[Peace-discuss] Obama's like Bush , like Clinton, etc.

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Another Obama supporter sees the light and puts Obama into the proper context. 
  --CGE]

	Get Ready for the Obama/GOP Alliance
	by Jeff Cohen

With Obama pushing a huge troop escalation in Afghanistan, history may well 
repeat itself with a vengeance. And it's not just the apt comparison to LBJ, who 
destroyed his presidency on the battlefields of Vietnam with an escalation that 
delivered power to Nixon and the GOP.

There's another frightening parallel: Obama seems to be following in the 
footsteps of Bill Clinton, who accomplished perhaps his single biggest 
legislative "triumph" - NAFTA - thanks to an alliance with Republicans that 
overcame strong Democratic and grassroots opposition.

It was 16 years ago this month when Clinton assembled his coalition with the GOP 
to bulldoze public skepticism about the trade treaty and overpower a stop-NAFTA 
movement led by unions, environmentalists and consumer rights groups. How did 
Clinton win his majority in Congress? With the votes of almost 80 percent of GOP 
senators and nearly 70 percent of House Republicans. Democrats in the House 
voted against NAFTA by more than 3 to 2, with fierce opponents including the 
Democratic majority leader and majority whip.

To get a majority today in Congress on Afghanistan, the Obama White House is 
apparently bent on a strategy replicating the tragic farce that Clinton pulled 
off: Ignore the informed doubts of your own party while making common cause with 
extremist Republicans who never accepted your presidency in the first place.

"Deather" conspiracists are not new to the Grand Old Party. Clinton engendered a 
similar loathing on the right despite his centrist, corporate-friendly policies. 
When conservative Republican leaders like Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey delivered 
to Clinton (and corporate elites) the NAFTA victory, it didn't slow down 
rightwing operatives who circulated wacky videos accusing Clinton death squads 
of murdering reporters and others.

For those who elected Obama, it's important to remember the downward spiral that 
was accelerated by Clinton's GOP alliance to pass NAFTA. It should set off alarm 
bells for us today on Afghanistan.

NAFTA was quickly followed by the debacle of Clinton healthcare "reform" largely 
drafted by giant insurance companies, which was followed by a stunning election 
defeat for Congressional Democrats in November 1994, as progressive and labor 
activists were lethargic while rightwing activists in overdrive put Gingrich 
into the Speaker's chair.

A year later, advised by his chief political strategist Dick Morris (yes, the 
Obama-basher now at Fox), Clinton declared: "The era of big government is over." 
In the coming years, Clinton proved that the era of big business was far from 
over - working with Republican leaders to grant corporate welfare to media 
conglomerates (1996 Telecom Act) and investment banks (1999 abolition of the 
Glass-Steagall Act).

Today, it's crucial to ask where Obama is heading. From the stimulus to 
healthcare, he's shown a Clinton-like willingness to roll over progressives in 
Congress on his way to corrupt legislation and frantic efforts to compromise for 
the votes of corporate Democrats or "moderate" Republicans. Meanwhile, the 
incredible shrinking "public option" has become a sick joke.

As he glides from retreats on civil liberties to health reform that appeases 
corporate interests to his Bush-like pledge this week to "finish the job" in 
Afghanistan, an Obama reliance on Congressional Republicans to fund his troop 
escalation could be the final straw in disorienting and demobilizing the 
progressive activists who elected him a year ago.

Throughout the centuries, no foreign power has been able to "finish the job" in 
Afghanistan, but President Obama thinks he's a tough enough Commander-in-Chief 
to do it. Too bad he hasn't demonstrated such toughness in the face of 
obstructionist Republicans and corporate lobbyists. For them, it's been more 
like "compromiser-in-chief."

When you start in the center (on, say, healthcare or Afghanistan) and readily 
move rightward several steps to appease rightwing politicians or lobbyists or 
Generals, by definition you are governing as a conservative.

It's been a gradual descent from the elation and hope for real change many 
Americans felt on election night, November 2008. For some of us who'd 
scrutinized the Clinton White House in the early 1990s, the buzz was killed days 
after Obama's election when he chose his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, a top 
Clinton strategist and architect of the alliance that pushed NAFTA through Congress.

If Obama stands tough on more troops to Afghanistan (as Clinton fought 
ferociously for NAFTA), only an unprecedented mobilization of progressives - 
including many who worked tirelessly to elect Obama - will be able to stop him. 
Trust me: The Republicans who yell and scream about Obama budget deficits when 
they're obstructing public healthcare will become deficit doves in spending the 
estimated $1 million per year per new soldier (not to mention private 
contractors) headed off to Asia.

The only good news I can see: Maybe it will take a White House/GOP alliance over 
Afghanistan to wake up the base of liberal groups (like MoveOn) to take a closer 
and more critical look at President Obama's policies.

Jeff Cohen is an associate professor of journalism and the director of the Park 
Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, founder of the media watch group 
FAIR, and former board member of Progressive Democrats of America. In 2002, he 
was a producer and pundit at MSNBC (overseen by NBC News). His latest book is 
Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/11/25-0