Did Obama Diss Bernie In A Recent Speech? It Seems So!

Even as parts of the 'librul media' now claim Bernie Sanders is running a "con" (cf. Rachel Maddow Friday night) or "pandering" (Elizabeth King on salon.com) in getting younger citizens to buy into his concept of a political revolution, it appears the Prez is bearing down on Bernie too.  In her recent WaPo column, Ruth Marcus claimed that Obama - the day after the NH primary- delivered a speech in which he "lamented the poisonous political climate"  and mourned that "the tone of our politics hasn't gotten better since I was inaugurated, in fact it's gotten worse".

Well, duh! What would you have expected from hardcore Repukes who actually vowed (like Mitch McConnell in 2009) that their numero uno goal was to block Obama's plans at every turn?  And even Obama later conceded that obstruction by having to resort to a number of executive actions on a host of matters from immigration to the environment. So don't act so damned surprised, Mister Prez!  And also, if I may add, it took you way too damned long to admit what these rat fuckers were doing - to the point you actually tried to appease the bastards with Social Security cuts - via your now (thankfully)  defunct "Debt commission".

But I digress. The main thrust of Marcus' column was that Obama had a chief bone to pick with Sanders. Marcus wrote that "some correctly interpreted Obama as criticizing Trump" but "the more interesting aspect of Obama's speech was its implicit disagreement with Bernie Sanders - the previous day's winner."

She even went so far as to insist Obama's speech (which she admits was "bumped off the front pages and most media") "can be interpreted as a rebuttal to Sanders and a rebuke of the Vermont Senator's approach to politics and an unstated endorsement of Hillary Clinton's plodding pragmatism". Which  latter I already wrote about and took to task as essentially useless, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/02/why-hillarys-proposed-extension-of.html

Also noting:

"After all, if as Obama and Hillary demand,  health care be kept a business (since insurers are part of the mix) then profits will be incorporated. The profit expectations will also be continuously  increased so higher and higher premiums must be expected"

In other words, without calling out the term, I deliberately identified both Obama and Clinton as Neoliberals - which they are. Also known in Left parlance as "DINOS" or corporate democrats.  But again, I get ahead of  myself.

The point here is that no one with good sense ought to express surprise that a Neoliberal would "rebuke" the Bern. Hell, his whole legacy and identity depends upon it. And lest some forget, let's remind them of one of Obama's biggest, proudest Neolib badges, defending the TPP against fellow Dems, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2015/04/obama-needs-to-tone-down-his-rhetoric.html

 While we're at it, David Bromwich (at salon.com),   in an article Obama’s Disappearing Act- What Happened to the President He wanted to be?  put it in great context - much better than Marcus as to why he wouldn't have the courage to back a real Dem like Sanders:

"The truth is that Obama’s convictions were never strong. He did not find this out until his convictions were tested, and they were not tested until he became president.

 

Perhaps the thin connection between Obama’s words and his actions does not support the use of the word “conviction” at all. Let us say instead that he mistook his preferences for convictions — and he can still be trusted to tell us what he would prefer to do. “

Leading Bromwich to then revive the term "leading from behind". Waiting and waiting until a popular furor builds up and catapults the issue before embracing it. Marcus herself endorses this perception noting Obama's "ingrained tropism" (tropism being a feature of plants) to "move toward middle ground".

Sure, JFK would have ‘preferred’ also such lackluster behavior, e.g. so as not to face down U.S. Steel and earn the wrath of the corporatocracy, but he knew he had to do it for the welfare of the nation. Hence, he threatened that corporation with removing its defense contracts unless it complied and didn’t raise steel prices in the spring of 1962.  Similarly, Kennedy would have ‘preferred’ not to have to confront his Joint Chiefs over their intent to bomb and invade Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, but he did so because he realized the preservation of life on Earth may well depend on it. 

Well, Bernie is THAT mold of President! One we haven't seen in the White House for over 53 years.

