Or Is He the New LBJ?

I recently read the first volume of Jules Feiffer's collected Village Voice comic strips, from the 1950s and early 1960s. Reading ten years' worth of weekly strips in a few days probably wasn't the best idea, but I was still amazed at how well Feiffer's early work has aged. Not just the stuff about relationships, but the stuff about politics still works. I guess that's not surprising, since relationships and politics haven't changed much in fifty years.

Here's the text from a 1965 strip, during Lyndon Baines Johnson's second bloody term. A radio announcer is reading the news:

And now the latest from overseas.

Fighting continues tonight in New York's Harlem. The government of the United States has filed a strong protest with the government of Ghana claiming that it acted illegally in dispatching two thousand Marines to protect the Hotel Theresa and other strategic points in the community.

In the meantime the government of Israel has announced plans to drop one thousand paratroops into the boroughs of Brooklyn and Bronx to protect houses of worship.

In further developments, French paratroops have refused to withdraw their occupation of fifty French restaurants on the island of Manhattan until all personnel are evacuated.

President Johnson continues to insist that New York is an internal problem and that if foreign troops don't withdraw immediately, American troops will force them out --

Just as soon as they get back from Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Laos, the Congo, Guantanamo, and Santo Domingo.

Quite a few people have noticed how many wars The Only President We've Got is juggling right now; Feiffer's work is a reminder that we've been there before. Like Obama, LBJ inherited some of his wars, but put his own stamp on the old ones and started several new ones.

Or Is He the New LBJ?

I recently read the first volume of Jules Feiffer's collected Village Voice comic strips, from the 1950s and early 1960s. Reading ten years' worth of weekly strips in a few days probably wasn't the best idea, but I was still amazed at how well Feiffer's early work has aged. Not just the stuff about relationships, but the stuff about politics still works. I guess that's not surprising, since relationships and politics haven't changed much in fifty years.

Here's the text from a 1965 strip, during Lyndon Baines Johnson's second bloody term. A radio announcer is reading the news:

And now the latest from overseas.

Fighting continues tonight in New York's Harlem. The government of the United States has filed a strong protest with the government of Ghana claiming that it acted illegally in dispatching two thousand Marines to protect the Hotel Theresa and other strategic points in the community.

In the meantime the government of Israel has announced plans to drop one thousand paratroops into the boroughs of Brooklyn and Bronx to protect houses of worship.

In further developments, French paratroops have refused to withdraw their occupation of fifty French restaurants on the island of Manhattan until all personnel are evacuated.

President Johnson continues to insist that New York is an internal problem and that if foreign troops don't withdraw immediately, American troops will force them out --

Just as soon as they get back from Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Laos, the Congo, Guantanamo, and Santo Domingo.

Quite a few people have noticed how many wars The Only President We've Got is juggling right now; Feiffer's work is a reminder that we've been there before. Like Obama, LBJ inherited some of his wars, but put his own stamp on the old ones and started several new ones.

The Blame Game; or, A Hard Package Is Good to Find

According to this poll, "67 percent of respondents said any debt deal out of Washington must include tax hikes for the wealthiest Americans." (According to the same poll, 54 percent blame Bush for the state of the economy, while only 27 percent blame Obama; and "that voters will largely blame Republicans, rather than Obama, if the debt limit is not raised."

According to President Obama (via), he isn't listening:

And I think it’s important for the American people that everybody in this town set politics aside, that everybody in this town set our individual interests aside, and we try to do some tough stuff. And I’ve already taken some heat from my party for being willing to compromise. My expectation and hope is, is that everybody, in the coming days, is going to be willing to compromise.

Because it turns out poll after poll, many done by your organizations, show that it’s not just Democrats who think we need to take a balanced approach; it’s Republicans as well.

The clear majority of Republican voters think that any deficit reduction package should have a balanced approach and should include some revenues. That’s not just Democrats; that’s the majority of Republicans. You’ve got a whole slew of Republican officials from previous administrations. You’ve got a bipartisan commission that has said that we need revenues.

That would be the Catfood Commission, which called for cuts in Social Security and Medicare. As does President Obama. Those polls also consistently show that most Americans do not want cuts in Social Security and Medicare, nor do they care about the deficit nearly as much as they care about jobs.

