Posted on 12/02/2009 5:01:15 PM PST by Signalman
Tom Hayden, the liberal activist best known for his work in the 60's, when he helped found Students for a Democratic Society, was once pretty enthusiastic about Barack Obama. Back in March of 2008 he had the first byline on an article in the Nation -- also attributed to Bill Fletcher Jr., Danny Glover and Barbara Ehrenreich -- that began, "All American progressives should unite for Barack Obama."
Now, though, after the president announced his decision to send an additional 30,00 troops to fight in Afghanistan, Hayden's had enough. His latest piece for the Nation begins with a very different sentiment than the one he expressed not two years ago. Now, Hayden says, "It's time to strip the Obama sticker off my car."
He goes on to write:
Obama's escalation in Afghanistan is the last in a string of disappointments. His flip-flopping acceptance of the military coup in Honduras has squandered the trust of Latin America. His Wall Street bailout leaves the poor, the unemployed, minorities and college students on their own. And now comes the Afghanistan-Pakistan decision to escalate the stalemate, which risks his domestic agenda, his Democratic base, and possibly even his presidency.
The expediency of his decision was transparent. Satisfy the generals by sending 30,000 more troops. Satisfy the public and peace movement with a timeline for beginning withdrawals of those same troops, with no timeline for completing a withdrawal.
Obama's timeline for the proposed Afghan military surge mirrors exactly the eighteen-month Petraeus timeline for the surge in Iraq.
We'll see. To be clear: I'll support Obama down the road against Sarah Palin, Lou Dobbs or any of the pitchfork carriers for the pre-Obama era. But no bumper sticker until the withdrawal strategy is fully carried out.
It's one thing for liberals who've supported Obama to disagree with and criticize him over Afghanistan, for them to have been hoping he'd opt for a different direction. But arguments like the one Hayden's making -- and the one Michael Moore made in his recent open letter to the president -- just end up with those advancing them look foolish. It's like they dreamed up a list of policy positions for Obama, then convinced themselves that they actually were his positions.
Agree or disagree with Obama's decision, one thing is clear: The course he chose is not, as both Hayden and Moore have implied, some radical shift in his thinking. It's certainly not, as they've also implied, a betrayal of his campaign. Maybe they bought in to the argument from the right that Obama is a super-liberal, but it's just not so -- what he's done now is completely consistent with the position he's always taken on Afghanistan. He's always portrayed it as the good war, one of necessity as compared to a misguided war of choice in Iraq. While President Bush was in office, many liberals took the same position.
Tom Hayden finally reveals himself to be a racist. Cut through the rhetoric and that’s obviously the real reason he’s turning on Obama.
Holy $&*! Those are the most hard hitting and powerful political cartoons I have ever seen. Thank you for sharing them....I am appalled and entertained at the same time.
I was stopped at a red light this afternoon behind a Saab with an Obama/Biden sticker on the port side of the bumper and a Hillary! sticker on the starboard. I threw up a little in my mouth.
4 years is an era?
He owns a car? That’s not very proletarian. Maybe it’s a Trabant or a Warburg.
Isn't that Mr. Jane Fonda?
It would probably be better for all of us if Barack was as much a leftist as Freepers believed. Then he would be trying to pass a bunch of very leftist legislation and getting pounded thoroughly.
Instead it turns out he is not an ideologue, but a typical opportunist like Bush and all the Republican RINOs that shift with the winds of public opinion.
Instead of getting nothing of a leftist agenda through, he will get some of a watered down left leaning agenda through. The pot of water will be heated a bit more, and the frog will continue to sit there waiting to be slowly boiled.
I fear that if we ever got a true rightwinger into office, he or she would end up doing the same dance toward the middle that Bush and now Obama are doing.
If by some miracle Palin gets elected in 2012 I fear she will surround herself with the same set of characters that helped Bush get into trouble.
We now start pointing and laughing as we go by one. It makes them look really surprised and confused.
It looks like Zero’s three months of pretending to by considering the fate of Afghanistan didn’t pacify his anti-war base.
Which other president has nationalized entire industries; committed to TRILLIONS in unfunded mandates, pushing for more; seeks to nationalize health care; is having the US withdraw from being able to count Russian ICBMs as they are produced (for verification); is pushing the AGW lie; is rabidly, fanatically pro-abortion; and has had members of his administration refer to Tea Party attendees as "terrorists"; and speaking of terrorists, has treated the war on terror as a matter for civilian courts only?
As for Sarah, buy and read her book. She will NOT surround herself with RINOs.
Cheers!
Is this a reference to Bush?
I thought we were talking about Obama.
Cheers!
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