I Can't Keep It In Anymore!

The POTUS golfing with mortal enemy John Boehner

It’s hard for me to keep biting my tongue about Barack Obama’s disappointing decisions and disturbing alliances. I don’t want to aid his enemies on the right but I don’t want to appear complicit in his betrayals.

I’ve blogged before about the many ways in which the president has surprised and saddened me – chief among them being his extension of Dubya’s tax cuts for the rich and his willingness to piss on his Nobel Peace Prize and continue or begin aggressive military action around the world.

I’ve acknowledged that he’s a lot smarter than I am and has the toughest job ever and the most evil, unscrupulous golfing buddies enemies throwing up roadblocks at every opportunity.

I’ve agreed, albeit begrudgingly, with the Obamazombies who’ve told me, “He didn’t have the votes” and “He’s doing the best he can” and “You’re not giving him credit for the things he has accomplished” and “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

Yeah, well, Rome took around 500 years to become Rome. I can’t wait that long.

He reneged on another pledge a few days ago, this time relating to tightening ozone standards. Although proposed new standards would have saved up to 12,000 American lives, 58,000 asthma attacks and 2.5 million missed days of school or work each year, Obama sided with the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers and others and ordered the U.S. EPA to withdraw them.

Mobile, Alabama skyline

So what if asthma alone costs the economy $20 billion each year due to health and productivity losses, according to the National Institutes of Health? So what if “the current standard used was based on the science of 14 years ago before we knew that ozone killed people,” according to the American Lung Association?

The president explained, "I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover."

I don’t know what recovery he’s talking about. My understanding is that no new jobs were added last month. Zero. Maybe the rich are throwing more parties and my invitations keep getting lost in the mail.

Obama doesn’t sound like a Democrat to me. He doesn’t even sound like a centrist. He sounds like John Boehner or Mitch McConnell or Eric Cantor. He repeats false rhetoric and makes it his own. He compromises without fighting or negotiating. He makes hollow promises and surrounds himself with stooges from Wall Street. It’s becoming impossible for me to see the difference between this president and someone from the right.

He’s obviously no Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry. The man has a brain and can diagram a sentence. But Jon Huntsman or Mitt Romney or even Ron Paul? Each of these guys has uttered things that I found myself agreeing with. I still consider myself a progressive and I’m not going to vote for them. But I’m not going to wear my Obama t-shirt anymore either – at least not until he abandons the Republican agenda.

Journalist, author, filmmaker and former Obama supporter Danny Schechter wrote, “I am not surprised that knowledgeable critics of his economic policies not only consider him bull-headed and wrong, but actually corrupt, aligned and complicit with the banksters who are still ripping us off. No wonder he's ‘bundled’ more donations from the greedsters and financiers this year than in 2008! No wonder he turned his back on Elizabeth Warren and is trying to stop prosecutions of fraud in high places.”

And one of my favorite writers, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi, said, “I just don't believe this guy anymore, and it's become almost painful to listen to him.”

I agree with them and I’m glad they’re not shutting up either.

In one of my favorite quotes, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., warned that “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Sources: Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, Rolling Stone.