So he's not listening, or he doesn't care:

We simply need to make these tough choices and be willing to take on our bases. And everybody knows it.

La la la la he can't hear you! -- Not unless you donate a lot more than five measly dollars to his campaign war chest, anyway. Then he suddenly can hear you. Obama knows he's at odds with his base, if by that he means the people who voted for him as opposed to the people who paid for him. He wants to give them spending cuts while pretending that he's interested in cuts that won't hurt them.

And that’s, by the way, what I said in the meeting two days ago. I was very blunt. I said the American people do not want to see a bunch of posturing; they don’t want to hear a bunch of sound bites.

Which is why he's provided us with a bunch of posturing and a bunch of sound bites, no doubt.

It may be that it's not "politically possible" for Obama to do the right thing; he certainly isn't competent to do it, though he seems competent enough as a servant of the wealthy. Thanks to his frittering away the mandate he had when he took office, his party lost their majority in the House, which does make his job harder; but if he'd cared, he'd have done something else. But it's not his fault, it's somebody else's: the Republicans (not all of them, just the radical extremists -- he seems to see Boehner as a moderate), the professional left, those who see the glass as half empty instead of half full, who need to have their heads examined. Obama isn't just the new Reagan, he's the new Nixon.

The Blame Game; or, A Hard Package Is Good to Find

According to this poll, "67 percent of respondents said any debt deal out of Washington must include tax hikes for the wealthiest Americans." (According to the same poll, 54 percent blame Bush for the state of the economy, while only 27 percent blame Obama; and "that voters will largely blame Republicans, rather than Obama, if the debt limit is not raised."

According to President Obama (via), he isn't listening:

And I think it’s important for the American people that everybody in this town set politics aside, that everybody in this town set our individual interests aside, and we try to do some tough stuff. And I’ve already taken some heat from my party for being willing to compromise. My expectation and hope is, is that everybody, in the coming days, is going to be willing to compromise.

Because it turns out poll after poll, many done by your organizations, show that it’s not just Democrats who think we need to take a balanced approach; it’s Republicans as well.

The clear majority of Republican voters think that any deficit reduction package should have a balanced approach and should include some revenues. That’s not just Democrats; that’s the majority of Republicans. You’ve got a whole slew of Republican officials from previous administrations. You’ve got a bipartisan commission that has said that we need revenues.

That would be the Catfood Commission, which called for cuts in Social Security and Medicare. As does President Obama. Those polls also consistently show that most Americans do not want cuts in Social Security and Medicare, nor do they care about the deficit nearly as much as they care about jobs.

So he's not listening, or he doesn't care:

We simply need to make these tough choices and be willing to take on our bases. And everybody knows it.

La la la la he can't hear you! -- Not unless you donate a lot more than five measly dollars to his campaign war chest, anyway. Then he suddenly can hear you. Obama knows he's at odds with his base, if by that he means the people who voted for him as opposed to the people who paid for him. He wants to give them spending cuts while pretending that he's interested in cuts that won't hurt them.

And that’s, by the way, what I said in the meeting two days ago. I was very blunt. I said the American people do not want to see a bunch of posturing; they don’t want to hear a bunch of sound bites.

Which is why he's provided us with a bunch of posturing and a bunch of sound bites, no doubt.

It may be that it's not "politically possible" for Obama to do the right thing; he certainly isn't competent to do it, though he seems competent enough as a servant of the wealthy. Thanks to his frittering away the mandate he had when he took office, his party lost their majority in the House, which does make his job harder; but if he'd cared, he'd have done something else. But it's not his fault, it's somebody else's: the Republicans (not all of them, just the radical extremists -- he seems to see Boehner as a moderate), the professional left, those who see the glass as half empty instead of half full, who need to have their heads examined. Obama isn't just the new Reagan, he's the new Nixon.

Your Business Is Important to Us

Last summer, when the Obama administration backed up Israeli piracy against the Mavi Marmara -- a stance they're maintaining and extending pre-emptively with regard to The Audacity of Hope -- I sent e-mail to the White House criticizing the policy. I didn't even get a derisory form e-mail in response. (At least my congressman sent me a form letter defending a related but different aspect of US policy. Vive l'automation!) The only acknowledgement I got was to be put on the Obama organization's mailing list, and ever since then I've been getting regular begging letters from them.

