Change We Can Lament

Last Tuesday, Massachusetts voters selected an anathema, a Republican, as their new Senator. Such was their disgust with the general atmosphere in Washington that the deepest blue State chose an unknown GOP novice over a reliable Democrat party-line politician. In response to the blood-bath, Obama said, correctly, that the same dissatisfaction with Washington that swept him into office also swept in Sen. Elect Brown. Obama should have left well enough alone, but he went on to say that this anger goes back eight years, implying that the real culprit was Pres. Bush. Really? So Bush’s and the GOP’s many errors and corrupt politics are to blame for a GOP victory in Massachusetts? Well, that’s the first good Bush has done for the GOP since 2004.

What Obama had hoped to say might have been that politics as usual go back a while and that he was elected to deliver “change we can believe in.” Even that would have been unfortunate because as corrupt as Washington was, Obama has made it worse. Shout Bits doubts that independent voters hoped for these examples of Obama’s sleazy politics:

• Even before Obama was elected, he broke his promise and turned down public funding of his campaign. Of course Shout Bits is against taxpayer funding of political campaigns, but Obama made it clear that part of his transformational brand of politics was to limit his spending per the federal program. As soon as it was clear Obama could raise more than the limit, he broke his promise and ran the most expensive campaign in history. Politics as usual.
• Throughout his political career, Obama has associated with some shady characters. Terrorist Bill Ayers launched Obama’s early political career, while Rev. Wright preached some pretty divisive rhetoric. Many politicians have shady beginnings, like Sen. Byrd’s membership in the KKK, but even after Obama’s election, he courted radicals like truther Van Jones, pedophile apologist Kevin Jennings, genocide advocate John Holdren, and documented socialist Carol Browner.
• Obama stole the property of Chrysler’s secured debt holders and transferred the assets to the UAW. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Obama also directed the closure and retention of certain Chrysler and GM dealerships based on political favoritism – the lawsuits continue.
• Obama pushed for the Card Check law that would have forced union organization against the will of both employees and employers. This union sop is opposed by an overwhelming majority of voters.
• Obama’s stimulus bill was little more than a hodge-podge of left wing pork, that clearly has not helped with the unemployment problem he claimed it would target. Worse, the stimulus bill forced expansive policies on states that had little choice but to comply. While Obama’s stimulus may have helped balance 2009 and 2010 state budgets, it requires permanent budget waste thereafter. This kind of heavy handed tactic hardly counts as change.
• Obama chastised the unconscionable tactics of the Bush ‘war on terror,’ all the while maintaining every substantial part of the Bush program.
• Obama continued and expanded the inappropriate Bush bailouts. Obama redirected funds meant solely for financial institutions to the benefit of his union allies. Currently, Obama is trying to convert the one time TARP loans into revolving loans for his political allies – a $200bln slush fund with no accountability.
• Despite the clear proof that the financial collapse was encouraged and fueled by irresponsible Fed policies and incompetent Washington oversight of Fannie Mae, Obama continues to hammer away on his theme that only Wall Street bankers were to blame. Obama’s only response is to harp about Wall Street bonuses and to tax the successful banks to subsidize the failures.
• Obama sought to fund socialized medicine on the backs of those with good health care, with the exception of Congressmen and union members. Those valued constituents would be exempt from the ‘Cadillac tax.’ Perhaps this is the worst example of Obama’s corrupt cronyism.
• Obama and the Congressional Democrats met in private to hammer out backroom deals on health care, buying off moderate Dems with tens of billions in graft. Obama ignored his transparency pledges when they mattered most.

All these missteps, failures, and revealing gaffes in one year! Obama campaigned as a transformational unifier, but he has turned out to be a hard left manipulator – the very kind of politician voters repudiated in 2008. David Axelrod thinks that there is no need for an administration shake-up in the wake of the Massachusetts election, but the real problem is that Obama never shook-up the business as usual corruption in Washington in the first place. Unless Obama realizes that his Chicago brand of sleazy politics is not what voters wanted in 2008, the mid-term elections will dwarf 1994 as they wipe the Washington slate clean.