There's something so sweet about Janet Albrechtsen trawling through Barack Obama's short record to find signs that he's really just President Bush in drag.
That's right, Bush lives, his policies live, and they call the result Obama.
Ah, the fecklessness of those in search of a messiah. Anti-war group Code Pink is wondering whether Obama is a “war criminal”. The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch are also disappointed. But Obama needn’t have bothered inviting human rights leaders to his 90-minute tea and biscuits, please-still-love-me routine at the White House last week. The more they cry foul, the clearer it becomes to a wider audience that Obama is behaving like a President responsible for the nation’s security, just as president Bush did.
Ah yes, and Joe Biden is just like Dick Cheney. Speaking of Dick Cheney, someone forgot to tell him that Obama is behaving just like Bush in his concern for the nation's security. (And it also escaped his daughter Liz Cheney):
Asked on CNN's "State of the Union" if he thought Obama has made Americans less safe with those actions, Cheney replied, "I do."
"I think those programs were absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11," Cheney said.
"I think that's a great success story. It was done legally. It was done in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles," he said. "President Obama campaigned against it all across the country. And now he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack." (source here).
"I think those programs were absolutely essential to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11," Cheney said.
"I think that's a great success story. It was done legally. It was done in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles," he said. "President Obama campaigned against it all across the country. And now he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack." (source here).
But hey ho, meanwhile Albrechtsen keeps trawling through Obama's record to establish that he's really a right winger in the guise of a socialist satanist.
Of course, Obama could never meet the great expectations surrounding his presidency. Indeed, the greatness of Obama’s presidency will depend on him disappointing Rundle’s “global Left”, not to mention al-Qa’ida. The responsibility of power means the 44th President has already proved he is more pragmatic than ideological. As much as the Left will loathe this, the unfolding of his presidency is a lesson in the old adage that the office changes the man more than the man changes the office.
Last November The New York Times was effusive in its praise about Obama’s promise to “restore Americans’ civil liberties and their tattered reputation around the world”. In office, Obama is talking like a Bushie, disappointed Times editorial writers noted in March.
Last November The New York Times was effusive in its praise about Obama’s promise to “restore Americans’ civil liberties and their tattered reputation around the world”. In office, Obama is talking like a Bushie, disappointed Times editorial writers noted in March.
Good lord, for the love of God, will someone tell Dick Cheney this, and tell him to shut up, instead of constantly attacking Obama when that's like attacking his former doll puppet Bush.
If you want to trawl through Albrechtsen's careful reading of the runes, and the chicken entrails to establish just how Obama is disappointing the left, and is actually a reincarnation of Bush, toddle off to Obama makes 'em sob again.
It's bizarrely wonderful to see someone so desperate to inflict pain on the left that she's grateful a socialist liberal like that ne'er do well Obama is the vessel for her spleen.
In this bizarro world, everything that Obama does that is remotely Bush-like is good, and anything that Obama does that has no connection to Bush is bad. It's a win-win world for the despairing, struck down by the news that the Republicans are now in total disarray. And amongst whom can we count the shattered?
Al-Qa’ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is also disappointed: “America came to us with a new face.” But it was a ruse, he says. They have not “changed their crimes, aggressions, thefts and their scandals”, he says in a statement released by the SITE Intelligence Group.
Phew, that's a relief. You mean that closet Islamic terrorist - say his full name slowly and carefully - Barack Hussein Obama - wasn't in fact a Manchurian candidate for Al-Qa'ida? Funny, I remember the days when if you went to an Islamic school in Indonesia and didn't put your hand in the right position at the right time, you were quacking like a duck, and might well be one.
But it seems Guy Rundle and Bob Dylan are also upset with Obama, especially since he's been revealed as a Manchurian candidate for right wing responsibility, and now comes the crowning glory, with Obama facing hard times trying to close down Guantanamo Bay, which in reality has been complicated by an outburst of NIMBY politics from both Democrats and Republicans reeling from fear mongering about terrorists in peoples back yards.
What's most wondrous about Albrechtsen's column is its totally irrational neglect of the cut and thrust of politics, the pragmatism of decision-making or the general tendency of Obama's presidency, which has left the more extreme elements in the Republican party announcing that the demise of America is imminent. (Anyone feel like a tea party?) I mean, the man came out of Chicago politics, and knocked off Hillary Clinton? And you were expecting what, St Francis of Assisi?
Either the hysterical Republicans are wrong, or Albrechtsen should rush over and explain to them just how Bush-like Obama really is. But actually it sounds more like she's just intent on a little splenetic relief, involving local lefties still starry eyed at the hope of an Obama redemption:
For some on the Left, the Obama presidency may well be a case of what began in tears ends in tears, of a different, more bitter taste. More canny observers knew that the Obama who presented before the presidential elections would change once in office. When Bob Ellis - who described Obama as “the present world’s likely saviour” - expresses his disillusionment, we will know Obama is on the right track.
Bob Ellis? As if that egg and tomato sauce stained wretch has anything to offer the world than his own perpetual disillusionment, whether it be in love, lovers, politics, politicians, the world or himself. It's the romantic journey of the narcissist.
But I doubt if even Ellis would clutch at the kind of straw Albrechtsen's clutching at. Come to think of it, it's more like a bale of hay to celebrate the notion that somehow Obama is just more of the same from George Bush. If he is, the world is in serious trouble, and the tears will be bitter indeed. Because that would mean America has copped its two worst Presidents in a row.
Here's hoping that Afghanistan doesn't become Obama's Iraq, and here's hoping that he finds a way out of the torture (nee enhanced interrogation techniques) that Bush and Cheney gave the world as a way of advancing freedom, truth and justice in a democratic world.
For the moment, let's just settle for George Bush being the worst President in recent times, aided and abetted by his willfully blind cheer squad commentariat - which even now takes an unseemly pleasure whenever people are forced to face harsh reality and disillusionment and bitter tears.
So angry, and so unhappy, and yes with Obama in power, it has to be said, such losers.
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