Well, we've certainly learned some important lessons since that historic night, haven't we. First, after 20 years of Clintonite-corporatist influence, we have to admit to ourselves that Team Democrat at the national level has been organizationally overrun by DLC-Third Label-No Way types who have more in common, philosophically, with 1960s Republicans than they do with 1930s New Dealers. Accommodations are grudgingly made for liberals like Grayson and Grijalva and Bernie Sanders, but power is not permitted to reside in them; they are window dressing for the base. Second, we've learned that rich people are morally superior beings who are essential to the functioning of the state since they must never be imprisoned, no matter how much money they continue to steal from us. Third, no crimes against humanity, however odious, of any previous administration must ever be adjudicated. Fourth, the President reserves the right to assassinate any person, anywhere, at any time of his choosing. Fifth, people who attempt to expose egregious abuses of power in the federal bureaucracy are seditious traitors who must be pursued and prosecuted. Sixth, the gradual privatization of our health and educational institutions must continue apace because the looting must never be allowed to end. Seventh, incompetent executives who run their businesses into the ground must never suffer the consequences of their own bad decision-making; on the contrary, they must be fed with constant infusions of money to finance the next generation of asset bubbles. Eighth, we must continue to hasten mass extinction events with an all-of-the-above energy policy that contaminates our groundwater and fouls our beaches and shorelines. Ninth, chronic high unemployment is the natural order of things because our only responsible fiscal policy is one that stifles economic growth. And finally, no policy of any kind must ever be pursued too aggressively, no matter how many elections you win, if it runs the risk of offending Republicans.
Now, some of you may think your humble blogger is being a bit too hard on the President, and who knows, perhaps he is. And yes, I remember the Ledbetter Act, the SCHIP expansion, the Pigford farmers settlement, and the credit-card fee reforms. More significantly, the administration saved an important domestic manufacturing industry, for which they deserve much credit. And certainly, gay men and lesbians have more freedoms today than they had five years ago. But most of the legislative achievements have been small-ball efforts, and the three that notably weren't---the Recovery Act, the Goldberg Act, and the Dodd-Frank bill---were either utterly inadequate to the challenge at hand, or outsourced too many policy decisions to the same people who blew up the world and who keep driving us into bankruptcy. What I am saying is, five years ago this country needed, and was apparently ready for, in the President's own words, a "fundamental transformation". By and large, we didn't get it. Most of the same problems that plagued us then are still plaguing us now. Granted, in a divided government, a President can only exercise so much power in the crafting of legislation. But a President can drive the debate over the content of legislation, and commonsense solutions that have been tried elsewhere and succeeded---a second New Deal, breaking up the banks, and single payer---were never even considered, let alone debated, and he and his teammates deserve to take their fair share of criticism for that. Neoliberal corporatism has been hollowing been out the Republic for the last three decades; a smart guy like the President should have been able to recognize this, and charted a different course.
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Baron V