Obama Words, Bush Actions

Even though he was an Obama supporter, Robert Scheer of Truthdig and the Nation is thinking along the same lines as I am:

A president has only so much capital to expend, both in tax dollars and
public tolerance, and Barack Obama is dangerously overdrawn. He has tried to
have it all on three fronts, and his administration is in serious danger of
going bankrupt. He has blundered into a deepening quagmire in Afghanistan, has
continued the Bush policy of buying off Wall Street hustlers instead of
confronting them and is now on the cusp of bargaining away the so-called public
option, the reform component of his health care program.

Those are not happy sentences to write for one who is still on the e-mail
list of campaign supporters urged to back the president in the face of attacks
that are stupidly small-minded. But to remain silent about his errors, just
because most of his critics are so vile, is hardly an example of constructive
concern for him or the country.

Yes, Obama was presented with a series of crises not of his
making but for which he is now being held accountable. He is not a "socialist"
who grew the federal budget to astronomical proportions. That is the legacy of
George W. Bush, who raised the military budget to its highest level since World
War II despite the end of the Cold War and the lack of a formidable military
opponent-- a legacy of debt compounded by Bush's decision to first ignore the
banking meltdown and then to engage in a welfare-for-Wall-Street bailout. And it
was Bush who gave the pharmaceutical companies the gift of a very expensive
government subsidy for seniors' drugs.

But what is nerve-racking about Obama
is that even though he campaigned against Bush's follies he has now embraced
them.