No Hat and all Prattle?

Man injured in house fire
he set himself while
burning his divorce papers.

I am still of two minds about President Obama. On the one hand I think he has done some good things, closing Guantanamo (not entirely his fault it is going more slowly than we would like), stopping torture (if, indeed, he truly has), passing the stimulus package and now health care reform (at least in some form), trying to make nice with the rest of the world, insisting we will get out of Iraq (we may not), reversing some of Bush’s more obnoxious practices, and so on. But I fear that where Bush was “all hat and no cattle,” Obama may be no hat and all prattle.
For example, Obama has to know that Bush/Cheney are war criminals (they have even admitted it) but he does nothing about it. What he does do, if pushed, is prattle on about how we have to look to the future and not the past. This is not in the least bit satisfactory. It is also probably illegal and unconstitutional, as I am pretty sure a President and his administration are required by law and constitution to prosecute war criminals. Some may say there is no precedent for a new administration to investigate their predecessors, but I say there has never been a past administration that openly admitted its war crimes, and, as one of Obama’s goals is to restore the U.S. position in the international community, letting Bush/Cheney off the hook is not the way to go about it. Obama/Holder apparently want the world to believe that prosecuting war criminals around the world is necessary, but prosecuting our own war criminals is not. This is hypocrisy of the worst kind. Not only does he do nothing, he allows Bush/Cheney to continue to appear in public making speeches criticizing his administration and drawing big speaking fees in the process. He could easily stop this, I’m sure that just the threat of doing something would shut up the cowardly draft-dodging Cheney (who truly belongs in prison), and Bush would quickly withdraw to his hole in the ground as well. You don’t notice Rumsfeld or Rice making a lot of noise these days.

Obama has asked the Israelis to stop building settlements. I say “asked”, because you could hardly say “demanded.” Here again we have what is apparently little more that prattle. Obama has it easily within his power to stop the Israelis from building settlements, and to even stop them from their slow genocide of the Palestinians. But he doesn’t, he just keeps prattling on about peace in the Middle East and how it is the Palestinians should have a state of their own, and blah, blah, blah, but takes no meaningful action to bring this about. Instead of bringing sanctions to bear against Israel, where the basic problem originates, he listens to their paranoia about Iran and prattles on about sanctioning that nation instead. I do not believe Iran is an “existential threat” to Israel. They may be a threat in some sense as they clearly wish there was no Israel, but they are not insane enough to attempt to destroy it militarily, knowing full well what would happen to them if they did. Somewhere I read that if Obama would guarantee Israel’s safety from Iran they might start cooperating about the settlements and such. That should be easy for Obama as Iran is not much of a threat in the first place, except in the opportunistic minds of Israelis.

Then there is Afghanistan, where Obama wants us to believe we are sending more troops so we can withdraw. Both our Secretary of Defense and our Secretary of Defense have already explained that Obama’s claim of withdrawal is just more prattle, and there is no timeline for withdrawal. Here again Obama has it within his power to get us out of Afghanistan, but horror of horrors, he might offend some of the warmongers on the right.

On the matter of health care reform, still more prattle. Obama backed a public option all the way, until such time as he didn’t. He could have fought for what he said he believed, but when the time came he didn’t. He will now be able to prattle on about having passed health care reform, it having everything in it he said he wanted (which it doesn’t), and how it is such a remarkable victory (in a way it is), and how maybe it will be improved. He also prattles on about how he is going to end “don’t ask don’t tell,” and he has the power to end it right now, but he doesn’t. And he continues his futile prattle about bipartisanship while the Republicans repeatedly spit in his face and refuse him the courtesy of a vote on anything, while at the same time deliberately trying to engineer his waterloo. So I say prattle on McBama, and damned be him who first cries hold, enough! Personally, I’m still waiting for you to do all these things you claim you want to do, and I wish you success, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

LKBIQ:
No wonder Americans hate politics when, year in and year out, they hear politicians make promises that won't come true because they don't even mean them - campaign fantasies that win elections but don't get nations moving again.
Bill Clinton

TILT:
All the pigs in the Balearic Islands are black.