But what really annoyed the hell out of me is that Obama's middle ground "tropism" arose from Bernie's "call for political upheaval". Jeezus Peace, you'd think the woman was portraying a call to firebomb buildings, take over the Army bases and oust the high roller CEOs and banksters from their plush offices.

At no point did it sink into her thick cranium that when he calls for "political revolution" he doesn't mean it in a literal sense, say like the Marxist-Leninists did with the 1917 Russian Revolution! He meant it in the sense of a collective revolution in consciousness - much like author Charles Reich once proposed in his marvelous book, 'The Greening of America'.   The first step, as Reich notes, is hurling off the yoke of false consciousness - that infection of mind which leads us to only see reality through the lens of the System. Hence, leading us to accept such travesties as an economically rigged economy, a rigged banking system and a hopelessly defunct healthcare dinosaur.

Thus,  Sanders is correct when he avers that any real change must be stoked by the people - this after they doff the false conscious cocoons.  THEY must incite their reps to act on their behalf and do the right thing to make the system work for them and not against them. In this sense, it is true that Sanders (as he himself admits) is "no magician".  At the top of the list we have to override the mainstream media in its lies about Sanders' proposals - making them appear as if they're mere flights of fancy - say like constructing a gigantic space ship to go to Proxima Centauri.

Lastly, even as Obama was reciting his pabulum about uniting red and blue America" (which will NEVER happen!)  Marcus was bloviating how Sanders's depictions were too "dark" in terms of the business model of Wall Street being a fraud, the economy being rigged, and the billionaire class purchasing a "choke hold" on Washington. Hmmm.....methinks I need to send her a copy of my book, 'The Elements of the Corporatocracy'.

Anyway, even as she and Obama were blabbering their Neolib nonsense, the news from the February 12 Wall Street Journal was headlined: "A Warning Signal Flashes' (p. C4), the article noting how the market for credit default swaps - the same buggers that nearly crashed our financial system in '08 - are now on the rise again.  According to the Journal (ibid.):

"At the end of June the global CDS market was $14.6 trillion as measured by the total amount of default protection outstanding according to the Bank for International Settlements"

This is serious but confronting growing CDS toxic crap and also avoiding another massive bank bailout, depends on level-headed realists who see our craven, rigged system for what it is. Not on Neolib cheerleaders who value their legacies more than the truth! So Marcus can yap all she wants that we ought to follow Obama in his Kumbaya -unity themes and not Sanders "by manning the barricades". But if this CDS racket is on track to explode again, I believe we need the latter, and Bernie need make no apologies for his anti-establishment positions - nor should those of us who support him.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/65987/bernie-s-political-revolution-is-actually-happening-although-the-corporate-media-won-t-tell-you-that

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/donna-smith/65989/its-the-political-and-economic-establishment-stupid

Excerpt:

"Here's the list of issues I heard Bernie Sanders address at the Denver Convention Center on Saturday night: crumbling infrastructure, climate change, youth unemployment, mass incarceration, Medicare for all healthcare, campaign finance reform, tuition-free public education grades K-16, Social Security, poverty, income inequality, income equity, a woman's right to control her own body, and more. Was there one single thread running through his firebrand speech? Of course. And that single thread is the tie that binds people to Bernie's campaign."

Obama: "Russia is a Regional Power" - And Other Moronic Remarks

No, I am emphatically not an "Obamabot" as would be obvious if thinking people read my posts critical of him.  I voted for him twice given the horrific alternatives, but was never on his "band wagon" in the sense of turning a blind eye to his flaws and misguided policies, i.e. drone killings, "debt commission", Chained CPI, supporting NSA mass spying, anti-whistleblower stance etc. Now, in hindsight, I still congratulate him when I believe he's made a policy choice, speech or decision that's wise and justified, and I criticize him when I believe he's veering off course, doing something ill-advised or stupid (perhaps because of bad advice).

