Why Does Obama Love the Establishment?

Cenk Uygur of the Huffington Post is reading my mind concerning the four insiders--Rahm Emmanuel, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, and (possibly) Tim Geithner--who are going to be leaving Obama's administration:

There are hardly four Democrats in the whole country who were more pro-establishment, anti-change, pro-corporate power, pro-Wall Street than those four. I'm being literal. Bob Rubin might break into the top four, maybe Evan Bayh, maybe Harold Ford, Jr. But the four that are leaving the White House are undoubtedly in the top ten most corporate friendly Democrats in the country.

So, that leads to the question of why did Obama pick them in the first place? Why did the guy who promised to change the whole system bring in the guys who are most wedded to the system? Why does Barack Obama love the establishment so much?....Why does Obama keep insisting on hiring within that [Washington/Wall Street] bubble? Now, we hear that Summers replacement is likely to be a corporate executive because Obama feels he has been criticized for being anti-business. That is unreal. How easy is this guy to manipulate? Or does he want to be manipulated in that direction?

Who is calling Obama anti-business? The same Wall Street guys who robbed us of billions (some would argue trillions) and want to do it again. Why on God's green earth would you continue to listen to those guys?

You're losing the whole American population while trying to cater to these clowns. Get your head out of ... the DC/NY bubble. The rest of the country doesn't think you're too tough on business; they think you haven't done enough to help them -- the middle class.

So, I ask this as an earnest question -- why is Barack Obama obsessed with appeasing the establishment? Was he being completely disingenuous when he ran on change? How could he possibly have thought that Larry Summers or the corporate executive who might replace him would bring us real change?

I ask all of these questions because I am desperate to figure out how we can get President Obama to deliver on the change he promised so we can finally deliver for the middle class in this country instead of the wealthy and powerful that surround the president in Washington. What makes him tick? How can we get him to fall out of love with the establishment? How can we get him to have the courage to govern like he ran for office -- with passion and conviction to help all of us instead of the Washington power elite?

Because that's who he is. He never was (or will be) a true progressive, even though the rhetoric he used in the campaign fooled a lot of people that way. He's a pragmatic Democratic centrist (just like Clinton before him) who governs by and for the Establishment. Apparently he thinks that means 'the people', or maybe he really doesn't care.  Who knows? 

If I had known this before the primaries, that Obama was going to run a Clintonian administration, I would have supported Hillary Clinton instead.  After all, she had more experience, age, and political wisdom than Obama.  She would have been the first woman President.  But Obama fooled me with his 'progressive' sounding rhetoric.   I was conned.  When will I learn not to believe what politicians say?

But that's water over the dam.  Does that mean we should support him and vote for Obama simply because he's not a flaming right-wing Republican?  Yes, exactly, because the competition are completely wacho, even the formerly 'independent' Republicans among them, like John McCain.  They govern on behalf of the wealthy, the military-industrial complex, the big corporations, and the fundamentalists.  The 'people' need not apply.  The Tea Partyers are scaring them (and me) to death.  No moderate, normal, thoughtful, non-ideological Republican can get elected these days, except perhaps in Maine.

We may not like it (or Obama) anymore, he may not be all we thought he was, but that's the way it is.  Really. 

Go Obama.