I always knew that he wasn't the raging leftist he was painted to be. I took a lot of flak from a lot of people during the primaries for not seeing Barack Obama as the progressive savior we'd been waiting for. That the guy I supported turned out to be a personal trainwreck doesn't change the fact that we found out everything we needed to know about Barack Obama in 2004, when he sat on his hands when the late, great Stephanie Tubbs-Jones needed a Senator to co-sign her objection to certifying the highly suspect Ohio election results, and then selected the odious sellout Joe Lieberman as his mentor.
Oh, I had some hopes about him; not the "hopey-changey" stuff that Sarah Palin likes to mock, but some hope that perhaps he would feel the responsiblity that accompanied the work of the people who got him elected. When he signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act, that hope was enhanced somewhat. But by the end of his first year in office, it became clear that Barack Obama was always going to be more concerned with being conciliatory towards those who hated him and would never regard him as a legitimate president than with the concerns of those who got him elected.
But despite my doubts about Barack Obama, even I never dreamed that he'd be so bound and determined to be the guy who presided over the destruction of Social Security. How else to explain why he not only named the known Social Security opponent Alan Simpson to HEAD up his "deficit commission", but plans to keep him even after Simpson's "macaca moment" the other day?
Krugman:
When you have a commission dedicated to the common good, and the co-chair dismisses Social Security as a “milk cow with 310 million tits,” you either have to get rid of him or admit that you’re completely, um, cowed by the right wing, that IOKIYAR rules completely.
And no, an apology won’t suffice. Simpson was completely in character here; it was perfectly consistent with everything else he’s said, and with his previous behavior. He has to go.
The White House, predictably,
won't have it:
At the White House Wednesday deputy communications director Jennifer Psaki, said, “Alan Simpson has apologized, and while we regret and do not condone his comments, we accept his apology and he will continue to serve.”
And so, we are left with only one conclusion: Barack Obama is keeping Alan Simpson, a known opponent of Social Security, whose disrespect for a group of women also shows him to be a misogynist, on the Comission because he agrees with Simpson's goals.
Barack Obama: Destroyer of Social Security. It's obviously what he wants. And if he doesn't, he'd damn well better start showing with DEEDS, not speeches, that it isn't. Or else the hell with it -- let Sarah Palin become president, with Sharron Angle as her #2. I'll grab the popcorn, watch the end game, and figure I've had a good run. At least with the Republicans I KNOW how badly they're going to fuck things up.
Labels: Barack Obama, Democratic sellouts, Social Security
When I hear the name Alan Simpson I think of the movie "Soylent Green" as well as the Twilight Zone tv episode "To Serve Man" and also "Catfood Commission" comes to mind. Simpson is so inferior that to use him for pet food after he passes away would be grounds for a criminal complaint.