In the latter category, Obama delivered a talk at a Nuclear Security summit in the Netherlands yesterday that was remarkable for its abysmal failure to grasp basic geopolitics, his dismissal of Russia as any kind of power on the global stage, and his failure (or unwillingness) to grasp the Ukraine crisis at any more than a Neoliberal media level.

Of course, the superficial content of his spiel could well also reflect  Obama’s “chameleon-like nature” in taking on the hues of the venue he addresses, first pointed out by Salon.com writer David Bromwich in his recent piece, ‘Obama’s Disappearing Act – What Happened to the President He Wanted To Be?’   As Bromwich observed:

 

"More than most people, Obama has been a creature of his successive environments. He talked like Hyde Park when in Hyde Park. He talks like Citigroup when at the table with Citigroup. And in either milieu, he likes the company well enough and enjoys blending in. "

 

So, it may well be that Obama’s ridiculous rhetoric could be attributed to this trait, we don’t know. I merely highlight here some of the examples of all the wrong things he said yesterday. Things which others might seriously misinterpret or read more into than warranted.

Among the absurd rhetoric we heard was that “Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors, not out of strength but out of weakness.”

 

In fact, given how Putin has immensely assisted Obama in both Iran and Syria,  this is a putdown that boggles the mind. Putin and Russia’s influence, in finding alternative approaches to both the Iranian nuclear program, and the events in Syria – in July- enabled Obama to ease out of what would surely have been two disastrous new conflicts he (and the country) didn’t need.  If Russia is  merely a “regional power” this would never have been feasible nor would Obama have been so dependent on Putin for this assistance - which he has yet to acknowledge in any public speech (one reason why Robert Parry has shown he's been at the mercy of the neocons - see e.g.
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/54745/how-looking-forward-tripped-up-Obama

The U.S. political elites,  as ensconced in the Neoliberal political class and media,  DO like to believe this stupid meme,because it resonates with their long time (20 year) narrative of a “defeated” superpower which now can barely take care of itself. The Neolibs and their neocon allies  and media fifth columnists may like to believe this horse shit, but no critically thinking citizen should.

They ought to understand instead that any Russian "weakness" was incurred by its willingness to partake of the Neolib New World Order itself – which at the time  (1991) was proffered to Mikhail Gorbachev in return for the U.S. not expanding NATO.  That  acceptance caused much pain, as described in Naomi Klein’s book, ‘The Shock Doctrine:  The Rise of Disaster Capitalism' (2007), since it reduced or obliterated  Russian citizens’ long time support systems while allowing entry of a parasitical form of capitalism.

 

Despite that, Russia has found a way, predicated on its vast resources and emerging energy sector to become the 2^nd largest producer of gas and oil next to Saudi Arabia. Indeed, much of Europe depends upon it – so the EU nations dare not become too enamored of their sanctions, lest the energy plug be pulled.  In addition, lest Obama forget, Russia still retains more than 3,000 nuclear warheads on as many ICBMs which surely merits equal superpower status – given it’s the only nation with the ability to reduce the U.S. to ashes, as one of its ministers recently put it.  This capability alone demands no one in a leadership role in the U.S. dismiss Russia, or cast it as only a "regional power". Any nation that has the nuclear capacity to incinerate the globe is no "regional power".


This is not something to take lightly or write off to appease an audience which stock and trade is terrorism. Nor is it an excuse to make a glib comment such as Obama also rendered yesterday: i.e.  that “Russia is not the number one US national security threat”  and he is "more concerned about the possibility of a nuclear weapon going off in Manhattan" (by terrorists).  If he really believes that is his number one concern, right now, he ought to consider resigning from the Presidency.  Because in his position, I’d damned well be more worried about the Ukraine situation overheating to the point nukes are used in a limited conflict and then escalates to all out nuclear war.

