Is President Obama a 3 in a Sea of 2s?

I have two political maxims – “you make a serious mistake assuming that people in charge know what the hell they’re doing” and, “you don’t have to be a 10 in politics; you can be a 3 if everyone is a 2”…

Chris Hedges along with Ralph Nader, Paul Krugman, Gloria Steinman and Naomi Klein (a Canadian) are the prominent voices of the left and thus can be expected to go a bit easy on their presidential candidate for next November, sitting president Barack Obama. Well, maybe – this is how Hedges sees it. “Obama who has become a global celebrity who was melded easily into a brand. He had almost no experience other than 2 years into the Senate, lacked any moral code, and could be opinionated as all things to all people. The brief Senate voting record was a miserable surrender to corporate interests. He was happy to promote nuclear power as green energy. He voted to continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He reauthorized the Patriot Act. He would not back a bill designed to cap predatory credit card interest rates.”

With friends like this, who needs enemies? It should be stated clearly that Presidents neither make the laws which bring in tax revenue nor pass bills – those are prerogatives of Congress. Presidents do indeed ask Congress to raise taxes and pass legislation but such matters can be ignored and Congress’s legislation can be vetoed by the White House although Congress can override the veto. Read More