[Peace-discuss] Obama’s last chance: jail Bush & Cheney

[C. G. Estabrook]

"By the end of Obama’s first month we knew Wall Street was firmly in control"

	After his surrender on healthcare and banking, the only way Obama
	can save his presidency is to put Bush and Cheney behind bars
	By Alexander Cockburn
	Sept. 2, 2009

Back to town comes Barack Obama after his holiday on Martha's Vineyard, to 
plummeting polls and sour columns rolling his presidency into the hearse. The 
memory offers scant comfort, but the previous two Democratic presidents endured 
similar rentrees to the nation's capital.

When Bill Clinton got back from his own outing to Martha's Vineyard in the late 
summer of 1993, the collapse of his administration was already three months old. 
He was well into his rebirth cycle as a committed Republican.

As an opposing, progressive challenge to business as usual, even by the wan 
standard of its own timid promises, his presidency had decisively failed by the 
closing week of May, on the last Saturday of which he signalled surrender by 
recruiting the old Nixon/Reagan/Bush hand, David Gergen, as his new public 
relations chief.

Jimmy Carter achieved his zenith as an agent of positive change on only his 
third day in office, when he pardoned all who refused to honour their draft 
notices from 1964 to 1973, the years of the Vietnam War. On August 6, 1979 
Carter formally surrendered his power by installing Paul Volcker as chairman of 
the Federal Reserve, tasking him with waging war on inflation, with large 
sacrifices imposed on those who had voted for the president.

In terms of popularity and political strength Clinton peaked at the time of the 
Democratic Party convention in New York in 1992. Decline was not long delayed. 
By the time of his election in November the long sunset had already commenced.

By inauguration the Clinton administration was already low in the water. The 
president-elect and his advisers had destroyed their room for manoeuvre in the 
formulation of economic policy. They fanned budget-cutting hysteria by accepting 
the silly Republican claim that - surprise! - the prospective deficit was going 
to be more severe than expected.

When he gave his presidential oath, Clinton's presidency was, as anything other 
than a vehicle for economic orthodoxy and Wall Street wisdom, in the ditch. A 
few days later he pushed the wreck into the crusher by his catastrophic handling 
of the issue of gays in the military. Before the week was out, the Pentagon had 
its majority in Congress and the Christian right was trumpeting renewal and 
victory. The health insurance debacle toppled all surviving hopes for 
constructive change.

It's hard to know when Obama peaked. Was it at the convention in Denver? Or the 
election night rally in Chicago? Or his formal inauguration in January? But by 
the day of his election he had already signed up to Paulson's bail-out of the 
banks. By the hour Chief Justice Roberts swore him in, he'd chosen as his chief 
economic advisors the bankers' men, Lawrence Summers and Tim Geithner, with 
Carter's friend Volcker on the sideline. By the end of his first month we knew 
Wall Street and Goldman Sachs were firmly in control.

Here we are in September and what have Obama's liberal supporters got to cling 
to, by way of evidence that positive change is on the way? Economically, we seem 
to be heading - well ahead of schedule - into 1937, the year the New Deal 
crashed onto the rocks. The energy bill, driven by junk science and junk 
nostrums, has been a detour into disaster. Health reform is levitating towards 
the graveyard, borne along by Blue Dog Democrats, nerveless salesmanship by the 
White House and as ripe an eruption of insanity by the know-nothing legions as 
I've ever witnessed.

In a way it's inspiring to see ideological principle trump raw self-interest. 
Night after night one can see ex-army men tottering out from million-dollar 
life-saving operations in the local (government-funded) Veterans Affairs 
hospital to hurl invective against "socialised medicine". Who'd have thought 
that the "healthcare debate" would be the beard for Klan rallies?

Many Obama dreamers hoped that their man would introduce some minimal shift for 
the better in America's relationship with the rest of the world. Now all they 
have to look forward to is General Stanley McChrystal marching up to Capitol 
Hill and into the Oval Office to demand more troops for Afghanistan.

In relations with Russia, Obama and vice president Joe Biden have remained 
substantively committed to Nato expansionism. In Latin America, the handling of 
the coup in Honduras and warm relations with Colombia's Uribe suggest a sinister 
larger strategy of counter-attack on the leftist trends of the past few years.

It's a dark vista overall. Some big opportunities - like a full-frontal assault 
on the power of the banks and of Wall Street - will never return. What can Obama 
do to regain the initiative?

There are two men capable of uniting large numbers of Americans in detestation: 
Dick Cheney and George Bush, in that order. Typically, Obama has shifted from 
foot to foot on his administration's posture towards these Home Team Nazis. Now 
Attorney General Eric Holder has gingerly inclined to the view that maybe, 
perhaps, the United States government should inch towards the legal standard on 
prosecution of torturers required of it by a law signed by Ronald Reagan, not to 
mention the Geneva Protocols.

With their drive for impeachment the Republicans dominated the headlines and all 
but paralysed the Clinton White House for two years. Now it should be payback 
time. Obama's pledge to the American people: Cheney and Bush behind bars by 
2012, plus Gonzales, Yoo, and the rest of the pack. We crave drama. From Obama 
we're not getting it, except in the form of racist rallies. This is his last, 
best chance.

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/53026,news,throwing-bush-and-cheney-in-jail-is-the-last-hope-barack-obama-failed-presidency