The New York Times finally got around to revealing today that President Obama has given himself the right to kill people in foreign countries by targeted drone strikes. He and his henchmen apparently get together every week for "Terror Tuesdays" to decide who lives and who dies in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and any number of countries with whom we are not at war. I guess "Manic Mondays" would not have been in keeping with what The Times calls the cool, yet compassionate, way that Obama ultimately decides who will be executed.
From The Times piece:
It is also because Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.
Counterterrorism officials insist this approach is one of simple logic: people in an area of known terrorist activity, or found with a top Qaeda operative, are probably up to no good.
It's hard out there for a vigilante. Just think how George Zimmerman must have felt when he noticed a black kid in a hoodie walking around his neighborhood. As he noted in his 911 call, "there's a real suspicious guy at Retreat View Circle. This guy looks like he's up to no good."
I live in a small college town that has the unique distinction of being the site of some of the first same sex marriages in the country -- back when the very idea was shocking to many, and very, very illegal. The straight mayor of New Paltz, a recent SUNY grad at the time, was criminally charged for performing the ceremonies eight years ago, and he paid a heavy personal and financial price for it. He lost his bid for re-election, became ostracized by the moral majority, couldn't find a job, and was even reduced to sleeping on friends' couches.
Now Jason West is back, re-elected mayor on the Green Party ticket, and making his living painting houses. His response to President Obama's announcement that he had finally personally evolved into accepting same sex marriage? A big, fat "Meh."
"I'm happy the president finally joined the 21st century and has recognized the civil rights of these Americans. But until he starts pushing for a federal law, the various Gay-Straight Alliances in any high school in the country are doing more to advance the cause than he is. They're the ones in the front lines," West said.
Meanwhile, I have been counting all fund-raising emails coming in from various and sundry Democrats in the wake of the Obama Evolution. The first one arrived from Nancy Pelosi, not even one hour after the Robin Roberts interview aired. It asked me to sign a statement, to show solidarity with Brave Barry. I knew by signing I would be deluged, but I obliged anyway, just to see how intense the money-grubbing would get.
Sure enough, within minutes Nancy wrote back, asking for $3 for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. ThinkProgress, the blog of The Center for American Progress (CAP), the neoliberal think tank with close ties to the White House, followed up, wanting me to sign President Obama's thank you card to mark the historic day. The White House itself sent a formal announcement, with video. Then another email from Nancy Pelosi urging me to be "part of history." And to harvest emails by telling all my friends to be part of history too, of course.
The next day (Thursday) Jim Dean (Howard's bro) emailed me for a donation to Democracy for America, a DNC front group and asked me to tweet a thank you to the president. The White House sent a second official announcement, with video, just to remind me. Rep. Jared Polis, whoever he may be, emailed me and let me know the Republicans were already on the marriage equality attack. Contribute now!!! Another one from CAP to remind me to Tweet.
Sen. Al Franken, to his credit, did not directly ask for money. He just sent an email saying marriage rights activists should be proud and work hard to enshrine their work into law. But CAP sent a third missive titled "The Knives are Out", reminding me I had only seconds to sign my name to the Twitter message. Uh oh. I guess missed out.
MoveOn, which recently jumped on the Occupy co-optation bandwagon, asked me to "chip in" to Obama's re-election campaign because he deserves a reward for coming out so bravely. I guess the 99% money-making gimmick is a thing of the past. We liburls can just go back to drinking the kool-aid.
Meanwhile, I had to check my spam folder to see all the emails from the Obama campaign itself. I never asked, but Yahoo had started placing all the Bam Spam in the junk aisle. There is just so damned much of it, the automatic filter got it confused with the Nigerian scams and credit score alerts and porn. Let's see... I am counting one, two.... ten pleas for cash from Campaign HQ. But to be fair, one of them was based on Mothers Day. Barack wants me to wish Michelle well on her special day by sending him cash. What a stand-up guy.
Oh, here's something different and interesting. An email titled "Historic" just landed in my in-box. It's from Eric Schneiderman, the NY State Attorney General who was put in charge of the White House's mortgage fraud task force. Has he finally indicted a bankster? Nope.
Friend,
We witnessed a great moment this week as President Obama announced his support for the freedom to marry for gay and lesbian couples.
There is no doubt that having the President's support on this important issue will help ensure that all Americans are treated equally under the laws that govern our state and country.
And, you guessed it: Please donate to his campaign war chest.
