so that Obama can claim that he was the only "anti-war" candidate. How dumb we are to expect a real healthcare reform while we saw the flier with same old 1993 characters issued by him to derail Hillary?
I am with you Ted. At least, Bush was an ignorant icon for a heinous mafia lead by Cheney to act behind.
Obama is not so. There is a different kind of mafia at work now. But he is "a" ring leader. Not just a rubber stamp as Bush.
Before you think of suing Obama for cheating us, try to build a case to sue the public for their refusal to use their brain in the last two years.
Joe asked us to ask ourselves, "would I rather have McCain in office right now?"
THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT. You can not tell the difference by looking at results. I am so tired of the Republican bogeymen. Yes, they are scary, but they are only one degree of separation from the other half of the duopoly.
It's July, by this time in Bush's post judicial coup, we had tax cuts for the rich and electrical black outs in Los Angeles.
"Why don't you write this article in three to four years."
You know what? This is the article everyone else will be writing 3 years from now. You are just getting a preview.
It's almost like Obama is a capitalist president looking out for the upper class? Gosh, where have you been. What else was supposed to happen!
Pssst Susan, the president doesn't create jobs. Want to take a stab at who does?
I guess Ted doesn't have any response to the Bob Cesca piece.
@ Blake
I enjoy comparing the comments posted on both articles. The comments left on Ted's article were mostly others chiming in about their dislike of Obama and reasons why. Most of the comments left on Bob's article were people being critical of Ted (and not giving counterpoints to Ted article). That seems to be a pretty common tactic of hardcore Obama supporters. Attack the person speaking against Obama while ignoring the issues the person brings up.
"It's almost like Obama is a capitalist president looking out for the upper class…"
Capitalist isn't accurate; collusion between big business and big government is Fascism – so the word you want is Fascist. (as well as communist, socialist and dictator for his other actions – pretty much anti individual liberty and anti private property rights for individuals).
Cap n Trade will be the next big boondoggle for the wealthy wall street types who get "Gov'ment grants and handouts" all funded by the taxpayers through Chinese savers buying our wonderful paper. Watch how Obama and Congress push for this.
Oh and don't let me forget – we can't put the blame on the presidents for most of the crap that goes on in America.
The blame rests squarely on our shoulders for continually re electing the criminals and crooks in congress. Those guys write the laws and control the purse. It's time we voted them out of office when they violate their oath of office and screw us over. But instead we re elect 96% of them every time. and they keep screwing us.
We keep re-electing them because most people are too stupid to vote. Only about 15% of the population is "above average" in regards to IQ (that's about 115, folks). Do you think someone with a 5-7th grade reading level who cried over the MJ funeral can really determine who can best run the country?
No?
Well that's your "average voter," folks.
Woo democracy!
The mans been in 6 months.
1) Bush wrecked havok in six months.
2) It takes five minutes to revoke Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and most of the foreign policy concerns are completely up to presidential discretion. The poster here is bullshitting unless they can explain why it would take Obama eight fucking years to begin a policy reversal on any specific issue. God, this canard grows tiresome.
B) You were (and frankly are) never going to get most of your wish list, and hearing you whine about it is taking on the quality of hearing the five year old child whine endlessly about the pony he's never going to get instead of dealing with reality.
Spoken like a true right-winger. Wanting democracy and justice is a “whine.” Of course, we already know the poster is disjoined from reality given the first complaint, and since Rall’s article was describing the bald-face reality of Obama’s rule, we know the poster is out-and-out lying.
and speaking of reality, Obama was the best of the two electable choices we had.
Bullshit. The democratic primary had plenty of choices. Assholes still backing Obama like to pretend their lack of ethics is justified due to the electoral system, but it was their backing of Obama that made him the front-runner in the first place.
The sooner you acknowledge that reality and structure your columns to deal with it, the faster you will come back to something approcahing relevance.
This “relevance” canard is no different than the right-wing “you mock Palin because you FEAR HER!!!!1!!1!” bullshit. Once the quoted poster has the competency you’d expect from a ninth-grader with a semester of social studies, then we can seriously discuss relevance.
I heard you supported potential presidential sleezebag Edwards who would have handed the election to the republicans. . .
Edwards’ poll numbers had him doing better against McCain than Clinton or Obama at every point in the campaign cycle. Swing and a miss.
Obama is spending ridiculous amounts of OUR tax dollars in hope of fixing things
In the HOPE of fixing things?! Are you seriously this stupid? Obama is doing what he wants. Are you so contemptuous of Obama’s abilities that you think he’s just guessing that his policies will work? Hell, Obama’s critics have more respect for the man than this poster does. Obama hasn’t fixed a damn thing because he’s not trying to fix a damn thing. “hope of fixing things.” Jesus.
Obama hasn't had opposition??? Please, what do you think is causing the lack of healthcare reform, his obedient democratic congressmen?
OBAMA has come out in opposition of actual, substantive healthcare reform. My rhetorical question is answered: the poster seriously is this stupid.
And in other news:
Capitalist isn't accurate; collusion between big business and big government is Fascism – so the word you want is Fascist. (as well as communist, socialist and dictator for his other actions – pretty much anti individual liberty and anti private property rights for individuals).
QFT
Tax cuts represent "wasted" money?
So letting people keep their own
hard-earned dollars rather than
sucking it to Washington DC and
using it to fight a war or buy
needles for crackheads is wasteful?