ladies and gentlemen, Barack W. Obama

People have long accused me of wanting always to be right. In fairness, I used to use rhetoric the way, say, a lawyer might to muddy an argument and keep it moving in order to tire the other person involved. I have friends -- one in particular -- who still does this, so I'm pretty sensitive to it because it reminds me what I douche I can be. But these days when I hear this accusation about wanting above all to be right, I have to laugh it off or choke a motherfucker.

This came up a lot in the primary. Hillary was my girl in California but only because the other choice was Obama. Before them I liked Edwards sort of and really just missed Wes Clark and Al Gore. But people accused me of choosing Hillary to be a contrarian and being blind to anything else once I made that decision. Actually if I remember correctly I was calling out her campaign for being a piece of shit while praising Obama's. Ultimately though what matters to me is looking at all the facts and not working backwards from a choice of whom to support. I tried my ass off to have a discussion in which no party involved was secretly shilling for a candidate. A discussion in which we explored all there was to like and all there was to dislike about each candidate. But it seemed every criticism of Hill was met with "but Obama...." and vice versa. Mind you these are people above the age of 25 mostly and very well educated and funded. The upside is that I was contemplating getting involved in politics in more than a passing way, and I was involved in a moderate rich kid group that had the audacity to call themselves progressive. When confronted with the Obama vs. Edwards comparison one of the group leaders said, instead of engaging in anything resembling mature discourse "sorry. your guy lost." Ah, so it's not about progressive politics. It's about winning and losing. Ladies and gentlemen, the future (or lack thereof) of the progressive movement in America. On doit pratiquer la marseillaise!

Back to right and wrong. As lately Obama has proven himself to be the moderate I feared he was, I have been sharing this with those around me. In one IM I wrote "thanks for this" to a very liberal Obama supporter (I know its an oxymoron, but that's the point!) with a link to a piece about FISA, guns and faith-based garbage. The response was "how is this my fault?" (you only voted for the guy when there was far more evidence that he'd move right than left). Then there was some exchange about how I'm happy to be right about this. So... basically people are suggesting that to me the value of discovering my fears about Obama were right outweighs that of not having a jackass in the White House continuing to cater to DANGEROUS, intolerant terrorists in the faith-based everything community (not to mention the domestic spying and guns etc).

Wow. Honestly? That really hurts my feelings. I don't have anything clever to say. I can't be dismissive or condescending. It genuinely HURTS that someone would think I would behave like the whiny kids I know who play with the livelihoods of poor Americans so they can get some loose hippy pumpum at an Obama rally.

Remember, this whole Obama thing started as a faith-based movement. People had faith that he was a progressive. I didn't -based on overwhelming evidence, but faith ain't about evidence now is it? What scared me was that the type of thinking and the brilliant neocons ability to manipulate had worked so well and now the left was learning to use it. I was invited along for the ride by a couple lawyers, one of whom cited this scary speech that told me everything I needed to know about what would happen (and now has) when Obama secured the nom. Essentially they were saying "we've figured out how to use their strategy for our side. Come along...." Like them, Obama was trained (at Harvard no less) to decide what he wants to make a jury believe and work backwards filling in the evidence/rhetoric etc. as he goes so it seemed like the stage was set. The leader might change, but dangerous thinking would continue to rule the country. Dangerous in that there was no thought put into the thinking.

I don't think you need to pander to win. I think you need to look like a leader. Basically you need to man up, inject a little bit of the Kanye juice and i think you need to have the balls actually to be a progressive and convince people you're trying to help them no matter what the other side tries to do to cloud things up. The lesson to be taken from the Bush years is not "anything to win" but rather, if you state your positions confidently and stick by them despite the other sides attacks whether baseless like those against say slick Willy in the 90s or fair like those against Bush this century people will stick by your side. They want to be led and they want to be led by a leader, not a panderer. It's NOT about right and wrong for people. It's about who you want to follow in to battle. I think if Wes Clark were running he'd still say what he did about mccain and i think he'd still refuse to retract it AND MOST IMPORTANT HE'D HAVE THE RESUME TO BACK IT UP. Obama has no resume.

Obama may yet win in the fall but if he does and this was the way he did it, well it doesn't bode well for future election strategy. People are simple and they tend to think like "he won that way so that's the only way to win" when Obama likely could win in a number of ways including those that involve, say, getting health care for people who don't know better than to opt out of his current plan and keeping church and state separate. But he's chosen another path.

You are you. Do what you want. But I believe it is my responsibility not to encourage this type of politics. If Obama doesn't change his tune, I will write in someone who I think represents the best chances not simply for some approximation of my progressive goals to be achieved here in USA, but rather a path by which we can change our approach to politics in this country and bring about the change so many believed Obama would bring when he gave that convincing argument - I am about change because I say so.

Please comment! Give me shit! Start a dialogue! If you email directly in response, I will post your email (though I'll remove your name).