I've replied only to the recent "Have Dinner with Barack" sweepstakes, which offers a chance to sit at a table with him if you donate $5 to his campaign. It would almost have been worth the fiver to have a shot at being face-to-face with our butcher-in-chief, but fortunately no purchase turned out to be necessary. Like any commercial sweepstakes, there was an option for those who preferred not to donate, and I availed myself of it. I don't expect to hit the jackpot, but if I do, you can be sure I'll report here.

Anyway, I got the latest begging letter today. There'll be organizing going on in my city for the Fourth of July! The e-mail listed time, location, and local contact person, and asked me to RSVP. I turned the 1 in the "People Who'll Be There" field to a zero, and wrote a comment explaining why I wouldn't be there, but (surprise!) the RSVP would not accept a zero. So I changed the zero back to a 1 and edited the comment. Come Tuesday, I suppose I'll get plaintive e-mail asking what went wrong, why wasn't I there? (Maybe I should pass by the literature table wearing my "Too Left For Obama" t-shirt.) It's going to be a long election season.

Your Business Is Important to Us

Last summer, when the Obama administration backed up Israeli piracy against the Mavi Marmara -- a stance they're maintaining and extending pre-emptively with regard to The Audacity of Hope -- I sent e-mail to the White House criticizing the policy. I didn't even get a derisory form e-mail in response. (At least my congressman sent me a form letter defending a related but different aspect of US policy. Vive l'automation!) The only acknowledgement I got was to be put on the Obama organization's mailing list, and ever since then I've been getting regular begging letters from them.

I've replied only to the recent "Have Dinner with Barack" sweepstakes, which offers a chance to sit at a table with him if you donate $5 to his campaign. It would almost have been worth the fiver to have a shot at being face-to-face with our butcher-in-chief, but fortunately no purchase turned out to be necessary. Like any commercial sweepstakes, there was an option for those who preferred not to donate, and I availed myself of it. I don't expect to hit the jackpot, but if I do, you can be sure I'll report here.

Anyway, I got the latest begging letter today. There'll be organizing going on in my city for the Fourth of July! The e-mail listed time, location, and local contact person, and asked me to RSVP. I turned the 1 in the "People Who'll Be There" field to a zero, and wrote a comment explaining why I wouldn't be there, but (surprise!) the RSVP would not accept a zero. So I changed the zero back to a 1 and edited the comment. Come Tuesday, I suppose I'll get plaintive e-mail asking what went wrong, why wasn't I there? (Maybe I should pass by the literature table wearing my "Too Left For Obama" t-shirt.) It's going to be a long election season.

He's One of Them

I'm still swamped with other things I have do, so I thought I'd pass this along:



Thanks to this very funny review by Band of Thebes --

Give or take, it's about two pretty dancers in 140 A.D. (the stars of Step Up and Billy Elliot) both of whom are into leather (thus the title) and fight about who's going to be whose slave. In the first half, the buffer, more built 30 year-old muscle stud Marcus rescues the skinnier, cuter 24 year-old Esca from a brutal top in a helmet mask and makes him his slave. Fine. Lucky them. But -- and this is always a mistake -- they decide to go to Scotland a Burning Man Festival except they don't have a car or a place to stay and it rains a lot and everybody's high and howling and covered with mud or blue paint and mohawks or really dirty long hair and the bonfire isn't that much fun and the food is bloody awful, so nerves are frayed, right? When they could have gone to Rome? Well, Esca's not having it. He totally flips and is all NO, you're MY slave now! So hot, hot Marcus gets tied up and led around on a leash by a twink. Fine. Lucky them again.

-- (and there's more!) I now realize I have to see it.

And while I'm at it, Whatever It Is I'm Against It shreds Obama's Afghanistan speech. A sample:

WHAT WE STAND NOT FOR: “We stand not for empire, but for self-determination. That is why we have a stake in the democratic aspirations that are now washing across the Arab World. We will support those revolutions with fidelity to our ideals, with the power of our example, and with an unwavering belief that all human beings deserve to live with freedom and dignity.” Unless they live in Bahrain or someplace with oil or US military bases, obviously.

WHAT WE MUST RECAPTURE: “And most of all, after a decade of passionate debate, we must recapture the common purpose that we shared at the beginning of this time of war.” Revenge?