 

In respect of this overheating Obama didn’t help matters with two other stupid remarks he made:

 

“We (the US) have considerable influence on our neighbors. We generally don't need to invade them in order to have a strong cooperative relationship with them,"

 

Hmmmmm….. “we generally don’t need to invade them” but we WILL if we find a national security smokescreen to invoke! (As opposed to Russia's legitimate right to occupy the Crimea according to an existing treaty- see below-  and, in its own sphere of influence,).  In other words, Obama is saying the U.S. can invade if and when it chooses to, as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has in more than 20 nations since the end of World War II – based on the ‘Monroe doctrine” or whatever specious basis it can find (NSC-68), but no other nation has a right to protect or exercise its self –interest.

Obama then compounded this foolishness by adding that: the United States "would use its military to come to the defense of any NATO country that is threatened " adding "We will act in their defense against any threats. That’s what NATO is all about.”
 

Actually, no – it isn’t what NATO is "all about". NATO is a Cold War relic, now  exploited by the U.S. to expand its sphere of influence, in this case  against Russia’s – since the end of the Soviet Union. (I believe part of it is also to act like a bully and rub Russia's 'nose' in the dirt. "Nya, nya - see what we can do and you can't stop us!") Indeed one can argue that NATO is a war mongering entity as noted herein:

NATO's Warmongers:  http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/brian-cloughley/54851/the-belligerent-alliance-natos-warmongers
 

I hate to be the one to have to remind Obama that this is a promise he’s not likely to keep, say if Russia feels threatened by a belligerent NATO puppet, e.g. Lithuania or Poland,  and strikes against it. The reason is that the Russians have retained a “limited use" nuclear doctrine by which they reserve the right to employ nukes if they feel overwhelmed by conventional outside forces, say NATO’s, see e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/russ-wellen/54873/russia-still-addresses-conventional-weapons-gap-with-u-s-via-nukes

As noted therein:

"On March 13, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ran a piece by Nikolai Sokov with the paradoxical title Why Russia calls a limited nuclear strike “de-escalation.” He writes, “In 1999, at a time when renewed war in Chechnya seemed imminent, Moscow watched with great concern as NATO waged a high-precision military campaign in Yugoslavia.” It became concerned both that “the United States would interfere within its borders” and that the “conventional capabilities that the United States and its allies demonstrated seemed far beyond Russia’s own capacities.”

In response, Russia

… issued a new military doctrine whose main innovation was the concept of “de-escalation”—the idea that, if Russia were faced with a large-scale conventional attack that exceeded its capacity for defense, it might respond with a limited nuclear strike.

In the unnerving 1983 film ‘Threads’ such a scenario played out in a future Iran, after the U.S. and NATO allies bombed a nuclear plant at Isfahan. The Russians used tactical nukes to even the score and halt advancing NATO forces, the U.S. did likewise, and within days the exchange could no longer be controlled and had escalated into a full scale nuclear war. Is this what Obama really wants? Then he better be careful what promises he makes and how he wields his rhetoric.

The most utterly arrogant comment made, however, was that:  “Russia of course has the legal right to have troops in its own country” – as if this is a big deal or carries some profound, hitherto unknown concept.

Of course they can have troops in their own country!  So can the U.S.!  SO what? The issue isn’t having troops in one’s own country, but the willingness to deploy them where and when a nation feels its sphere of influence threatened. This is why Russia has deployed troops (more than 20,000 in Crimea, which are LEGAL btw, according to a treaty – see:

http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-us-

 

And the U.S. has no business challenging that or referring to it as "invasion" or "aggression" etc.. True, CIA director Brennan (the same guy who spied on the Senate Intelligence Committee - that had Dianne Feinstein in an uproar),  "didn't believe this justified Russia's moves", but I revert back to what Col. Wilkerson (Ret.) noted 3 weeks ago on MSNBC - that given the U.S. neocons conducted a putsch, a coup - Russia  WAS justified and Wilkerson would have done it too if in Putin's place as he himself noted. 

