Posted on 06/05/2009 10:25:33 AM PDT by aclusux.com
With Democrats Like Him, Who Needs Dictators?
MIAMI--We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama's inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.
From healthcare to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn't have the 'nads to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
MIAMI--We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama's inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.
From healthcare to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn't have the 'nads to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?
Obama is useless. Worse than that, he's dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now--before he drags us further into the abyss.
I refer here to Obama's plan for "preventive detentions." If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in "prolonged detention." Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama's shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK.
In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.
Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people's lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can't control, what Orwell called "thoughtcrime"--contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.
Locking up people who haven't done anything wrong is worse than un-American and a violent attack on the most basic principles of Western jurisprudence. It is contrary to the most essential notion of human decency. That anyone has ever been subjected to "preventive detention" is an outrage. That the President of the United States, a man who won an election because he promised to elevate our moral and political discourse, would even entertain such a revolting idea offends the idea of civilization itself.
Obama is cute. He is charming. But there is something rotten inside him. Unlike the Republicans who backed Bush, I won't follow a terrible leader just because I voted for him. Obama has revealed himself. He is a monster, and he should remove himself from power.
"Prolonged detention," reported The New York Times, would be inflicted upon "terrorism suspects who cannot be tried."
"Cannot be tried." Interesting choice of words.
Any "terrorism suspect" (can you be a suspect if you haven't been charged with a crime?) can be tried. Anyone can be tried for anything. At this writing, a Somali child is sitting in a prison in New York, charged with piracy in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. has no jurisdiction. Anyone can be tried. What they mean, of course, is that the hundreds of men and boys languishing at Guantánamo and the thousands of "detainees" the Obama Administration anticipates kidnapping in the future cannot be convicted. As in the old Soviet Union, putting enemies of the state on trial isn't enough. The game has to be fixed. Conviction has to be a foregone conclusion.
Why is it, exactly, that some prisoners "cannot be tried"?
The Old Grey Lady explains why Obama wants this "entirely new chapter in American law" in a boring little sentence buried a couple past the jump and a couple of hundred words down page A16: "Yet another question is what to do with the most problematic group of Guantánamo detainees: those who pose a national security threat but cannot be prosecuted, either for lack of evidence or because evidence is tainted."
In democracies with functioning legal systems, it is assumed that people against whom there is a "lack of evidence" are innocent. They walk free. In countries where the rule of law prevails, in places blessedly free of fearful leaders whose only concern is staying in power, "tainted evidence" is no evidence at all. If you can't prove that a defendant committed a crime--an actual crime, not a thoughtcrime--in a fair trial, you release him and apologize to the judge and jury for wasting their time.
It is amazing and incredible, after eight years of Bush's lawless behavior, to have to still have to explain these things. For that reason alone, Obama should resign
Do you rally belive he will resign because you want him to ?
Someone hand me a stiff drink. I dont know how to deal with agreeing with Ted Rall.
What a strange op-ed piece. Right conclusion for mostly the wrong reasons.
Yet...he is a fashion statement and attractive to a majority of American voters who, somehow, think this loser is a viable world leader. THAT is the problem. We are fighting to preserve a country full of morons.
This is the second hit piece from Teddy in the last two weeks. Someone please check the temperature in Hades!
This guy hates Obama because he is not doing enough radical changing, quickly enough, which means this guy and his vision even hate the America we love more.
We are going to have to educate all the souls who were takne in by the "change" mantra, and the so-called "historical" nature of Obama's election, but who still love America. Dya in and day out we need to educate...email, fax, phone, blog, twitter, facebook myspace, forums, talking with friends and people we meet.
we will help change hearts and minds...but we will plant more seeds where time and circumstance surrounding the negative impact of Obama's policies will change hearts and minds for us as our seeds sprout and take root.
Then, we neuter Obama and his ilk in 2010, and run their sorry American-hating backsides out on a rail in 2012.
I think the point is that even the full fledged, Kool-Aid drinking moonbats are beginning to recognize and acknowledge the mistake of electing this self-absorbed reprobate.
Ted Rall wrote this?
Cue Rod Serling. I’ve been transported to The Twilight Zone.
/
Do ya recall an old Don Ameche movie--Things Change ?
This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.
Sadly very true.
Bingo.....you win the prize for the most truthful statement of the day.
In part. But he also concludes that the One is a wimp of historic proportions, with which I am in complete agreement.
Obama isn’t far enough to the left for Mr. Rall.
interesting
I agree, but it does help to remember that Ted Rall wants Obama to reign because he is not as far left enough for Rall's taste.
The change they were expecting is not the Chicago-style thug politics they are getting. To paraphrase Ed Koch, the people wanted change “and now the people must be punished.”
While I am firmly committed to the principle of means determining ends, from a purely practical political standpoint I will make of the enemy of my enemy my friend for the seasons necessary to be victorious. After which this uneasy alliance must revert to its natural enmity.
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