The Courage of No Convictions?

Prince, three legged Pit Bull mix,
wins SPCA talent show in NY
by catching three baseballs.

Is President Obama a man with the courage of no convictions? I mean this is getting ridiculous. He was in favor at one time of a single-payer system for health care, but he didn’t even consider that when Congress began deliberations on health care reform. Then he was for a public option, but he has given up on that also. He knows the insurance companies are the problem but his health care plan, as it now stands, is nothing but a huge windfall for them. Refusing to stand up to the pharmaceuticals he apparently made a deal with them. When the stimulus package was put together he gave in to Republicans to include tax breaks even though it was known that they would not be useful as a stimulus. He told Israel to stop building in the West Bank but has ignored their refusal to do so. He wanted to hold the trial for the 9/11 bombers in New York but has now backed down on that. He wanted to replace Guantanamo with a prison here in the U.S. but so far has not done so and has not closed Guantanamo. He wanted the terrorists to be tried in civilian courts with Miranda rights, now it appears he is giving in on that as well. He wanted to bring about “change” but has importantly just pursued many of the Bush/Cheney policies. He is apparently in violation of U.S. law and the constitution by not pursuing our local war criminals and seemingly has no intention of ever doing so. Peace in the Middle East was to be his goal, but he has continued to unconditionally back Israel at every turn, thus insuring there can be no peace there. Although he has a majority in the House and Senate he seems to have given in to the Republicans every time they threaten to filibuster. Now he is apparently going to approve a huge loan to build a Nuclear power plant (a really stupid idea), thus presumably giving in to more corporate pressure. He allows Dick the Slimy and others to roviate him at will and does nothing to stop them. The Teabaggers and Silly Sarah tell the most outrageous lies about him and he allows them to do so without much in the way of corrections or responses. He seems to me to be a classic example of an abused housewife, the more the Republicans abuse him the more he turns to them and tries to please them. I suspect he hasn’t even quit smoking.

Now China has demanded he cancel his meeting with the Dalai Lama. It appears he is not going to do so. Hurrah, for once. He may be going to end DADT. He may be going to close Guantanamo. He may be going to bring the troops home from Iraq. He may or may not have ended torture, he seems not to have stopped renditions or secrecy. He is not, it seems to me, the leader we wanted or expected him to be. He seems to endure “the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” without so much as a change of expression. Is he so unfamiliar with power that he doesn’t know how to use it? Is he by nature just a milquetoast, a woosie? Perhaps he is just a slow learner. There are signs he may be waking up to the facts of Republican abuse. I hope this is true and that it will not be too late. He has done a few, mostly minor, good things, but when it comes to the really important, even vital issues, he equivocates time and time again. This is not what the times require, nay, demand. He is, as we used to say of Bush, “all hat and no cattle,” he “talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.” He avoids hypocrisy, not by doing the opposite of what he says, but by saying something and then doing nothing. Why do I stick with him and continue to support him? Hey, “it’s the only game in town.”

LKBIQ:
Once I make up my mind, I'm full of indecision.
Oscar Levant

TILT:
There are an estimated 158 million water buffalo in the world, almost all of them in Asia.