The U.S. meanwhile, has deployed tens of thousands of troops wherever it damned well pleases and in flagrant disregard of any international norms or laws. It instead creates its own "laws" or "doctrines" (i.e. "Bush doctrine") to justify incursion and interference  wherever it sees some vague “threat” that has no direct bearing whatever on national security – such as the illegal Iraq invasion

Don’t bother to tell the Russians where and how their troop deployments are “legal” or allowed if you don’t adhere to the same standards or to international courts of law or previously established international legal norms and principles such as Nuremberg Principle VI. (Condemning "crimes against Peace", i.e. "Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression" as in the case of the Iraq War.)

I do believe, assuming Obama wasn’t putting on his “chameleon act” for the nuclear security audience in The Hague, that he needs to study my post on a game theory perspective to the Ukraine crisis. He will get more out of it than listening to Victoria Nuland or Robert Kagan!

-----

On that note, let me applaud Obama for his forceful words yesterday on the need to pull back NSA bulk phone data collection. But I would like to see scaling back the NSA's dragnet of the internet via its PRISM and MUSCULAR programs too. And until something is actually done, and there is pull back, it remains only  interesting rhetoric.

See also:
http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-boardman/55005/media-whoop-up-stampede-to-cold-war-hot-war-whatever

Why Obama Failed to Become the Transformative President

Obama - in the glow of his victory in 2008- when expectations ran high after his campaign themes of hope and change. What happened after he became President had most to do with his failure to adopt a political identity which would have provided a compass for governance.


As a new Constitutional crisis unfolds, that the CIA has been accused (by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, no less)  of breaking into Senate Intelligence Committee computers, those not au fait with deep politics would be advised to pay rapt attention. The issue revolves around an internal review known as the Panetta Review, which highlights severe transgressions committed by the spooks in their rendition and torture programs. The CIA - according to Feinstein, as well as Mark Udall- broke into Senate Intelligence Committee computers and eliminated the key files,.

 As I have written in a number of blog posts, especially last October and November, the CIA as part of the national security state (with the NSA) has risen to become so powerful - throwing its weight around since the 1950s - that its power threatens the Constitution. Ike knew it - which is why he set up 'The President's Board of Consultants on Foreign Intelligence Activity'. The Board concluded that the CIA's clandestine services were "operating for the most part on an autonomous and free-wheeling basis in highly critical areas."  This was after the CIA sponsored a coup in Guatemala in 1954 to oust Jacobo Arbenz its President.

JFK also understood the threat, especially after the Bay of Pigs - which is why he fired the CIA chief Allen Dulles and his Deputy Director, Charles Cabell. It is also why Kennedy emulated Ike in setting up a Foreign Intelligence Advisory board - the express purpose of which was to bring the CIA under independent control.  Kennedy addressed the group on May 15, 1961 and informed them he was "undertaking a total reassessment of U.S. covert action policies and programs".

None of these boards or supervisory incentives worked and the CIA broke out every time to become ever more powerful.  Now Obama, like his predecessors, will likely be faced with finding a resolution - but what will he do? Will he become 'transformative' and side with the People and the Constitution or will he side with Brennan (instead of firing him as JFK would have done) and the national security state.

The answer is predictable if one understands Obama's political temperament - which is to always avoid taking a strong stand, avoid looking partisan (and if he sided with Feinstein and the Senate Dems he would look that way) and avoiding severe conflict - which would likely occur if he sided with the People against Brennan and the CIA. Besides, his stand against Snowden and other whistle blowers discloses he is no longer invested in "transparency" which he proclaimed would be a hallmark of his presidency back in 2008.

Now, David Bromwich (at salon.com),   in an article Obama’s Disappearing Act- What Happened to the President He wanted to be?  has examined Obama's political tendencies and temperament  in a deep way and pretty well shown that anyone as early as 2008 could have forecast he'd have turned out the way he has - afraid of political battles, and averse to making powerful  (but politically controversial) moves - say along the lines of JFK or FDR. For example, if he really wanted to he could have closed Guantanamo by Executive Order.

