'Change We Can Believe In'...'We Believe'...'Yes We Can'. These were the shrill battlecries of the hysterical foot-soldiers of Obama-Pelosi-Reid throughout the last presidential election and continued on even until recently. Diehard progressives, Blue Dog Democrats, and moderates alike drew their collective breaths at the promises that were offered by the new sheriffs in town. Journalists practically swooned over Obama's potential, (Chris Matthews is still positively orgasmic over him), and idealistic, brainwashed students turned out in droves because they believed. 'Hope' was on everyone's lips.
But now, O-P-R are faced with changes they never thought possible.
This unholy triumvirate of community organizer/west coast looney/liberal racist rode into power on the premise that Washington, and the rest of the country, was completely broken. They backed up their mantra with as much evidence as they could muster. The war(s) was bad for us globally, oil was bad for us internally. Government was rife with corruption, and Darth Cheney had solidified power with the Executive so as to trample our rights more thoroughly. Big Business had reached its tentacles into the darkest corners of government. According to O-P-R, only they could save America from all that had befallen us.
It wasn't a very hard sell, really. With the mortgage crisis, folks everywhere were scared for their homes and livelihood. Americans were being told that we were getting tired of having wars. I guess some of us even believed that, deep down inside, every coldblooded foreign tyrant just needed a hug and an obeisiant bow for them to start humming 'Yankee Doodle Dandy.' Worse still, the economy began to tank. Yep, they told us, we sure needed something different.
What they gave us was a morally imperative, if somewhat practically ambiguous, blueprint for their improvements. Because some numbskull Republicans became embroiled in a few shady situations, Pelosi led the early charge calling for a cleaning of the Congressional house. She insisted that our legislature had become too corrupt to do the work of the people. Her answer was to vote those GOP bastards out and shine the pure, cleansing light of accountability into the halls of Congress. In fact, she started to coin the phrase, 'New Direction Congress', almost before the Nov. 2006 election results had turned cold.
Likewise presidential candidate Barack Obama, fresh off of his Senatatorial campaign, promised to fling wide the curtains of the White House. His first day of office he said that he would usher in an 'unprecedented level of openness in government.' He said that no lobbyists would serve in his administration. He also promised the world would gain new respect for a kinder, gentler America. And he promised to create thousands of green jobs. And to turn the economy around with our stimulus tax dollars. And he promised to turn Coke into Pepsi and find my fuckin' car keys.
Well, maybe not that last part, but he did promise to work both sides of the political spectrum and be Monsieur Bi-partisanship.
That all seems to be part of the problem O-P-R seem to be having now: none of it worked! The Pres is more highly scripted than any former chief executive, and he has a tight rein on the media and their access. None of the promised deliberations on C-SPAN have transpired, (excepting of course the staged healthcare 'summit' which really wasn't), he maintains a secret army of policy czars, and he breaks his own lobbyist rules as often as he pleases. For their part, P-R have done nothing but force the ill-conceived and ugly healthcare bill down our throats...they've done little else since Obama took office. They wield partisanship as blunt weapon, flailing about the ranks of Congress, decrying anyone who disagrees with them. Where, too, is the promised spirit of openness and inclusion?
Where's the change? Where's the beef?
Laid out before them like a political Rand McNally is their roadmap to civilian life. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is looking at a potential loss in November. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was practically shouted off the podium this week by those Code Pink crazies during a progressive re-education camp in D.C. And Obama has poll numbers, dismal numbers, that are lower than President Bush's during a stronger war footing AND during the Katrina cleanup effort. The Pres can't speak without the teleprompter, but when he tries he sounds bitter and angry.
Hell, Washington D.C. would make anyone bitter and angry, but that wasn't what he was elected upon. In fact, all three of the D.C.-Gees sound grumpy these days, as do their hangers-on. They spit the words 'Tea Party' out as if it were a toxic venom. Pelosi scoffs at the notion that anyone not on a coast has anything meaningful to say, and Obama has chronically hurt feelings cause he ain't be gettin' da job done. So to speak.
Maybe this is a case of them overstating their case, overpromising and underdelivering. Perhaps they were all so jacked-up on the audacity of hope that they really didn't realize the world wouldn't change on their whim. To give them the benefit of the doubt, they may have their hearts in the right place.
But I'm just not buying it. The smug self-assurance they had and their utter dismissal of anything contrary to their Far Left agenda shows me they never were in touch with those of us here in the regular world. If some of the recent primaries are any indication, then Election Day 2010 may show them too that they were woefully out of touch from the start.
Now that's change I can believe in.
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