Obama the Cowardly Lion

I voted for Kennedy, and LBJ, with diminishing hope for Carter, and with a certain detachment for Bill. But with Barack Obama, I confess I was won over, as I had been for JFK back in early 1960.

Kennedy was far from perfect, but Obama isn't just a disappointment; he isn't just a failing President the way Carter was, he's failing the country, and it's probably because of who he is. Drew Westen's essay in the NYT is damning, with faint praise. Clearly, Westen is an admirer of the New Deal (so am I), but he sees Obama as someone who doesn't really know who he is; it changes with each person he works with; and he doesn't know how to deal with a bully.

Obama's pacific nature would have been well-suited to the situation Bush W faced in 2001. The outcome would have been very different, as it probably would if the Supremes had allowed Gore to be elected.

Westen pointed out that Obama's stories never include a real villain; anything bad is rather abstract, or in passive mode. And, he doesn't stand up to a bully, like McConnell, or Boehner; he wants to appease.

My wife, the inestimable Elizabeth Cunningham, told me long ago, "He's just like me! He wants to placate so the unpleasantness will go away. I know how to stand up to a bully, though; he doesn't."

But he also doesn't know if he's for progressive politics, although that's where he started, or if he really thinks more like Reagan. He may have been corrupted, in the moral sense, or he's just more of a chameleon than anyone knew: conservative when Republicans make everyone seem to be to his right--not a comfortable place to be--progressive when among Democrats, but never far out left.

That's why "centrism" is like a religion in the Obama White House: along with Change We Can Believe In, Obama's other great theme in the election was Unity. After health care, it's been little change, but too much effort for achieving unity when none is possible, except through a dead-pan or ambiguous surrender.

It's true that S&P blamed the GOP's obstructionism in their downgrade missive, but they're seeing only half of the picture; the other half has Obama cringing before GOP leaders. Obama enables bullies. The bullies are also incredibly destructive. They brought the US over the brink of fiscal credibility, and it's probably like the title of my long ago discarded first novel: When Wrong Ways Prevail.

The novel wasn't about the Roman Empire; it took place in modern India, and the wrong ways were personal, not economic or political. However, my non-fiction book, the Selfish Class, available onsite, details 21st Century parallels with the late Roman Empire's takeover by the wealthy and the military.

That's what seems to be happening here, now: tragically, even with Obama.

My novel, Attila, also onsite, takes place only decades before Rome's fall.