Barry in the Bush with Smiles

Common Dreams - It’s astonishing how Democrats can never seem to block anything the hard-right wants to do, even when they have majorities, while the GOP kills everything the Democrats supposedly want, even with minuscule minorities in Congress. Gee, one could almost get the impression that Democrats don’t really want anything much different from Republicans, but just have to adopt a different alt-persona to hide their intentions from the public. Republicans use guns, god, gays and Gaddafi as distractions from corporate looting. Democrats strap on their cardigan sweaters and try really, really hard to do something, but gosh-darned it, just never seem to get anywhere.

As for our friend Mr. Obama, he seems busy unlearning every lesson of the last three decades. He doesn’t appear worried that the right will challenge his legitimacy as president ‘cause, of course, they never did that to Carter or Clinton. He doesn’t seem worried that they’ll happily destroy the country if necessary in order to wreck his presidency because, of course, there’s little precedent for that. He doesn’t much care to use the bully pulpit and strong-arm Congress to get what he wants because, of course, that never got Reagan or Bush anywhere.

I can’t believe I’d ever say this, but the question Obama should be asking right about now, is “What would Bush do?”

I’ll tell ya what. He’d jam his legislation down the throats of the other party, putting the fear of god in them if they dared to oppose the emperor. He’s rip people’s lungs out and stuff them back through their eye sockets if they looked at him cross-eyed. He’d lie to members of his own party and carpet bomb their entire home neighborhoods if they dared vote against him. If any media talking head didn’t tell the lies they were programmed to speak, he’d kidnap their kids and send them to Gitmo, treating them a good waterboarding for every one of their birthdays. And, he’d call in Rove to stomp some people good, the nice Republican way.

What would that look like? Here’s journalist Ron Suskind relating an inside taste of what he observed while waiting outside the Ol’ Karl’s office for an interview, back when he was running the White House political operation:

“Rove was talking to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him. I paid it no mind and reviewed a jotted list of questions I hoped to ask. But after a moment, it was like ignoring a tornado flinging parked cars. ‘We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!’ As a reporter, you get around—curse words, anger, passionate intensity are not notable events—but the ferocity, the bellicosity, the violent imputations were, well, shocking. This went on without a break for a minute or two. Then the aide slipped out looking a bit ashen, and Rove, his face ruddy from the exertions of the past few moments, looked at me and smiled a gentle, Clarence-the-Angel smile. ‘Come on in.’ And I did. And we had the most amiable chat for a half hour.”

Why won’t Obama do this? Why won’t he unleash all the powers at his disposal, knock heads together, and smash political opponents to smithereens in order to get his way? Two reasons. First, he wasn’t a complete personal screw-up for the last half century, acknowledged even by his own parents to be a total embarrassment. He therefore doesn’t have the burning need to show the world they’ve been wrong about him his whole life, like a certain other fellow recently seen roaming the halls of the West Wing.

The other reason is that Obama doesn’t actually appear to be doing anything that requires any particular toughness. He’s not trying to sell a bullshit war or dismantle Social Security, like Bush. He’s not trying to end legal and institutional racism in a country where it was as pervasive as bibles in ‘Bama, like Lyndon Johnson did. He’s not attempting to bring the country kicking and screaming into the twentieth century, even after it was already one-third over, like FDR was.

In fact, he doesn’t really appear to be doing much of anything, including producing the much-vaunted ‘change’ we heard endlessly about during last year’s campaign. Unless, of course, you count the nice demeanor with which he continues the predatory policies of Reagan, Clinton, and the Bushes. This is essentially George W. Bush’s third term. It’s Barry in the Bush with Smiles. Read more.