Bromwich's premise (and working title) assumes, of course, that Obama really wanted to be anything different from what he has been.  Which to many of us has been a human Rorschach. Read into  him whatever you want and there it is! Of course, we can dispense at once with the nonsense of the idiots on the Far Right, i.e. that Obama is some kind of “Socialist” or “communist”  - as I overheard an idiot braying the other day while walking out of a movie theater. 

Put it this way: If Obama is a Socialist, far less Communist, then I am a new Roman Catholic convert and a newly confirmed Bishop!

But then, if you ask ten people exactly what Obama is, you will likely get ten different answers, or …..ten different versions of head scratches….with ‘I don’t know’ to follow. Is he pro-War? Don’t know! Is he pro transparency? Odds are he’s not, given his defense of the NSA.  What principles does he espouse? We don't know since if one examines his speeches at any given venue they're all chameleon-like taking on the hue of the environment he's addressing.


Then there are those fulsome quotes he reels off sometimes, as Bromwich notes. For example, the recent response to Russian claiming of the Crimea, which in fact it has much more license and right to claim than we had for claiming Iraq and its oil: Obama said, “Russia was putting itself on the wrong side of history.”  Bromwich observes:

“This might seem a surprising thing for an American president to say. The fate of Soviet Communism taught many people to be wary of invoking History as if it were one’s special friend or teammate. But Obama doubtless felt comfortable because he was quoting himself. “

And here I thought the man was quoting FDR or at least JFK! Quoting himself? Yeppers, from a 2009 inaugural address.  Most striking to me was Bromwich’s observation of Obama while Editor at the Harvard Law Review:

“He kept his editorial colleagues happy by insisting that the stance of the Review need not be marked by bias or partisanship. It did not have to be liberal or conservative, libertarian or statist. It could be “all of the above.”

So even then we detected the man’s aversion to being labeled or politically pigeonholed, but which many might construe as a reluctance to be defined, hence remain "slippery" (especially warranted if one has Neoliberal tendencies at heart). Hence, one can appear all things to all people, especially if they really knew one's political stance they might get pissed and not vote for you in the next election. Also, what better way to catapult oneself into elected power?   Especially if one's record in the Senate and Illinois state senate are also non-committal or non-existent.

This is also consonant with having no self-identity or self context. Some might even say, with some justification, it discloses a man without an ideology.  This perhaps might be perceived in the wrong way since these days ideology has such negative overtones, right there next to ‘zealot’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’. But let’s be real!  It is ideology that gives one’s world and perceptions context and color. If you lack an ideology, as an old logic teacher once put it to me, then you will find yourself cast adrift and swayed by any and every meme, blabber or blowhard that might try to influence you. Of course, one always checks his ideology against reality, this is important! But one needs a central POV to make any sense of the world. This is the very quality Obama lacks and explains many of his otherwise confounding decisions, such as setting up a debt commission and proposing a Social Security cut via the chained CPI..

A leader lacking  a compass of ideological conviction or defined principles ends up everywhere and nowhere.  ON all sides of every issue and no sides. He takes this ambiguous stance as trying to please everyone, but the game can't last forever ('you can fool some of the people some of the time" etc.), so ultimately he pleases no one and his poll numbers will begin to recede.   In this sense Bromwich's next observation might be very apropos:

"He was elected to govern when little was known about his approach to the practical business of leading people. The unexplored possibility was, of course, that little was known because there was not much to know. Of the Chicago organizers trained in Saul Alinsky’s methods of community agitation, he had been considered among the most averse to conflict. Incongruously, as Jeffrey Stout has pointed out in Blessed Are the Organized, Obama shunned “polarization” as a valuable weapon of the weak. His tendency, instead, was to begin a protest by depolarizing. "

 This explains why, for example, he tried the futile tack of trying to appease the Repukes after being elected and launching his 2009 stimulus. Trying to compromise, and being only reviled in return, not grasping his role was to BE a partisan and fight like one for the rest of us against these monied interests. But he couldn't abide conflict. The hard fact is that if Obama had allowed fewer compromise measures in his stimulus plan (like the tax cuts) and increased it to $1.5 trillion as opposed to the paltry $787 m, the jobs numbers would have brightened much sooner.

