American Politics, the Last 48 Hours

Today, John McCain pitched reviving the Glass-Steagall Act, which would separate commercial and investment banking and lead to the break up of the megabanks, and which Obama and his economic advisers oppose; and today the White House admonished Howard Dean for saying the Senate Health Care Bill should be scrapped and reconciliation should be explored so that we might get a semblance of a public option/Medicare Buy-in; and yesterday, the White House refused to say one word about Joe Lieberman's unprincipled murder of Medicare Buy-in; also, yesterday, Obama's DOJ reiterated its Bush-era position re an expansive and unprecedented States Secret Privilege in asking the 9th Circuit to overturn its ruling in the Jeppesen rendition case.

I know I am supposed to talk about politicians only in terms of how they depress or inspire me, or how imbued with evil or goodness they are, but cold, hard facts are confusing me. Quick, somebody please send me pictures of how cute the Obama kids are or yell at me for questioning our fearless leader, whom we should all love without condition and with complete disregard to the things he actually apparently stands for.

When the only thing that we ask of our President is that he not be as much of an asshole as the last guy -- or at least draw on pretty words, not his Jesusy whims, when he decides to be exactly as much of an asshole as the last guy (on national security issues)-- then we ask nothing of him. And nothing, apparently, shall we receive.