Today, I am pissed and she is disappointed. I am pissed for my kid and all the young people who cast their vote for the very first time, believing that some sort of action based on substantive hope was in the offing. Amos Anan, you have hit it right on the head.

Early on in the campaign, I posted a comment on some site or other to the effect that hope without action was a gossamer, rather like theology without activism. I was vilified as an Obama doubter, as having taken his words out of context.

A couple of days ago I posted my disappointment at the hiring of Emanuel and the negative signals this sent for any kind of peace in the middle east. Some fellow threw a slew of pro-Israeli links at me and claimed I was blowing out my ass.

Obama is no liberal, and to his credit, he never claimed that he was. He did claim that he was a lawyer, a professor of constitutional law, and here is where I think that a betrayal can be argued, far beyond the question of who he is naming for what position in his cabinet.

Betrayal is a strong word, but in my world, you either defend the Constitution or you don’t. The executive is always possessed of discretion, but discretion can be absent or abused. Far too early
on, Obama has signaled that the crimes of the Bush administration will not be prosecuted. Greenwald has eloquently explored the subject:

Here, X = “eavesdropping on Americans with no warrants,” and “torturing detainees,” and “destroying evidence relating to investigations,” and “interfering in criminal prosecutions for political purposes.” Those are crimes — felonies — in every sense of the word, not policy differences. And they are all actions in which Bush officials have clearly engaged.

And a columnist for a Philadelphia newspaper has considered the consequences of this no proseution “slippery slope”.

Putting the past behind us, moving forward. That has always been the way, ever since that Sunday morning in 1974 when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon, an act that most of the punditocracy has since hailed as one that healed the nation (although, frankly, during the malaise of the Ford and Carter years it was hard to tell). But did letting Richard Nixon remain a free man truly save the republic, or did the pardon embolden the Reagan administration to defy Congress and carry out the Iran-Contra scheme, knowing that America didn’t want a rehash of Watergate. And did the lack of impeachment and the subsequent pardon of key Iran-Contra figures like Casper Weinberger and Elliot Abrams (recycled in the Bush administration!) encouraging bolder moves, including fishy pardons by Bill Clinton that weren’t investigated by the Bush Justice Department, with the ensuing lack of outcry convincing the president there was zero downside to commuting the sentence of Scooter Libby, and now today we have President-elect Obama determined to pull a Gerald Ford, even when the alleged crime is as abhorrent as torture.

Surely this is shredding the Constitution and the rule of law just as effectively as Bush did. Only the method is different. It is sobering to me that a prosecutor and a grand jury in Willacy County, Texas, have shown a far greater respect for the rule of law than that shown by our President-elect. It is hard to believe that it’s all about cojones, but is there really any other answer?

It is the young first-time voters who have been betrayed, who will be taught, by our President-elect’s first substantive lesson, that presidents and high government officials are immune from prosecution.

Shame on him.

It was quite obvious who would be in the Democrats dog and pony show nearly from the beginning….the not too offensive center-right candidates. They marginalized true liberals very early on. Remember Kucinich? well HE didn’t stand a chance what with wanting to impeach the corporations’ Saint Bush and all. He was a NUT! Right ON!

When people show you who they are, BELIEVE them! Rahm Emmanuel was the first dead give away

Calling the netroots! Step to the right, if you please.

I am hoping that JoeLie’s hold on the chair of the da Fatherland Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee is contingent on him carrying some serious water to his constituents about the two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. bmaz had a terrific tea-leave reading post over at emptywheel’s about this, but it didn’t include any speculation about JoeLie.

We all know that Joe Lieberman is a Benedict Arnold, a real traitor to the Democratic Party. He called Obama un-patriotic and possibly, a Marxist, all of which he knows (and you know) are lies. In addition, Joe is a chickenshit chickenhawk (talk five deferments during Vietnam), someone who would send others to wars he (and his children and grandchildren) are too cowardly to fight.

Joe is a former friend and roommate of mine at Yale, but I totally disavow his smarmy lying about Iraq and its non-existent connection to al-Queda or 9/11. He is personally responsible for the bloody deaths of many Americans and Iraqis, much like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He should not be forgiven for his many lies against America and Barack Obama.

For political purposes (or perhaps because he is truly closer to being a Christ figure than I am), Obama gave Liberman a pass for his many lies and sins against the American Constitution and the Democratic Party. I’m afraid I cannot. I know Joe better than Obama. He is an unrepentent asshole and always will be.

Do not trust Joe Lieberman to do what is right for Obama and the country. Those who truly know him know that he is a supercilious and arrogant neo-conservative who is concerned only about himself and his own political survival, not about his country. In the end, Joe Lieberman is a total political scumbag. Please do not forget this.

Sincerely,
David Wyles

P.S. And this is from a former Yale roommate who predicted then that Joe would be the first Jewish President of the United States. Thank God, I was wrong (by 347 votes).

P.P.S. Harry Reid has the balls of a bull-tweetie canary. What a useless piece of Mormon shit. (I wouldn’t care if he was Mormon if he had any balls. Harry is a total f*cking wuss.)

Nate Silver interviews Ziegler about the Zogby ‘push poll’