He also could have helped himself - as The Financial Times noted at the time- by repealing the Bush tax cuts for everyone. This single step would have obviated the need for all the later showdowns and theatrics, including the ridiculous debt ceiling standoffs, and the sequester.   Then there was his signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act, but instead of at least fighting to enable a public option he turned it over to a Dem-led Senate Committee, which also featured Max Baucus and three Repukes. It was little wonder it turned out the way it did, but the options ought to have been much better.

Bromwich has a term for this:  "leading from behind". Instead of standing out there and taking "point" - staying in the recesses and letting others do the major work.

This was also true in approving the 2009 surge in Afghanistan, when he ought to have said NO to Gates and the Joint Chiefs. But there was his next error. Trying to assemble and deploy a "team of rivals". This also explains why neocons like Victoria Nuland still inhabit the halls of the State Dept. when they ought to have been shown the door. (Nuland is the prime suspect in the recent coup in Ukraine to install Arseniy Yatsenuk, aka 'Yats' as a neocon puppet).

Apart from that, Bromwich devotes a good bit to Obama's belief in "preferences" in his subsection 'The Preferential President'.   He writes:

“the truth is that Obama’s convictions were never strong. He did not find this out until his convictions were tested, and they were not tested until he became president.

Perhaps the thin connection between Obama’s words and his actions does not support the use of the word “conviction” at all. Let us say instead that he mistook his preferences for convictions — and he can still be trusted to tell us what he would prefer to do. “

But expressing preferences isn’t leadership, or even "leading from behind". Sure, JFK would have ‘preferred’ not to face down U.S. Steel and earn the wrath of the corporatocracy, but he knew he had to do it for the welfare of the nation. Hence, he threatened that corporation with removing its defense contracts unless it complied and didn’t raise steel prices in the spring of 1962.  Similarly, Kennedy would have ‘preferred’ not to have to confront his Joint Chiefs over their intent to bomb and invade Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis, but he did so because he realized the preservation of life on Earth may well depend on it. 

 Kennedy also would have preferred not to get involved – realizing the political costs to himself and his party - in the civil rights movement. But he did, and when he federalized the National Guards in Mississippi and Alabama in 1963 he knew it was the right thing to do, but also knew it would cost the Democratic Party in the South.....forever. I doubt Obama would have done a similar thing.

Also illuminating, as Bromwich notes:

"More than most people, Obama has been a creature of his successive environments. He talked like Hyde Park when in Hyde Park. He talks like Citigroup when at the table with Citigroup. And in either milieu, he likes the company well enough and enjoys blending in. "

Again, we see the lack of self- clarity or identity.  Hence, reinforcing Bromwich's observation that:

"In discussions about Obama, one occasionally hears it said — in a mood between bewilderment and forbearance — that we have not yet known the man"

Being a ‘creature of one’s environments’ means, however, that one has no self-identity or self-context.  (Which again also touches on ideology) Ralph Waldo Emerson called it, a “self culture” – meaning whatever the venue or context  ventured into, you yourself remained centered and can’t lose yourself. You also know yourself enough to be confident of who and what you are without having to try to be a chameleon.  The problem is, clearly, Obama doesn’t have any self-context or center which is exactly why he often seems to be on the wrong sides of issues

It’s why he could talk of “transparency” at the outset of his administration then end up being the most secretive president in history, who also invoked the archaic “Espionage Act” of 1917 and use it against whistle blowers more than anyone else. It is why he could mouth liberal rhetoric in his campaign  then appoint a ‘debt commission’ intent on cutting “entitlements” – including  naming a guy (Alan Simpson) who once referred to Social Security as a ‘cow with 300 million tits”.

