Buyer's Remorse

I'm sure this is gettin' all sorts of play on the right today and I'll pile on, as well.  David Michael Green, an obviously liberal  professor of political science at Hofstra University (but I repeat myself), penned a real keeper this weekend entitled "How to Squander the Presidency in One Year."  The good prof starts out like a house afire:

There's only one political party in the entire world that is so inept, cowardly and bungling that it could manage to simultaneously lick the boots of Wall Street bankers and then get blamed by the voters for being flaming revolutionary socialists. 

It's the same party that has allowed the opposition to go on a thirty year scorched earth campaign, stealing everything in sight from middle and working class voters, and yet successfully claim to be protecting ‘real Americans' from out-of-touch elites. 

It's the same party that could run a decorated combat hero against a war evader in 1972, only to be successfully labeled as national security wimps. 

Just to be sure, it then did the exact same thing again in 2004.
...

Barack Obama has now, in just a year's time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime.  Never has so much political advantage been pissed away so rapidly, and what's more in the context of so much national urgency and crisis.  It's astonishing, really, to contemplate how much has been lost in a single year.

The Good Prof then launches into a litany of The One's failings, the best of which might be this:

And let's take it up a whole ‘nuther level, while we're on the subject.   A successful president is one who articulates a strong and compelling narrative for the nation.  So, in your quest to avoid rising even to mediocrity, be sure to leave a great big gaping canyon where that whole narrative thing is supposed to go.  No New Deal, no Great Society, no New Frontier or War on Terror for you.  Nope!  Just a thousand little projects with little non-solutions to big problems.  Hey, why not inject yourself into Cambridge, Massachusetts community police politics while you're at it!  Or the New York State Democratic Party gubernatorial primary!  Or you could deliberate for weeks about which breed of dog to get for your kids!  That's a great use of the president's political capital!

Oh, my.  You just KNOW things are bad when academics start pissing and moaning about their golden boy.  And then Professor Green drops this lil bomb towards the end of the screed:

Of course, I don't give a shit about Barack Obama anymore, other than my desire that really ugly things happen to him as payment in kind for the grandest act of betrayal we've seen since Benedict Arnold did his thing.  But what about the country?

Heh.  This dude is harsh and the above ain't the half of it, Gentle Reader.  But... what about the country, anyway?  What to do?  What to do?  Never fret, there's the standard Lefty poli-sci solution on tap, if ONLY The One would see the light and...

Go where the real solutions are.  Fight the good fight.  Call liars ‘liars' and thieves ‘thieves'.  Do the people's business.  Become their advocate against the monsters bleeding them dry.  Create jobs.  Build infrastructure.  Do real national health care.  End the wars.  Dramatically slash military spending.  Produce actual educational reform.  Launch a massive green energy/jobs program.  Get serious about global warming.  Kick ass on campaign finance reform.  Fight for gay rights.  Restore the New Deal era regulatory framework and expand it.  Restore a fair taxation structure.  Rewrite trade agreements that undermine American jobs.  Rebuild unions.

Ah, there's more but I'm sure you know the tune. You can hum right along if'n ya have a mind to do so, but as for me?  I'm just glad Ivory Tower academics don't actually run anything and spend all their time corrupting young minds.  Young minds have a habit of being changed once they're out in the Real World... or at least that's the way it used to work.  I'm beginning to have my doubts about that but that's also another story, entirely.  We'll not go there today.

So anyhoo... the Good Professor really isn't done after he's vented his spleen about his Fallen Hero.  No, he just has to fire one last shot, predicting we'll sink into a fascist dictatorship once Palin (his speculation) and those eeevil Rethuglicans come into power.  About which: Put the bong down and back away from the lectern slooowly, Professor, and no one will get hurt.