ITMFA.

He's One of Them

I'm still swamped with other things I have do, so I thought I'd pass this along:



Thanks to this very funny review by Band of Thebes --

Give or take, it's about two pretty dancers in 140 A.D. (the stars of Step Up and Billy Elliot) both of whom are into leather (thus the title) and fight about who's going to be whose slave. In the first half, the buffer, more built 30 year-old muscle stud Marcus rescues the skinnier, cuter 24 year-old Esca from a brutal top in a helmet mask and makes him his slave. Fine. Lucky them. But -- and this is always a mistake -- they decide to go to Scotland a Burning Man Festival except they don't have a car or a place to stay and it rains a lot and everybody's high and howling and covered with mud or blue paint and mohawks or really dirty long hair and the bonfire isn't that much fun and the food is bloody awful, so nerves are frayed, right? When they could have gone to Rome? Well, Esca's not having it. He totally flips and is all NO, you're MY slave now! So hot, hot Marcus gets tied up and led around on a leash by a twink. Fine. Lucky them again.

-- (and there's more!) I now realize I have to see it.

And while I'm at it, Whatever It Is I'm Against It shreds Obama's Afghanistan speech. A sample:

WHAT WE STAND NOT FOR: “We stand not for empire, but for self-determination. That is why we have a stake in the democratic aspirations that are now washing across the Arab World. We will support those revolutions with fidelity to our ideals, with the power of our example, and with an unwavering belief that all human beings deserve to live with freedom and dignity.” Unless they live in Bahrain or someplace with oil or US military bases, obviously.

WHAT WE MUST RECAPTURE: “And most of all, after a decade of passionate debate, we must recapture the common purpose that we shared at the beginning of this time of war.” Revenge?

ITMFA.

ITMFA

Ten days since my last post. I can't believe it; I can't remember when I last let so much time lapse between posts around here. I don't even really have an excuse. I haven't been sick, haven't been working extra. I've just been looking idly at all kinds of stuff on the Web, and felt a strange sick dread at the thought of starting a new post. I have been reading offline quite a bit, which has eaten up lots of time and energy, and I don't feel bad about that. And I've been getting plenty of ideas, maybe too many for me to choose from.



Anyway. "ITMFA," of course, means Impeach the Motherfucker Already. The abbreviation derives from the edgy advice columnist Dan Savage, who of course had George W. Bush in mind. That would have been a good idea, but of course the Democratic leadership made sure it never got off the ground, and Savage abandoned the call after a few months. Now we have a new Criminal-in-Chief violating the U.S. Constitution and just begging for removal from office, though we all know that accountability is for ordinary schlubs like you and me, not for the rich and powerful. But -- judging by the reactions of Obama apologists online -- it seems that increasing numbers of people are discussing the possibility anyway.



I first became aware of this when my friend the ambivalent Obama supporter e-mailed me a link to Michelle Bachmann's latest antics, adding:

This is the only reason I wouldn't want to see President Obama impeached. She or someone like her (or worse) might become our next President. Considering her record of homophobia and xenophobia, it could be a MUCH worse disaster than what we have now...

I wrote back:

I agree, but only to a point because it means impunity for his crimes. I know Bachmann is a pig, but the point is that Obama is a criminal. Yes, it could be worse. We could have Bachmann. We could have Stalin. We could have Hitler But that doesn't make Obama any less deserving of impeachment.

My friend replied:

If I had any faith in the people running the system, I'd happily lead the charge for him to be impeached. I have no faith in them at all. :(

Then one of my Facebook friends complained about Glenn Greenwald's detailing of the grounds for impeaching Obama: "Why does Greenwald want to impeach Obama? I didn't know he wanted to have a Republican president instead." I took the easy way out and retorted in comments that Obama is a Republican president, continuing and extending many of Bush/Cheney's worse policies. The trouble with Rob's complaint, though, as I found when I read Greenwald's comments, is that Greenwald didn't call for Obama's impeachment. What he said was this (emphasis added):

