I spotted a most interesting t-shirt on the ferry from Martha’s Vinyard a couple of days ago: “For Obama Then, For Obama Now.”
If you don’t know Martha’s Vinyard, it’s a place where pro-Democratic paraphernalia would normally nothing out of the ordinary. “The Vinyard,” as many of us know it, is the traditional vacation spot for, liberals, African-Americans, Jews and fellow travelers. It is where both the Clintons and Obamas chose to take their presidential summer holidays. In fact BHO and family are there right now.
But why the back-handed compliment, the apologetic support? Bumper stickers are starting to appear with the same message – For Obama Then, For Obama Now. It’s just a tiny indication of how betrayed some liberals feel by the President. And the fear among some that liberals will not turn out for him again in the upcoming election. But why?
Is this the first time that a politician hasn’t lived up to his or her campaign rhetoric?
Hey, I know what it’s like to feel betrayed by a candidate that you love. I remember feeling so angry at Bill Clinton for some promise that he broke. Now I consider (as many, many do) him one of the best presidents in American history and he is a hero of mine. (Did you see his take Rick Perry, by the way? Vintage Clinton.)
Just last weekend, the New York Times magazine (still required reading in my set) had a well-emailed article that asks “What Would Hillary Have Done?” (WWHHD?) It concludes that things would be largely the same.
I agree and disagree. One thing is for sure, having lived through the impeachment trials, she would never had underestimated how far the other side would go to see her fail. Many Republicans freely admit that it’s worth having the country suffer if it means that they can get rid of Obama in 2012.
Yet, I’m not willing to admit that Obama doesn’t know what he’s up against. Chances are that he knows exactly what he is doing. Chances are that he knew that the S&P would downgrade America’s rating due to the Tea Party’s strong-arm tactics. Chances are his advisors told him what would happen to the global markets when that happened.
I think he’s going to turn all of this into one hell of a talking point later this year.
Liberals wanted to see him take his gloves off? It might be that the gloves are already off and we just didn’t see him unlacing them.
