Obama Didn't Cave

Normally, I write my blogs hoping to persuade someone on the opposite side of my views to reconsider things for a bit. Odd, I know, since the very definition of conservative seems to entail rejection of any sort of newfangled idea. Still, I'm not anti-conservative myself, nor am I liberal. I'm an independent who happens to be left of center on certain issues. I want a liberal democracy in a free-market economy (to borrow Michael Shermer's phrase). I want to replace all welfare with work-fare. I want to legalize all activity which harms no one, and I want healthcare given the same essential-of-government status as military protection.

So when I hear that Obama has caved, I feel the need to depart from my usual format and blast the left.

No, Obama didn't cave on anything. He gave the GOP a small victory now in exchange for an even bigger victory for Democrats in 2012. It deeply troubles me that politicians are willing to play chicken with the solvency of the U.S. dollar in this way, but this was what was needed to avoid blowing the entire lame-duck session on trench warfare. No, the REAL cave-in, the real back-down, came from the hoards of Democrats who tucked tail and gave every concession imaginable to a super-minority over the last two years just because they whispered, "Filibuster!" Had the Democrats stood up for themselves on just one, damned issue, if they had triple-dog dared the Republicans to filibuster on having medicare compete with insurance companies instead of crowning Joe Liebermann "Emperor for a Day," if they had taken on a filibuster and broken it, our Trophy President wouldn't have felt any compromise necessary, nor would the GOP feel so mighty -- like the mouse whose gigantic shadow scared the cat. It would have been Republicans doing the compromising. Which is the way it should have been with a super-majority in the first place.

I propose we change political-party symbols. Let's take away the symbol of the stubborn Jack-Ass mule and give it to the Republicans. They've earned it. The new symbol for the Democrats will be the jellyfish. It fits. President Obama's new symbol is the elephant -- not just because he's more Republican than the Republicans are, but because nobody in that party acknowledges he's ever in the room.

Yet it seems a few Democrats are threatening filibuster now. Wonderful! I'm touched that a few of them suddenly put themselves on a high-calcium diet and began growing the backbone they so lacked. But why are they now obtaining vertebrae to oppose their own president? Why are they proving a bigger opponent to Obama than even the GOP? And where THE HELL were these bastards hiding over the last two years when we needed them most?

So quit blaming Obama, my wonderful, fellow left-leaning politicos. Our President was only doing what he had to, given that he has an army of you stumblebums to work with. This was your failure, not his.

Eric