AMY GOODMAN: By your analysis, do you consider this an impeachable offense, Glenn Greenwald?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, I mean, anytime the president violates the law in a significant way, impeachment is supposed to be one of the leading remedies. So I think the President is clearly violating not only the War Powers Resolution, but also the Constitution. Article I, Section 8, assigns the war-making power to Congress, not to the executive. And even executive-power-revering jurists like Antonin Scalia have said that Article II, the Article II power that makes the commander — the president the commander-in-chief, really means nothing more than, when there’s a war that starts, the president is the top general. He directs how the war is prosecuted. But the idea that presidents can start wars on their own, without any congressional authorization, violates not just the law but the Constitution. So, sure, in theory, when the president violates the law and the Constitution, that’s an impeachable offense. At the same time, we’ve set a very low standard for our tolerance of rampant presidential law breaking. If George Bush and Dick Cheney weren’t impeached for their rampant crimes, it’s hard to see Obama being impeached for this.

That's not exactly a clarion call for putting Obama in the dock; it's more of a weary acknowledgement that, given American contempt for the rule of law where the powerful are concerned, it's not going to happen, even though Obama has committed impeachable offenses.



So it would appear that my friend Rob, like so many Democrats, owes the Republicans an apology. They don't really object to Bush's crimes -- indeed, they don't really consider them crimes, or they'd consider them crimes when a Democratic President commits them -- but they wish they could have had an excuse for removing him from office. (Shades of the Republican coup against Bill Clinton.) Since they don't appear to believe that Bush really did anything wrong, their only reason must be that he is a Republican. I'd like to believe that I have better reasons for hating Bush, or Obama, than mere party loyalty, especially since I don't belong to either party.



At times like this I realize all over again that despite what many people consider my gross cynicism about the government of the United States, I'm really a naive little boy who believes what he learned in Social Studies class: that people who commit crimes should be punished for them, no matter if they are rich or powerful, because everyone is supposed to be equal under the law. I now see that people in government, and many outside of it, think that the law is a tool for settling personal or partisan scores. The Republicans who went after Clinton wanted payback for the impeachment of Richard Nixon, aside from hating Clinton for all kinds of convoluted reasons. (I should mention that I think Clinton had committed some serious crimes, possibly impeachable ones, but having an affair with an intern wasn't one of them.) The only reason anyone who mattered could have seen for trying to impeach George W. Bush was something similar; it couldn't be because he'd actually done something wrong.



Now that President Obama has made his own contempt for the Constitution blazingly clear, his acolytes choose almost consciously not to see it. Why, Rob cried, would Glenn Greenwald want to impeach Obama? Considering that Greenwald had carefully explained how Obama is flouting the law and the Constitution, I have to say that's a willfully stupid question. The answer would be, because he's committing impeachable offenses even as we speak. What better reason could Rob ask for?



Which takes me back to my friend the ambivalent Obama supporter. I've written a few posts in the past in which I've addressed the problem that a president's success is commonly measured in terms of passing legislation -- any legislation, even bad legislation. If he fails often enough, he's weakened politically, though come to think of it that's only a problem if he then tries to pass some good legislation, which Obama hasn't shown much interest in doing. But once again I am rubbing my own nose in the fact that the political classes don't care about the quality of the legislation: it's not how you play the game, it's whether you win or lose.



At which point the cry goes up: But then you're siding with the Republicans! What will happen if the Republicans take over? O waily waily waily ... One other problem with Rob's position is that impeaching Obama will not give the US a Republican president -- Joe Biden is still a Democrat as far as I know, and as Vice President, it would be he who would become President if Obama were removed. So Rob's objection is mere alarmism; two strikes against him. Even granting that there are marginal differences between the Republicans and the Democrats, the net effect of this approach to politics is to let the Republicans win. As Avedon put it at The Sideshow the other day, quoting Chris Floyd:

"Again, I say what I have said here over and over (and will keep on saying): This is what you are supporting, enabling and continuing when you support the Obama Administration. Whether that support is wholehearted -- if you, like Kevin Drum, proudly shut down you own brain and defer supinely to Obama's superior wisdom -- or whether it is reluctant, defensive, 'to keep the other guys out' because you desperately hope the Democrats might possibly be marginally better, the results are still the same: murder, brutality, violence, corruption, chaos and suffering." Like I said last week on Virtually Speaking Susie, I have been voting against Republicans all my life, and it hasn't worked. This all has to change.

