OBAMA TALKS TOUGH ABOUT JUSTICE AND BIN LADEN

I did not see the interview.  Based on your account it sounds like gratuitous--wholly unnecessary--chest-thumping.  It isn't as though one more person is going to find out about what happened as a result of his saying what he said on 60 Minutes last night.  I interpret it as just utterly predictable at this point from this President, run-of-the-mill courting of the more hard-line, militarist vote for his re-election campaign.  A victory lap, if you will. 

Eisenhower comes to mind as a President who would probably not have done what Obama did last night had the option been available to him at the time.  Likewise Truman.  It further reinforces my sense that Obama is far more emotionally invested in pleasing and winning over his heretofore detractors than in, say, much more aggressively trying to help those who are unemployed, or building on the positive steps taken with financial reform, or instituting a new push on dealing with global warming.  

Which to my way of thinking is very much politics-as-usual, nothing remotely encouraging, let alone "hope and change"-type inspiring or uplifting.  Quite the contrary--so far.  We'll see what he does with his bump going forward.  As I've written before I could just as easily see him using it to score points with the austerity-for-the-middle-class, continued-tax-relief-for-the wealthy and Washington Post editorial crowd, as doing anything to address any of the 3 huge problems I mentioned at the end of the last paragraph. 

I think the levels of anxiety, anger and sense of gross injustice in the handling of economic policy is significant and growing, and could ramp up dramatically if we see another financial meltdown or if the foreclosure crisis gets as bad as many are predicting it will.  Both of those things will happen without more--the question is when.  Obama is doing nothing to try to prevent them from happening and at the moment I don't get the sense that he sees a need to for the country or for his re-election campaign. 

Obama is not suffering politically more than he is only because the GOP is of course even much, much worse, and downright scary, on these issues.  Obama's contenting himself to capitalize on the GOP's predictable overreach in the way he has so far, declining to challenge the premises of this austerity agenda, actually represents a dumbing down of hope and expectations for our country stepping up to our most severe and urgent problems. 

Maybe he needs to satisfy himself he can play defense on the budget first and above all, the way Clinton more or less did with a Congress that was majority Republican in both chambers.  But he is definitely playing not to lose and the bin Laden killing can only leave him feeling as though the election is his to lose.  Which is disappointing and dispiriting, unless one's deepest commitment is to Obama and his successful re-election effort.

The public hasn't empowered itself yet at the national level, and it isn't looking as though that is going to happen any time soon. There is a lot of activity that the state-level GOP austerity and union-busting agendas has stimulated, so we'll see if that coalesces into a national political phenomenon of any real electoral or policy significance down the road a bit.

Awesome to see Obama channeling the Nation's Id!!

I mean if it was about what OBL deserved, they should have thought of some creatively sadistic way of killing him, right? Cmon, someone at the DOD must have had ideas - hey there's a whole set of 'enhanced' measures for how to kill him slooowly. Someone should have gotten medieval on his ass!

GAwd, if this was about what he deserved .... well ... we did this all wrong. Obama totally failed to match the punishment with what OBL merited. He deserved so much more than a bullet in the head.

But you have to have your head examined, imho, if you think what matters in this kind of case is what the fucker 'deserved'. It's about what a civilized country - a land of laws, governed by laws, does, how it handles sick evil criminals, how it handles itself in a dignified manner in the face of inhumanity.

But, hey, another opportunity to beat down on the civil liberty lefties!! Maybe tomorrow he can kick a hobo on national tv. Should be worth a few points in approvals, no?

Aside from the elites of Europe and elites of Dagblog (Seaton only member) Monday morning quarterbacking a cross border sovereignty violating anti-biggest terrorist in the world raid in a country that supports terrorists and is perhaps the only country that can put thousands into the streets supporting killing Christians 'blasphemers', or supporting security guards who riddle leading state governors who do not support killing Christians with a clip of bullets while the other security guards watch and do nothing, along with making a national hero out of a man who was spreading nuclear bomb secrets to rogue nations, add the murder of national political candidates, I would say the most daring thing about the OBL raid was Obama sticking it in the face of the corrupt mob that runs Pakistan, and exposing Pakistan as a (near)failed state that is run by a motley cabal of incompetent and lying con artists and liars,  who couldn't be trusted with cashing their grandmothers social security check without getting a piece of the action on it. (I am challenging artappraiser for longest sentence ever on this site)

It may be the trove of info the US got from the raid has evidence of exactly who in the ISI/Pak military was helping Bin Laden, and Obama is putting pressure on Pak to take care of cleaning up OBL's support network or the US may spill the beans on the Paks and name names.

bslev - note the b to should be an s in the last paragraph.

Well now, University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt agrees with the President.  Ergo, I might just have to see if he does phone Head Examinations (hope they're free as the wind he puffs):

"The psychologist Linda Skitka studied the psychological traits that predicted which people displayed American flags in the weeks after 9/11. She found that the urge to display the flag “reflected patriotism and a desire to show solidarity with fellow citizens, rather than a desire to express out-group hostility.”

This is why I believe that last week’s celebrations were good and healthy. America achieved its goal — bravely and decisively — after 10 painful years. People who love their country sought out one another to share collective effervescence. They stepped out of their petty and partisan selves and became, briefly, just Americans rejoicing together."

And thanks to Linda Skitka, too; that's why the folks who were all Ramboed up about the wars were so nuanced and loving in their rhetoric about ragheads and traitors at peace marches and all.  I get it.  Not hostile.   ;o)

It means Obama is the same arrogant, disrespectful piece of shit he's been since the moment he took office. It's not really surprising. Fuck him. I'm not voting for him again. He doesn't need to pretend to represent me. He doesn't. I'm embarrassed he's our president. I see him and feel the same national shame as I did when looking at Bush.

If he randomly does something good I'll acknowledge it, but it will be a fluke. Or a lie and we'll figure out what he really did later - and what he really did will invariably suck.

I fail to find anything impressive in the President's words.  Quite simply, Obama created a straw man.  At this point, few people are questioning whether Osama deserved death.  What we question is whether killing him was appropriate under the circumstances.  So far, the answer is hardly unequivocal.  And, while murderers may well deserve to lose their lives, absent defense of self or others, I do not believe that we mere humans should ever have the arrogance and self-righteousness to execute the final judgment.

I don't understand the open hostility between Barack Obama and the left wing on this issue. I get that that there are deep ideological disagreements on many policy and strategy fronts. I get that Obama sees political benefit in separating himself from the left. I get that many on the left are deeply angry and disillusioned.

But this fight over Bin Laden seems so damn gratuitious. Of all the issues that Glenn Greenwald has to confront Obama over, he chooses the legitimacy of Bin Laden's killing? And did Obama have to go out of his way to insult the left wing?

It's like a huge pointless pissing match. It will accomplish little for Obama except to alienate more supporters. It will accomplish little for the left except to alienate more Americans--people who believe in unions and fighting poverty and other liberal values but feel proud that the U.S. shot Bin Laden dead.

I'm not arguing that Greenwald and others should pat Obama on the back or deny their principled objections to the killings, nor that Obama should change his policy because of objections from the left. But it's one thing to stand on principle and another to reach across the table to stick the other guy in the eye. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.