(no subject)

[serene]

I'm one of the people he's talking to. I do feel a little chastised by this. I still think I didn't quite get the president I was hoping for, but he makes some good points. (And all along, I've said I think the alternative would have been much, much worse.)

Comments

[jae]

I actually disagree with both sides of this one. Clooney seems a bit too "doth protest too much," but the "disillusioned by Obama" people are placing the blame in the wrong place (and if I had to guess why, it would be that placing the blame in the right place would be too hard a pill to swallow for most Americans).

-J

[bcholmes]

placing the blame in the right place would be too hard a pill to swallow for most Americans

Can you say more about that?

[jae]

Sure. The short version is that it's pretty clear that Obama-in-practice has fallen short of his original ideals not because he's secretly George Bush in disguise or because he's cowardly or any of the other things he gets accused of, but because he keeps running up against roadblocks that are systemic and/or cultural. That points to something far more insidious and inherent than anything one person can control or change. It's a comfortable idea to think that if you could just rid of Obama and put a "real progressive" in that position, that real change would suddenly become possible, but the available evidence is massively stacked against that theory.

The long version is here.

-J

[snippy]

This. I didn't vote for Obama, but I don't think it's mostly his fault that he couldn't do everything he promised.