At Barack Obama’s press conference today, he said this, in part:
Fifty-five days before his inauguration, Obama defended his selection of former Clinton officials to help run his administration.
“The American people would be troubled if I selected a treasury secretary or a chairman of the National Economic Council at one of the most critical economic times in our history who had no experience in government whatsoever,” Obama said.
More on the press conference here
Well yes, Barack, but you said your lack of experience was not an impediment to your Presidential aspirations. Or did you say you have lots of experience yourself, so you’re better than Sen Clinton who spent her time as First Lady attending tea parties? Oh, speaking of which, I notice you’ve chosen her to be your Secretary of State – geez, I’m surprised. Umm, she has no foreign policy experience, Barack. Or so you said. Gee, your approach is so, ummm, “refreshing”.
And Barack, you said you’d make a better President than Hillary because she was tied-in to the old hack-job Washingtonian Clinton political establishment. Some people believed you. But now you’re hiring the old hack-job Washingtonian Clintonista political establishment shitheads who had no trouble extending Reaganomic/Friedman-freakynomic policies to such an extent that they are deeply implicated in the present economic debacle, i.e. Larry fuckin’ Summers and Tim Geithner.
Now if you were just a regular politician, none of this would merit comment. Political expediency, political cynicism, all that. But you said you were different, Barack. And you’re not; you’re just not. You’re a modestly intelligent man whose political stripe falls considerably to the right of Sen. Clinton’s and now you’re trying to cover your colours, hoping we won’t notice how blue you’re looking these days.
I wanted to believe you were “different”, Barack. I’m glad I never did. I’m still angry with you though. Yeah, alright, you’re better than John McCain. Big fuckin’ changey-hopey whoop!
Endnote: Maybe it’s not so much that Obama is a new kind of politician as that he’s simply more folksy/articulate and wiley than any politician we’ve seen since, well, Bill Clinton.
Maybe Ralph Nader was right in predicting that the same Wall Street hustlers would have a lock on our government no matter which major party won the election. I hate to admit it, since it wasn’t that long ago that I heatedly challenged Nader in a debate on this very point.
I’m off to stick a few fingers down my throat.
P.S. – Barack, in case you’ve forgotten about the Clinton tea parties, check this out:
It’s that experience, that understanding, not just of what world leaders I went and talked to in the ambassadors house I had tea with, but understanding the lives of the people like my grandmother who lives in a tiny hut in Africa.
And Barack, if you want to sort out why your cute tea-drinking fantasy came to mind, check over here
mirabile dictu 