This must really piss off the GOP bigots, because, now we can only have black Noble Prize winners from now on, and that means in every category.

You know what they say, “Once you go black…”

It must be a real bitch to be a Republican right now.

He’s aware of it, but he is also isolated and surrounded by his advisers inside the beltway. Just look at his choices for his economic team – all guilty of Wall Street / financial abuse.

Look at who was invited to the health care discussion at the white house? Pharma, Insurance execs precisely the corporations which have ruined the ability to deliver affordable health care to Americans.

Look who advises him on matters of HMS, or the war/ DOD. Where are the deserters to conventional, old and largely failed policies at the table? They are not there. Why not Danial Elsberg? Why not Stieglitz or Krugman?

Why is a blue dog like Rahm running his shop? Why does it take so long to bring justice to a few scores of prisoners in our torture center in Gitmo? Why can’t he show us the photos?

His choices for policy advice is not encouraging and certainly does not align with his campaign rhetoric.

What Glen said except I find it too cynical that he is lining up his ducks to cash out when he’s out of office.

Of course Obama is deeply aware of the magnitude of the problems that America and the world currently face. Unfortunately, based on the decisions he’s made in the first months of his Presidency, while he might like to be remembered by history as a great President, his primary goal seems to be to insure that he personally benefits from his term as President. Again and again, Obama adopts policies that directly benefit the narrow oligarchy at the top of the American economy, at the expense of the rest of the American population. His bailout of the financial industry, his continuance of wars that are profitable to the military industrial complex, his appeasement of the Israeli lobby, his cooperation with health insurance companies, are all policies designed to earn him friends in high places. When Obama leaves the Presidency, either in 4 or 8 years, he will still be a comparatively youthful man, with a potentially long life ahead of him. He seems to regard the Presidency as an entry level job, which will earn him tens of millions of dollars and entry to America’s power elite after he leaves office.
It is, of course, still possible that Obama could in future adopt policies which serve a wider constituency than those which he has adopted to date. This Nobel Prize is plausibly, in part, an attempt to nudge Obama in this direction. But I believe it’s primarily motivated by a fear of what may happen to the global economy if the world completely loses confidence in Obama.

‘Tis a very good Friday, indeed!!

I work in Manhattan and I believe I hear the heads exploding at the fox network . .

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAA . .

And have you thought that maybe Obama is almost as smart as you are and knows all a this? JEEzus, we are all in the tub of shit that you describe and if you think Obama ain’t as well aware of it as you are then you ARE a lunatic.

Are you aware of the recent speculation about the future of the American dollar? Have you considered what might happen to Obama’s credibility as a manager of the American economy if he decides to vastly increase debt in order to enlarge the wars being fought in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan? America’s global reputation improved considerably when Obama became President, precisely because it was widely believed he would follow policies radically different from those of Bush. But in many ways, American policy hasn’t changed dramatically as a result of Obama’s election. There are a few bright spots, like his decision on “missile defenses” in Eastern Europe. But for the most part, the American Empire continues its steady march towards economic ruin.
I therefore do not agree that deep concern about how Obama and America is perceived in the world represents “lunatic projection”. The willingness of foreigners to buy American Treasury Bonds rests almost entirely on a desperate hope that Obama can somehow help pull the American economy out of its current deep recession.