February 08, 2010 08:08 PM UTC

Who Is Barack Obama?

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• by: JO

In 2007-2008 conservative “establishment” Democrats, plus feminists, had a clear choice: Hillary. Self-proclaimed progressives could hear echoes of their sentiments in John Edwards. And then there was Barack Obama, inspirational speaker without peer. Yes, he seemed more conservative than Edwards, but perhaps that was just caution, an appeal to the broad middle of an electorate aching for change–but exactly what sort of change they weren’t entirely clear. Obama carried those hopes on what was, in many respects, a blank slate.

Some leftists, sorely tempted by Edwards, nevertheless gravitated to Obama, captured by his oratory and willing to see what they wanted to see. After all, how conservative could a veteran South Side community organizer really be? And hadn’t Obama long opposed the Iraq war that Senator Edwards had voted to approve and that Hillary still supported? Wasn’t Iraq the overwhelming issue in 2008?

Ah, what a difference a year makes.

Edwards, of course, has proved to be one of the most wretched individuals ever to run for the White House, at least as far as we know.

Hillary “I support the war in Iraq” is now Secretary of State! The president of the New York federal reserve, Timothy Geitner, who was at Ground Zero during the financial meltdown of 2008, is Mr. Treasury Secretary with Larry Summers calling shots from the side. And there’s Rahm “Fuckin'” Emanuel callin’ the fuckin’ shots from next door to the fuckin’ Oval fuckin’ Office.

Where is Obama in all this? And what should progressives who bought into the rhetoric of Barck the Candidate a year ago make of Obama the President at the outset of Year 2?

An article last week in the FinTimes ( http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b6b4…  Regis. required, free, and worth it) suggested that the White House had been taken over by a Gang of Four from Chicago (Axelrod, Gibbs, Emanuel, and Barack Himself), whose particular brand of politics may not go down especially well outside the Windy City.

In other cases, some progressives view with wonderment Obama scheduling a televised conference with Republicans on the topic of health care, in hopes of persuading them, finding a middle ground, or whatever, and thereby rescuing “health care reform,” without exactly defining what that “reform” might be–guaranteed profits for private insurers? Continued runaway costs? “Do Not Touch” pharmaceutical prices? Yes, Virginia, the health care system could be made even worse and that could be called “reform.” Guaranteeing health care as a basic human right…well, that’s a bit tougher if we’re still expect to put a Mercedes in every MD’s garage and Bentleys in the 4th through 6th bays of health insurance CEOs’ car barns.

How many Americans are concerned that any sense of national purpose or common good has been lost beneath the constant drumbeat of Me, Me, Me, whose drum majors are the CEOs of corporations that have happily exported jobs to lowest-paid worker zones, conveniently forgetting ol’ Henry Ford’s notion of making cars that his workers could afford to buy–not just by making cheap cars, but also by paying decent wages? Will lofty rhetoric alone solve this symptom of social decline and fall?

How many Americans marvel at the speed with which the favored ones covered by TARP have sprung back and resumed paying multi-million dollar bonuses, while upwards of 15% of Americans remain unemployed or underemployed, or just too discouraged to even look? Seems the government can do something about economic hurt–when it’s determined to do so.

I might still be chanting “yes, we can” if I had a clearer picture of just what it was we could do. I might not be asking “who is Barack Obama” if Safeway accepted Hope for groceries and offered Change in return.

Is Obama drifting to the right, as I read here and there? Was he always on the right, having hidden there in the bygone era of don’t ask don’t tell? Well, we can still hope, but our belief begins to wear thin.