I'll go on voting against Republicans, as I presume Avedon will, but I know that if any real change is going to come, it won't come from voting. It'll come from some form of direct action, because that's where change has always come from.



Meanwhile, though, the Obama apologists are confusing the issue, perhaps deliberately, though they do seem to have surrendered to irrationality too thoroughly to realize what they are doing and saying. I basically agree with the Ambivalent Obama Supporter that impeachment would let the Republicans look like they have principles, so it's probably a bad idea. But that doesn't for a minute require me to pretend that Obama isn't a criminal, just like Bush, or hasn't committed impeachable offenses, just like Bush. Anyone who pretends otherwise, given the overwhelming evidence, is a cheap party hack who deserves and will get my eternal contempt. That might be a place to start: attacking Obama and his groupies with principled arguments. "You're either for us, or you're against us" was another Bush line that the Obama groupies have embraced, but they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. I can call Obama a criminal without thinking that the Republican aren't criminals too.

ITMFA

Ten days since my last post. I can't believe it; I can't remember when I last let so much time lapse between posts around here. I don't even really have an excuse. I haven't been sick, haven't been working extra. I've just been looking idly at all kinds of stuff on the Web, and felt a strange sick dread at the thought of starting a new post. I have been reading offline quite a bit, which has eaten up lots of time and energy, and I don't feel bad about that. And I've been getting plenty of ideas, maybe too many for me to choose from.



Anyway. "ITMFA," of course, means Impeach the Motherfucker Already. The abbreviation derives from the edgy advice columnist Dan Savage, who of course had George W. Bush in mind. That would have been a good idea, but of course the Democratic leadership made sure it never got off the ground, and Savage abandoned the call after a few months. Now we have a new Criminal-in-Chief violating the U.S. Constitution and just begging for removal from office, though we all know that accountability is for ordinary schlubs like you and me, not for the rich and powerful. But -- judging by the reactions of Obama apologists online -- it seems that increasing numbers of people are discussing the possibility anyway.



I first became aware of this when my friend the ambivalent Obama supporter e-mailed me a link to Michelle Bachmann's latest antics, adding:

This is the only reason I wouldn't want to see President Obama impeached. She or someone like her (or worse) might become our next President. Considering her record of homophobia and xenophobia, it could be a MUCH worse disaster than what we have now...

I wrote back:

I agree, but only to a point because it means impunity for his crimes. I know Bachmann is a pig, but the point is that Obama is a criminal. Yes, it could be worse. We could have Bachmann. We could have Stalin. We could have Hitler But that doesn't make Obama any less deserving of impeachment.

My friend replied:

If I had any faith in the people running the system, I'd happily lead the charge for him to be impeached. I have no faith in them at all. :(

Then one of my Facebook friends complained about Glenn Greenwald's detailing of the grounds for impeaching Obama: "Why does Greenwald want to impeach Obama? I didn't know he wanted to have a Republican president instead." I took the easy way out and retorted in comments that Obama is a Republican president, continuing and extending many of Bush/Cheney's worse policies. The trouble with Rob's complaint, though, as I found when I read Greenwald's comments, is that Greenwald didn't call for Obama's impeachment. What he said was this (emphasis added):

AMY GOODMAN: By your analysis, do you consider this an impeachable offense, Glenn Greenwald?

GLENN GREENWALD: Well, I mean, anytime the president violates the law in a significant way, impeachment is supposed to be one of the leading remedies. So I think the President is clearly violating not only the War Powers Resolution, but also the Constitution. Article I, Section 8, assigns the war-making power to Congress, not to the executive. And even executive-power-revering jurists like Antonin Scalia have said that Article II, the Article II power that makes the commander — the president the commander-in-chief, really means nothing more than, when there’s a war that starts, the president is the top general. He directs how the war is prosecuted. But the idea that presidents can start wars on their own, without any congressional authorization, violates not just the law but the Constitution. So, sure, in theory, when the president violates the law and the Constitution, that’s an impeachable offense. At the same time, we’ve set a very low standard for our tolerance of rampant presidential law breaking. If George Bush and Dick Cheney weren’t impeached for their rampant crimes, it’s hard to see Obama being impeached for this.

That's not exactly a clarion call for putting Obama in the dock; it's more of a weary acknowledgement that, given American contempt for the rule of law where the powerful are concerned, it's not going to happen, even though Obama has committed impeachable offenses.



