By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
And suddenly we come to the crux of the problem: What shall we do about Barack in 2012?
Have you heard this question recently? Have you felt its icy breath on your neck, its uncomfortable presence in your day, your heart, your daily media grind? I bet you have.
Right now, it looms bright and large. For our fair president has just announced, via slick email/tweet/video clip showing all sorts of dorky postcard Americana -- red barns, fluttery flags, babies on a stick, $9 coffee drinks -- that he is officially running for re-election.
Yes, already. This is apparently now how it works in American politics: You are allowed no more than 2.4 years of impossibly difficult service as redeemer president, shouldering the overwhelming burden of failure foisted on you by your pathetic predecessor, before you have to start fundraising, glad-handing and talking wistfully about your Kenyan father all over again.
But never mind that now. Because liberals are, as they say, up against it. Many are fidgeting and fussing, puling about the fact that, while they grudgingly admit Obama has mostly been a fine, articulate, highly regarded president who has passed a huge amount of progressive legislation and returned America to a place of relative honor in the international community, turns out he's not been nearly fine enough.
Just the opposite, in fact. To the sneering disappointment of the puritanical left, Obama has turned out to be pretty much exactly what he said he'd be during his '08 campaign: flawed, exceedingly moderate, a resolute compromiser, overly pragmatic when he should've been a badass, temperate when he should've been white hot and furious, offering concessions when he should be bringing the hammer down.
In short, Obama has failed. He has not at all been the delicious chocolatey superjesus of radical sociopolitical transformation most on the hard left hoped, prayed and sacrificed precious Prius bumper ad space he would be.
Hence, the conundrum. Given all this mealy disappointment, how now to best rally the troops and get out the vote in 2012 with anything resembling the passion and fervor of 2008, so as to defy any further sickening GOP onslaught? How to champion a guy who has been such a general liberal letdown, even though, when all is said and done, he's been mostly completely remarkable?
Let us now check the liberal Whine-O'-Meter. Guantanamo is still open. Military tribunals have been (reluctantly) re-established. The Patriot Act still exists. Military spending has actually increased. You still have to hand over your tweezers at the airport. Obama had an astonishing, historic chance to overhaul Wall Street's most vile system of pigf--kery, and instead has allowed the fattest hogs to keep right on rigging the game and raping the Treasury at will.
On it goes. Talk of serious environmental legislation has completely vanished from Obama's speeches. Ditto major education reform. Health care reform, while still desperately needed, has been a modest success at best and far too easily beaten down by a hateful GOP as pathetic with ideas and integrity as it is impressive with self-loathing and brass knuckles.
What else you got? Obama only half-assedly backed the unions in the Wisconsin debacle. He only took a definitive stand against Mubarak when it was clear that U.S.-backed thug was going down hard. He finally took a step to kill DADT and DOMA, the latter of which wasn't really a step at all but more like the a decision not to take any more steps. Effective, but hardly the glorious, from-the-rooftops declaration of gay rights support most hoped for.
And then there's Libya. Obama's decision to involve the U.S. in yet another military operation threw everyone, right and left, for a loop. Because while he did nearly everything right -- full UN support, the U.S. only in a limited, supporting role, a truly insane dictator who really was massacring his own people, a rapid timetable for withdrawal -- the last thing Americans want is a third war, particularly from a guy who seemed like the closest thing we'd get to an anti-war activist in our lifetime.
It can be a little whipsawing. Sure, the extremely difficult Iraq drawdown is going brilliantly, on time and on target. Sure, the economy is recovering, a little. Sure Obama saved GM and a million jobs. Sure he's great on women's rights, unemployment and housing aid, college loans, science, high-speed rail, all sorts of non-sensational but still hugely impressive triumphs that never make screaming 300-point headlines in HuffPo, TPM and Politico.
Then again, the gap between the wealthy and the middle class is worsening. CEO pay has soared while most workers can barely hold on. Afghanistan is still an expensive mess. And who the hell is buying a Volt?
Now, you can argue, as I often still do, that Obama has a sense of the long view like no president in our lifetime. He seems to understand that his true positive impact will be felt cumulatively, over time, way down the road (your kids will love him). He thinks not egomaniacally, not insta-gratifyingly, but historically. This alone makes him one of the most remarkable politicians of any stripe, now or ever.
And this is precisely the problem. As it stands right now, by the inflammatory, Glenn Beck/Charlie Sheen standards of the day, Obama isn't merely annoyingly calm and liberally imperfect, he also just a little bit ... boring.
But therein lies the answer. The solution to this conundrum is actually very easy.
If you're unsure of Obama because he's been less the demigod superhero studbunny you hoped for, well, you have but to merely glance at the competition.
Across the board and down the line, the GOP contenders for 2012 so far are laughingstocks and charlatans, complete caricatures of actual humans with brains. The Palins and the Bachmanns, the Huckabees and the Newts, the Trumps and the Romneys -- it's all birthers and paranoids, adulterous slugs and ditzball sociopaths, fringers and terrified Mormons, a bloody madhouse clown car of cutesy whiffleball glop. I can hardly wait for the debates.
So while libs can whine all they want about Obama's imperfections and so-called failures, the instant you turn it all around and look at the alternatives, and then hitch them to the current GOP-led House's plans to gut the budget and spew hate on women and gays, the arts and the poor, promote Islamophobia and kowtow to the rich, well, suddenly Obama shines all over again like the gleaming savior we all want him to be.
Suddenly all the complaining turns into nitpicking. Suddenly that vague dissatisfaction is instantly overshadowed by this shuddering, sour tang deep in the gut that just about screams OMFG, thank God Obama's there, how much worse off we'd be without him, how much good he's actually accomplished, how blessed his articulate intelligence, how proud we are every time he travels abroad -- please, please, please don't ever leave and sorry we complained in the first place and oh my God please don't leave.
Yes, it's moral and political relativism, writ large. Who cares? What else could it ever be? So count your presidential blessings, libs, for while they may be tattered and rashy and often pinch and ride up, they are, on the whole, still plentiful and hugely impressive and just shockingly better than any alternative you can name, much less vote for. And you know it.
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