Obama, Slip-Sliding Away from His Promises

Politics is junk piled on lies piled on wasted hope. So the failure of the newest administration to accomplish much more than press and photo-ops is pretty much aligned with all of the politics that I have had the displeasure to observe since the sixth grade when good ol' Ms. Wingate got us to engage in a debate about who was better, Stevenson or Eisenhower. That debate instilled in me a general distrust of politicians and of the people who put them in office. While I am not ready to succumb to the racist nonsense and purposeful lies of FOX news nor to Rust Limbaugh and his mindless attempt to control public sentiment through open racism and fear, I have to note that, not surprisingly, the Obama administration has stooped to using sound bites and much hype to camouflage some serious failures to move in directions that it promised during the election and during its first 100 days of operation. I do want to complain about two points, of many, where the Obama administration is clearly beginning to look like all its predecessors: job production and bank regulation.

I don't have a problem at all with any administration that wants to help stimulate PERMANENT jobs in the United States (we all know, really, I hope, that there are FEW jobs for blue collar workers in this country); however, I have a huge problem with an administration that employs bull shit talking points to offer proof of success. The current statements by Demorats about 600K jobs created or saved is as spurious a statement as Regan's Trickle Down economic theory. Obama's spin is as insidious as Regan's for it pre-assumes that folks are generally stupid and incapable of posing a simple question: How does the government prove that a job has been saved? Furthermore, how can that administration prove the stimulus monies were the exact monies that "saved" the job? It can't and it irks hell out of me that the Obama Bunch thinks I am stupid enough to swallow the bait. Furthermore, they think I am dumb enough not to get it that in their spin they combine two data points that are impossible to separate: We have created or saved 600,000 jobs! What horse waste. First, 600K of anything that is being calculated in the millions and billions and trillions is a laugh, but the combination of the two is an insult to my common sense not comedy. Obama should just quit with stupid attempts to prove that he is accomplishing until he actually does accomplish.

The second failure of Obama is how his administration is slowly creeping away from its responsibility to explain the crookedness of the American banks, to make sure bank regulations are enforced, and to make sure executives who broke the laws are punished. The very banks that we bailed out have now formed a consortium or coalition that pays monster bucks to lobby the White House and Congress to keep regulations minimal and to allow them to continue trading in derivatives away from the light of a free market. These bank executives and boards have become sordidly rich trading in this clandestine, false equity. In the meantime, the stock owners, employees, and the tax payers have literally been abused. Yet, the Obama administration is reneging (I know, I know) on its promises of fair and open government and is slowly turning as gutless and as self-interested and as secretive as any deplorable Repuklican management that I can remember.

Every presidency since Nixon has failed the public by being deceitful. Obama and his group would be wise to report the truth and then, without bs-ing us, tell us really how we are going get people back to work. Moreover, it is past time for him to disclose just how crooked the banks are, how worthless some are, how the banks are using taxpayer money to lobby against good financial sense, and bring bank crooks to justice, quickly. Of course if he really illustrates just how hopeless creating private jobs is and really cleans up the lawless financial industry, he won't get reelected. But by living up to his promises, a unique adventure for an American politician, would be doing a good thing for us.