So it would appear that my friend Rob, like so many Democrats, owes the Republicans an apology. They don't really object to Bush's crimes -- indeed, they don't really consider them crimes, or they'd consider them crimes when a Democratic President commits them -- but they wish they could have had an excuse for removing him from office. (Shades of the Republican coup against Bill Clinton.) Since they don't appear to believe that Bush really did anything wrong, their only reason must be that he is a Republican. I'd like to believe that I have better reasons for hating Bush, or Obama, than mere party loyalty, especially since I don't belong to either party.



At times like this I realize all over again that despite what many people consider my gross cynicism about the government of the United States, I'm really a naive little boy who believes what he learned in Social Studies class: that people who commit crimes should be punished for them, no matter if they are rich or powerful, because everyone is supposed to be equal under the law. I now see that people in government, and many outside of it, think that the law is a tool for settling personal or partisan scores. The Republicans who went after Clinton wanted payback for the impeachment of Richard Nixon, aside from hating Clinton for all kinds of convoluted reasons. (I should mention that I think Clinton had committed some serious crimes, possibly impeachable ones, but having an affair with an intern wasn't one of them.) The only reason anyone who mattered could have seen for trying to impeach George W. Bush was something similar; it couldn't be because he'd actually done something wrong.



Now that President Obama has made his own contempt for the Constitution blazingly clear, his acolytes choose almost consciously not to see it. Why, Rob cried, would Glenn Greenwald want to impeach Obama? Considering that Greenwald had carefully explained how Obama is flouting the law and the Constitution, I have to say that's a willfully stupid question. The answer would be, because he's committing impeachable offenses even as we speak. What better reason could Rob ask for?



Which takes me back to my friend the ambivalent Obama supporter. I've written a few posts in the past in which I've addressed the problem that a president's success is commonly measured in terms of passing legislation -- any legislation, even bad legislation. If he fails often enough, he's weakened politically, though come to think of it that's only a problem if he then tries to pass some good legislation, which Obama hasn't shown much interest in doing. But once again I am rubbing my own nose in the fact that the political classes don't care about the quality of the legislation: it's not how you play the game, it's whether you win or lose.



At which point the cry goes up: But then you're siding with the Republicans! What will happen if the Republicans take over? O waily waily waily ... One other problem with Rob's position is that impeaching Obama will not give the US a Republican president -- Joe Biden is still a Democrat as far as I know, and as Vice President, it would be he who would become President if Obama were removed. So Rob's objection is mere alarmism; two strikes against him. Even granting that there are marginal differences between the Republicans and the Democrats, the net effect of this approach to politics is to let the Republicans win. As Avedon put it at The Sideshow the other day, quoting Chris Floyd:

"Again, I say what I have said here over and over (and will keep on saying): This is what you are supporting, enabling and continuing when you support the Obama Administration. Whether that support is wholehearted -- if you, like Kevin Drum, proudly shut down you own brain and defer supinely to Obama's superior wisdom -- or whether it is reluctant, defensive, 'to keep the other guys out' because you desperately hope the Democrats might possibly be marginally better, the results are still the same: murder, brutality, violence, corruption, chaos and suffering." Like I said last week on Virtually Speaking Susie, I have been voting against Republicans all my life, and it hasn't worked. This all has to change.

I'll go on voting against Republicans, as I presume Avedon will, but I know that if any real change is going to come, it won't come from voting. It'll come from some form of direct action, because that's where change has always come from.



Meanwhile, though, the Obama apologists are confusing the issue, perhaps deliberately, though they do seem to have surrendered to irrationality too thoroughly to realize what they are doing and saying. I basically agree with the Ambivalent Obama Supporter that impeachment would let the Republicans look like they have principles, so it's probably a bad idea. But that doesn't for a minute require me to pretend that Obama isn't a criminal, just like Bush, or hasn't committed impeachable offenses, just like Bush. Anyone who pretends otherwise, given the overwhelming evidence, is a cheap party hack who deserves and will get my eternal contempt. That might be a place to start: attacking Obama and his groupies with principled arguments. "You're either for us, or you're against us" was another Bush line that the Obama groupies have embraced, but they shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. I can call Obama a criminal without thinking that the Republican aren't criminals too.