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The Outer Limits
By David Glenn Cox
It would seem that we have lost momentum; our sails have gone slack and there is no need to man the tiller, for we are not moving in any appreciable way. In the run-up to the presidential elections, mass campaigns were afoot to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, prosecute war criminals and to close Guantanamo.
The Republicans ran the only campaign they could run: tax cuts help everyone; albeit some more than others. The image of that confused old woman asking John McCain, “You mean Obama’s not a terrorist?” crystallized the campaign along with Sarah Palin as comic relief, illustrating how far to the right the Republicans had moved and then found themselves trapped by the images of their own creation.
It was Henry David Thoreau who once said, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” Yet, for the Republicans there is a second possibility, perhaps they hear music that really isn’t there at all. This is illustrated by former Vice President Dick (Chicken Little) Cheney who has been maintaining since he left office that indeed the sky is falling, or in this case the terrorists are coming, and then marches off the field in a solitary direction.
Mark Twain once lamented that the profession of lying had gone downhill because it had become overrun with rank amateurs. The numerous amateurs lacking the skills of great liars had so muddied the waters that the truly great liar could not be heard over the din and commotion of the amateurs. Mr. Cheney, with all his corporate skills and years of political experience culminating in eight years as Vice President of the United States, is such a disappointment to the field of lying. Why, even a child knows if mother’s not buying your story of who broke the clock; so you change it and blame the cat.
Instead Mr. Cheney runs willy-nilly trying to sell the same old discredited lie that failed so miserably when he was in power. He indicts himself and reminds America why it was they didn’t vote Republican in the last election. I would wager poor lying skills are the most common cause of losing elections in America. If it were only Mr. Cheney, the Republicans could possibly recover. But the party was shattered by the presidency of George W. Bush who, like a temperance minister, who wakes up hung over in the gutter having no idea who they are anymore.
And so they just throw things at the wall attempting to see what sticks. The three blind mice of the party, Palin, Bachmann and Newt, are to be admired for using their imaginations to generate issues straight out of their craniums. They might not be intelligent arguments but you must give them credit for at least trying to use their imagination. Especially when their party rivals just heckle Obama with cries of, “Socialist, Communist, soft on terrorism," and even openly calling on Obama to fail.
It should all be so easy for the left, with control of the White House and the Congress, these should be our glory days. But the impetus to end the wars seems to have ended with the election. Still more troops are dying every day and more money that we desperately need at home is going abroad leading Dennis Kucinich to remark, "Another $106 billion dollars and all we get is a lousy war. Pretty soon that is going to be about the only thing made in America – war.” Where did the outrage go? These are no longer Bush's wars; they are Obama’s.
Yet the world is silent; a fifty percent troop reduction in Iraq and a fifty percent troop increase in Afghanistan and the left nods in grudging agreement. The President who promised that closing Guantanamo would be easy now pulls the legal theory of prolonged detention from thin air. The left argues, “Well, he has to do something; he didn’t create this problem.” Obama was a law professor; the principles of habeas corpus should not be foreign to him. You charge and you convict, and if you fail to convict then you release. It ain’t always pretty, but that is the way it works in the old justice racket.
Obama and his top advisors met with the CIA and announced there would be no prosecutions for war crimes. Bad apples like privates and sergeants can languish in jail with their records ruined, but those who gave them the orders are immune from prosecution. This is not really a decision that the left should be overjoyed about. The President who promised us transparency has banned the White House visitor logs from public scrutiny. The Bush administration had tried that same policy and lost three times, defending it in federal court but never turned over the logs. Despite three legal rulings Obama, the law professor, says let’s try it again. So much then for the rule of law.
The LGBT community is outraged by the Justice Department's brief in the Defense of Marriage Act and the President's inability to end don’t ask don’t tell in the military. Instead, in an effort to throw the LGBT community a bone, he offers a memorandum extending some benefits to some federal works for as long as Obama is the President. Had other presidents acted with such spineless temerity there might still be "colored" waiting rooms across the South. But to my LGBT brethren I say, you are with us and we are with you, as we’ve all been disappointed equally.
Obama works facetiously at his desk and legislation is brought to the floor but somehow it never rises to what we were led to believe. The Green Energy Initiative has millions of dollars in it to design better oil drilling heads. Republicans bluster over assisting struggling home mortgagers and while Obama’s plan is lauded as helping ten times as many homeowners as the Bush administration, it should be remembered the Bush plan helped only 1% and Obama’s plan only helps 10%, but we are rescuing 100% of the banks.
When the crisis in the auto industry began, it was the Democrats who insisted the companies should be bailed out and not allowed to go into bankruptcy, claiming it would cost tens of thousands of jobs and damage thousands of retirees' incomes and healthcare benefits. The Republicans countered that bankruptcy was the only logical course, that job losses and labor agreements couldn’t be helped. It is the bankruptcy that allows the automakers to cancel dealerships contracts at will.
The President appointed an auto task force and out of that came the bankruptcies of Chrysler and GM. The ensuing loss of thousands of jobs, the voiding of union agreements and the canceling of thousands of dealerships that cost the car companies nothing. It was thought by the industry insiders that there was an over-supply of dealers; so bankruptcy granted the power of life and death over the dealerships to the manufacturers. The decision is to be made by the car companies themselves rather than the market place. The auto task force plan is 9/10ths of the Republican plan with the exception of GM’s Rick Wagoner being fired and the car companies still being in control.
The Employee Free Choice Act is dead because the Democratic caucus could not keep Democrats on board. Candidate Obama had promised to sign the bill if it crossed his desk. Clever man that he is, he never promised to help it reach his desk. America's labor unions are now working to see that no bill is passed as they realize that a compromise that gives them nothing still takes the issue off the table. Or a bad bill is far worse than nothing.
This should be remembered as healthcare reform shuffles along through Congress, that a bad bill that gives to insurance companies ensconces those earnings forever. We will not be able to change it if we don’t like it next year. The political will shall be gone along with any chance of real reform. Now if we examine the issue from the Republican perspective, they need only to hobble the bill and to guarantee access for their friends in the insurance industry. Their profits rise, and if the plan fails as halfway measures almost always do, then Republicans win again.
Finally, the President chose Judge Sotomayor to replace the conservative Judge Souter, yet when we hold their judicial records side-by-side, they are almost identical. Is that the audacity of hope? Republican presidents choose right-wing ideologues for the court while Democratic presidents choose exact replacements for slightly less right-wing ideologues?
Our sails are slack. Are we stunned because what we got looked like what was on the box but isn’t working as advertised? Or perhaps we are like the Republicans, lost and wandering in the universe as our political galaxy spins out of reach. Or maybe Barrack Obama is a smooth, well-spoken version of George W. Bush and a credit to the lying profession. Or perhaps we are in a tale from the Outer Limits. “Do not adjust your set. We control the picture, we control the sound.”
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