It’s why he could receive a Nobel Peace Prize, yet never really earned it – instantly going on to marshal a surge in Afghanistan – and even talk of staying there until 2024.  Bromwich again:

"It is no less true that by postponement and indecision, by silence and by speaking on both sides, he has allowed the obstacles to grow larger. Consider his “all of the above” energy policy, which impartially embraces ........deep-sea drilling, wind farms, solar panels, Arctic drilling, nuclear plants, fracking for natural gas, and “clean coal.”

Such a scatter-shot energy policy would never be remotely conceived by a person of ideology. The reason is that such a person, a President say, has focus which enables him to filter those aspects or elements irrelevant to his ideology out of the picture.  It means, in the case of energy policy, that if one were a true liberal one shuns Arctic drilling, fracking for natural gas and clean coal. This is also why I worry that Obama will end up approving the Keystone pipeline.  Indeed, as Bromwich notes:

"The Keystone XL pipeline, if it is built, will bring carbon-dense tar sands from Canada to the Gulf Coast, and probably Obama would prefer not to see the pipeline built. Yet it would be entirely in character for him to approve and justify its construction, whether in the name of temporary jobs, oil industry profits, trade relations with Canada, or all of the above."

So there it is. A presidency predicated on 'preference' and leading from behind. Those of us who voted for Obama - twice in fact - can' t but help imagine the presidency that might have been had he not been held back and his self-image and leadership diluted by this lack of a center. This obsession with preference over principles.

There are still crucial decisions to come, and we hope Obama can make them to reflect the President we'd hoped for. It starts with his response after the Crimean referendum is held this weekend, and the likely positive vote for annexation. It also extends to the current CIA -Senate Intelligence Committee fracas. How will he respond?

Will he merely only measure up to the man Bromwich (and many others) believe him to be, or will he rise to the occasions needed and disclose the transformative leader he might have been.

The whole world is watching!

See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/54745/how-looking-forward-tripped-up-obama

W. Antarctic Ice Sheet Melting at Twice the Rate Previously Thought

Comparison images of Arctic (top) and Antarctic sea ice changes for summer minimum and wniter maximums. (From National Snow and Ice Data Center)



The news that the West Antartic Ice Sheet has nearly doubled its rate of melting has recently been reported in the journal  Nature Geoscience. According to one of the co-authors, Andy Monaghan,  from the National Center for Atmospheric Research:

"If this melt continues, if the summer warming continues, we could begin to see increased runoff from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet later in the century that could enhance its ongoing contribution to sea level rise."

Co-author David Bromwich, a senior research scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center added:

"Our record suggests that continued summer warming in Antarctica could upset the surface mass balance of the ice sheet, so the region could make an even bigger contribution to sea level rise than it already does."

The Byrd station, originating in 1957, became a year round automated station in 1980, however power outages have complicated data gathering from that single site, as has the extended polar night - making the station's solar panels difficult to re-charge. This led Monaghan and Bromwhich to reconstruct the Antarctic -wide temperature history over the past half-century from station records around the continent.  Now, working with partners at Ohio State and the University Of Wisconsin-Madison, they have completed the data gaps with a computer model of the atmosphere and a numerical analysis method. (Recall that I went into such methods for solar plasma some 7 months ago, i.e. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/05/case-for-plasma-numerical-simulations.html)

According to researcher Monaghan:

"Even if you didn't fill in with the (numerical) simulations, you still get these strong trends. It's really the observations telling us this."


Rising sea levels are a critical concern for climate change researchers given the number of highly populated areas around the globe -many of which have sprung up in coastal areas. In this sense, the east and west coasts of the U.S. are especially vulnerable to sea level increase.

Currently, sea level is rising at the rate of 3 mm each year. Given 1" = 25 mm, this means by the end of the century a rise of 87 (yrs) x  3 mm / yr. = 261 mm or (261 mm/ 25 mm/in) = 10.44 inches - enough to wash away roughly one third of S. Florida and most of the sea level areas of the Atlantic coast.
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