Obama -- <i>The Most Transformative President Since FDR</i>

By John Ballard

This morning's bracing read by Evert Cilliers (aka Adam Ash) hits the reader like a cold shower.
No matter where you stand in the political zeitgeist this will wake you up.

Turns out he's a non-ideological pragmatist, and now progressives are disappointed. Madly, mightily, miserably: right down to their sternums at the innermost center where herpes viruses go to hibernate -- like a Sartrean disillusioned with Heidegger because he was a Nazi, or a Catholic stricken that the Pope -- God's Embodiment on Earth -- could ever have enabled the hallowed priestly tradition of mass child rape.

If you're progressive, you shouldn't be disappointed in Obama. You should be disappointed in yourself.

Because you've been blinder than Oedipus. Your high hopes were built on cocoa puffs. Not ONCE in his entire political life has Obama taken any position that wasn't totally and triangulatingly Clintonesque. In fact, he's such a triangulator, he likes giving the impression he's almost sorry to be doing something his enemies don't want him to do. Look at him still coddling the Republicans, like some Big Mama nursing a bawling infant. If he were Hillary, he'd call them a bunch of lying loudmouth braindead rightwing conspirators on their way to oblivion, and be done with them.

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First thing to know about Nixon and LBJ is that they were motherfuckers, and that's what Obama is: a motherfucker. An iron-nosed, super-slick, deal-cutting, low-down Machiavellian politician. The first thing he did when he wanted health insurance for 30 million uninsured Americans (leaving 17 million still uninsured) was to duck behind-closed-doors to make nicey-nicey with the insurance industry, reassuring them he wouldn't push for a robust public option. He cut a deal with the guys who could derail reform (like they did in 1994) before he did anything else. That's the mark of a realpolitik manipulator. Then he went out in public and talked his pretty talk about how much he likes a public option and how he would've gone for single payer if we were starting from scratch. All Machiavellian smoke and mirrors. From the very beginning, he gave a real problem a tough look, took the measure of his would-be enemies, and found a way to placate them so he could seal the deal before letting Congress carry his water -- and any �progressive� agenda be damned.

Sure, Obama was a community organizer in his salad days, but not because he was a starry-eyed bleeding-heart liberal progressive, but because he wanted to learn Saul Alinsky's Machiavellian playbook -- which is to rile the poor into becoming such nasty mothers who give their oppressors such a nasty time, the oppressors finally give in just so the unruly bastards will shut the heck up and leave them in peace to go find other more passive victims to oppress.

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If it weren't for Nancy's balls, healthcare reform would've withered like an earthworm on concrete. Nancy Pelosi is that rare Democratic phenomenon: a politician with actual beliefs who is actually prepared to fight for those beliefs. A step up from Obama. She laid it out in real no-backing-down-now damn-the-torpedos fighting talk:

"We'll go through the gate. If the gate's closed, we'll go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we'll pole vault in. If that doesn�t work, we'll parachute in. But we're going to get health-care reform passed for the American people."

You go, girl!

Now Obama's got his healthcare victory, but how progressive is it? It's basically what the Republicans wanted in 1994, and what Massachusetts already has, signed into existence by Republican Governor Mitt Romney. It's socialism all right, but not for us, only for the healthcare industry, who've now got 30 million extra premium payers, many of them subsidized with our tax dollars. For this bonanza they're paying the small price of not keeping folks off their rolls because of a "pre-existing condition," and not knocking them off their rolls for getting sick (the reason why people buy insurance in the first place), and not capping what they pay out for people's medical expenses. In other words, for promising not to openly cheat their customers anymore, the insurance industry gets to continue running their 20% to 30% overheads scam when Medicare can deliver healthcare at 4% overhead (proving once again that government is more efficient at helping folks out than our magnificently efficient private enterprise plutocrats).

Some reform. But it's a start. When the insurance companies begin to jack up their premiums again, or pull some other scam, there may still be enough residual public anger simmering around to put a robust public option on the table at last, and soon we'll be on our way to Medicare for all. Be still, my progressive heart. Who knows, this delicious scenario may even be a second-term adventure in the back of Obama's Machiavellian mind at this very moment. Or not. Dream on.

That's just a few cherries plucked off a banana split we've all been waiting for.

Go read the whole thing and see if you don't feel all better.


Perfect start for a Monday.