December Wolves: Let Me Get This Straight

I know there's been a lot of comic book posts recently. One is because they're a big new status quo to talk about that can be done easily and they're done in a serialized format so it's easy to keep track of them and there's an entire month between issues to bounce ideas around.

So I'm going back to the world of politics, because that's...something I feel like I've neglected. I think it's just because these kind of posts are harder because I feel compelled to look for links as evidence. Or maybe I'm just tired and making excuses. Comics are new and shiny. Politics less so.

It's about Obama. It's about the expectations for Obama. It's about what the story about him is versus what he's actually doing. It's about everyone projecting something on Obama.

The Obama presidency is not producing rainbows and sunshine fast enough for the American people, so there's a bunch of douchebags running around asking where's the change. They don't take into account that the GOP, since being run out of office, has been blocking pretty much anything. How Bush got so much done was he helped guide the Republican Party towards ideological purity in this sad case, literally.

The Democrats, on the other hand, have to fix the economy, while being held to "fiscally responsible" budgets by a bunch of Republicans who spent money in the last eight years like it was going out of style. It's frustrating. The Republican suggestions to help pay down the debt and stimulate sales were more tax cuts. My response is: "cute, but no."

Obama was the candidate of change, not the candidate of pixie dust and hundred dollar bills growing on trees. Obama was the candidate of hope, not the candidate of telling the Blue Dog Democrats to shut the fuck up and vote the party line. It's frustrating that the narrative around Obama's candidacy was that he came in on wings of bullshit and promised a magic wand to fix America's problems in a way no one would disagree with.

This is not to say Democrats have been faultless. Pelosi rides into office citing ethical responsibility then looks the other way while Murtha and Rangel (Rangel was the Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and Murtha was known widely as one of the most corrupt Senators around.) stuff their faces AND it comes out that Pelosi knew about the torture after she claimed what the CIA was doing was news to her. Let me repeat that faster, the new Speaker of the House lied on a core issue to her continued campaigning, which focused on ethical leadership.

This is not a little white lie. This is a lie about one of the bona fides. This is exactly the kind of behavior that Pelosi railed against the Republicans for and got into office on. While I'm railing against the Democrats, I'll pause here and say Keith Olbermann is a loudmouth toolbox, just as skeezy as the commentators he spews against. He may use bigger words, but the message is the same: EVIL. WRONG. RAGE.

Let me go back to those douchebags, though. It hasn't even been a year since Obama took office and already he's been called a magic negro, had policies that haven't even been voted on yet compared to Hitler's gas chambers and his eligibility to be president has been questioned based on gossip that sounds like it came straight from 4chan. And the worst part? All of those have been presided over by the Republican hierarchy. The "magic negro" song was made by Huckabee's national campaign manager who was, at the time, a frontrunner for the RNC chair, the gas chamber bit has been fanned by Michele Bachmann and Karl Rove, and the birth certificate bit...well, just Google GOP + birth certificate.

These people put too much on Obama, whether it's Democrats or Republicans. He's a liberal guy who is president in a country where the districts are gerrymandered, except for the ones that aren't, so there's a permanently entrenched groups of Senators/Representatives because they choose the boundaries of what districts they represent. And that's why the moderates are so scared, because they actually have a meaningful fight for their seats.

It's not like the people that disagreed with Obama went away after Obama was elected, for heaven's sake. These inspirational figures are supposed to be inspiring, not superhuman. They're supposed to make other people rise above. He doesn't make all the problems go away by existing as President. These figures are human. They make mistakes and they're subject to the whims of the American people. When was this forgotten?

I don't normally go for rant posts, but something about the righteousness of the groups arrayed against Obama mixed with their profound ignorance of what's actually written on the Constitution gets under my skin. No, tyranny is not people you don't agree with being in charge. Tyranny is a gun barrel in your mouth, a soldier living in your house and the people who disagree with the way things are going being disappeared after they register anything publicly.

(In short, ask any woman working minimum wage in Juarez.)

Ultimately, the person most at fault is myself. I'll explain: It's dishonest. It's politics. When did I, of all people, forget this?