Paul Rosenberg: The latest access blogger to go racist

Paul wakes up but is it in time??

Just kidding, Paul.  We know you’re not a racist, even if you don’t think that Barack Obama derives his (so-called) formidable political skills from the unavoidable fact that he is the first black president evah!  For us, it was never a matter of race, which is why we held our candidates to a higher standard.  No one got a free pass at The Confluence because they could make more melanin.  Neither melanin production nor gender,  are qualities cross linked to political ability, as far as I know.  Integrity, experience and principles probably are.   I will admit to being choked up the night Obama won.  The joy evident in the crowd in Grant Park was something I waited my whole life to see.  But the sentiment was fleeting.  There were more pressing issues on my mind.

Of all of the front pagers at OpenLeft, you and Natasha were the ones I was pulling for, and now you have delivered and how.  I never thought I would see the day that a progressive blog would allow “Barack Obama” and “Political incompetent” to be in the same paragraph together.  That kind of $#@% only happens on the bad liberal blogs like yours truly, Correntewire and Alegre’s Corner.  Your “They Just Don’t Make Recoveries Like They Used To” post to me is like watching someone waking up to the fact that there’s a pillow over his face and that someone really *is* trying to kill him:

One could argue, “Well, he’s a very good politician, you just don’t like what his politics are.”  But a politician who undermines his party and his country cannot seriously be regarded as a competent politician.  Presiding over the ongoing destruction of America’s middle class with Bush-like cluelessness is not competence by any kind of remotely rational standard.  And if the previous chart didn’t quite get through to you, then consider the following one, which includes the 1980 “recovery” that lead directly into a “double dip” recession.  The following chart shows every recession since 1980 (see chart at OpenLeft):

In fact, he’s not even trying to be a competent politician.

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In short, Obama’s indifference to the suffering of tens of millions of Americans may or may not result in Democrats’ loss of Congress in 2010 and/or his own loss of re-election in 2012.  Because Republican victories would be utterly catastrophic, I have to hope that these losses don’t come to pass.  But Obama’s governance so far has been disastrous for the middle class. Supporting disaster as opposed to catastrophe is not my idea of a good place to be politically.  And a politician who gives us that choice is not remotely a competent one.

And that’s not saying anything about his utter failure to even fight for a credible response to global warming, or his continued support for the Bush/Cheney “long war” approach to the “war on terror”, the very existence of which is a victory for al Qaeda.

This is incompetence on a breathtaking scale.  This is Nero fiddling while Rome burns.  And the fact that Obama is a superb fiddle player (first black fiddle player evuh!) does not even come close to making any sort of difference at all.

Welcome to the club, Paul!  Myiq will send you your “So you’ve decided to become a racist!?” complimentary white sheet and hormone replacement therapy starter pack.  That is, until you decide to diss us so you don’t become contaminated with “a certain class of woman” as Jane Hamsher would say or a closet Republican as Big Tent Democrat likes to refer to us.

{{sigh}}

It’s one of the burdens we carry for being prematurely right about Barack Obama.  And it really is a burden because the Obama branding committee was so successful at turning the rest of the party against us.  It’s just so hard to believe we saw through him early on we just HAD to have some screws loose, right?  We saw how some of you guys deep down really did know that Obama wasn’t all that but you didn’t want to say it for fear of losing face, or losing access or losing your friends or losing your ad revenue.  That’s OK, we understand.  It’s human nature.  Axelrod and company played that nature for all that it was worth.

The question I have for you now, Paul, is what are you going to do about it?  Are you going to stand out there alone, apart from Chris and tell it like it is?  Are you going to acknowledge that we are your natural allies?  Or are you going to be like BTD and Jane and a dozen other liberals who have turned your backs on us and embraced your cynicism so that you don’t have to be tainted by us, the new demographic independent liberals?

If you go your own way, the incompetents win.  They love it when you act like being seen with us is embarrassing.  With the left divided, no one will be able to hold them accountable for anything they do.  But if you acknowledge us, you take the first steps to reconstituting the left.

United we stand and all that treacly sentimental stuff.  Once upon a time, there was a reason why it was important.

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