From BuzzFeed comes news that the Obama campaign has wasted no time ordering some gay swag to sell on its website. If you were afraid Barry was trying to co-opt OWS, just check out how he now totally owns Gaydom. Obama Pride.... sounds like a whole new brand. But still evolving, methinks, since the model is not quite ready to show her face.
.
If you have been paying any attention to corporate media political coverage the past couple of days, you might think you were trapped in a seventh grade time warp. This is the narrative: Obama is the cool kid, and Romney is the nerd. Obama is the slow-jamming killah and Romney the bumbling rich snob who has probably never even killed a fly. (Remember -- Obama did once kill a fly on national TV!). It's Ferris Bueller vs. Napoleon Dynamite. It's the junior high school election as covered by the junior high school newspaper. It's surface, it's shallow, and it's stultifying.
The president is being criticized for his unseemly bin Laden chest-thumping by the GOP, who used to have the market cornered on warrior presidents who never went to war themselves, but made a big show of landing on aircraft carriers and crowing "Mission Accomplished." Barack's bellicosity is so much more refined than Bush's, after all. He does not mumble and he doesn't strut (much) and he doesn't smirk. He slow-jams the Osama Bump, he kills at the White House Correspondents Dinner, he oozes charm and drives dorky Karl Rove nuts. You can practically hear the Turd Blossom whine in the latest SuperPac ad criticizing Barry for being cool: "It's not fair that you're the popular kid, and Mitt's the loser! Waaaaah."
It's hard to tell which came first: the media complicity chicken or the government propaganda egg. Seemingly on cue, cable outlets and TV networks and major newspapers have all come out with the same story. Even though tomorrow is International Workers' Day, what we are really supposed to celebrate is the first anniversary of the Death of bin Laden. Obama will give NBC an exclusive and "unprecedented" interview in the Situation Room on how it all went down. He'll coyly defend keeping the death pics secret even as he dishes on the gory details. He may even boast once again on those targeted drone killings that officially don't exist. The New York Times ran a glowing op-ed on "The Warrior President" which had Glenn Greenwald in fits. (Me too. It portrayed Obama as a tough guy who can both dance and operate a drone joy stick by proxy. Take that, Norman Mailer!).
The Nation goes so far as to point out that the President is even deliberately starting to act black just to drive Mitt nuts:
.... he's rubbing their faces in it, just like he did when he sympathized with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for getting arrested in his own home. And that gleams like troll gold to Republican strategists.
Obama has dared to be a cool black man more often lately. First, in January, he sang, “I—I’m so in love with you” at a fundraiser at the Apollo Theater, with Al Green in the audience, a totally engaging moment the Rove ad doesn’t fail to sneer at. (As Maureen Dowd wrote, “For eight seconds, we saw the president we had craved for three years: cool, joyous, funny, connected.”) Then, for a Black History Month celebration in the White House, Obama sang a few bars of “Sweet Home Chicago” with B.B. King, once again looking terrifically comfortable in his own (black) skin.
It's the youth vote, stupid! Maybe if the president portrays himself as a celebrity and knocks a few bucks off their crushing college debt, they'll get all fired up and head to polls this fall instead of Occupying. Personally, I give young people more credit. For one thing, you have to come equpped with a certain propensity for being sucked into a personality cult. For another thing, it's pretty insulting to be pandered to when you're unemployed and in hock to big banks up to your ears, only to be cajoled by a jive politician "Stupid youth, vote!"
Obama actually won the "Marketer of the Year" award from Ad Week after the 2008 campaign. His political machine and the access-hungry corporate media establishment are partnering up and rebranding his brand. New Obama has a spine of sub-zero titanium. He kills terrorists with frigid resolve. He slow-jams, but in a dignified adult way. Even though he pretends not to be as sexy, that graying hair and dulcet voice make everybody hot. He is cool enough that he can still send shivers up Chris Matthews' leg. He is so cool that he makes the Republicans sweat. He is the personification of the Icy Hot Pain Relieving Patch! You've all seen that commercial:
Barack Obama Icy Hot is a typical politician topical pain reliever that gets ICY to dull the brain pain, then gets HOT to relax it away. He It temporarily relieves major angst minor pain associated with unemployment, lack of insurance, being spied on, foreclosure arthritis, tendonitis, and muscle strains and sprains.
Obama Icy Hot speeches formulations include Wall Street-vetted FDA permitted crumbs active ingredients to relieve minor pain. Obama Icy Hot products contain platitudes menthol or a combination of slow jams menthol and after-dinner jokes methyl salicylate.
These ingredients create cooling and warming sensations that divert attention from the actual pain and help block the pain signals being sent to the brain.
