Obama is (Close to Being) Finished

We've seen a lot of frustration with President Obama on the radical left. And Alexander Cockburn's CounterPunch is almost as far left as you can get. But it's worth a read, even if he discounts Obama's own neo-socialist tendencies. Leftists want more, of course. But the left critique overlaps with right criticism on a number of issues. Leftists want more from the Democrats, and they're mad. Conservatives are mad that Democrats put him in office. Both sides think he's been a disaster, although the left hates the consequences of that fact, and the right is (basically) greedily anticipating its restoration to power in November and beyond.



In any case, "The Fall of Obama":

It is not Obama’s fault that across 30 years more and more money has floated up to the apex of the social pyramid till America is heading back to where it was in the 1880s, a nation of tramps and millionaires. It’s not his fault that every tax break, every regulation, every judicial decision tilts toward business and the rich. That was the neoliberal America conjured into malign vitality back in the mid 1970s.



But it is Obama’s fault that he did not understand this, that always, from the getgo, he flattered Americans with paeans to their greatness, without adequate warning of the political and corporate corruption destroying America and the resistance he would face if he really fought against the prevailing arrangements that were destroying America. He offered them a free and easy pass to a better future, and now they see that the promise was empty.



It’s Obama’s fault, too, that, as a communicator, he cannot rally and inspire the nation from its fears. From his earliest years he has schooled himself not to be excitable, not to be an angry black man who would be alarming to his white friends at Harvard and his later corporate patrons. Self-control was his passport to the guardians of the system, who were desperate to find a symbolic leader to restore America’s credibility in the world after the disasters of the Bush era. He is too cool.



So, now Americans in increasing numbers have lost confidence in him. For the first time in the polls negative assessments outnumber the positive. He no longer commands trust. His support is drifting down to 40 per cent. The straddle that allowed him to flatter corporate chieftains at the same time as blue-collar workers now seems like the most vapid opportunism. The casual campaign pledge to wipe out al-Quaida in Afghanistan is now being cashed out in a disastrous campaign viewed with dismay by a majority of Americans.

RELATED: "Democrats engage in 'circular firing squad'." (Via Memeorandum.)