Two interesting articles. The first, from The Nation, argues that the reason the Obama has not been the “transformational” president of popular belief  is that there is no such thing as transformational presidents.

scholars downplay the notion that the specific candidates and their campaigns have as big an impact on the outcome as journalists suggest. While the election narratives stress the horse race between candidates, scholars point to broader forces that move the electorate at the ballot box. Indeed, in the most recent election, a majority of political scientists agreed that President Bush’s abysmal approval ratings combined with the poor economic conditions dictated that almost any competent Democrat would have won.

On the other hand, scholars have also been more interested in how institutional pressures will limit new presidents rather than seeing elections as moments of great opportunity. Without fundamental reforms in government, presidencies don’t vary as greatly as we think. For example, the enormous role of private money in the election process means interest groups will be as influential in new term as they were during what preceded.

I think that’s true — any Democratic president would have had trouble with the “institutional pressures” of our ridiculous Senate and its shithead rules, for instance. And the point about “private money in the election process” is indisputable.

But then, I’m not sure you can’t put everything down to “institutional factors.” To be blunt, if you want to be a transformational figure, you need to advocate for transformational policies, and this administration has not done that sufficiently, to my liking. DADT, torture, real regulatory reform, HAMP, stupid wars not ending…

But then again,  what chance was there ever that the Democratic Party as it is presently constituted would have ever allowed anyone genuinely transformational anywhere near chief executive power?  The Nation‘s “without fundamental reforms in government” presupposes the overthrow of at least one of the major political parties on the part of people who don’t want to get rich ‘n powerful by maintaining the status quo. Hahahahaha.

Which brings me by commodious vicus of biliousness back to this garbage from The Hill:

Obama’s comments tomorrow will be an unremembering. A way of “putting it behind us.” A way of “moving on,” by which he means going back to the ’90s or the ’70s or the ’60s or the 1930s. For us and for the next president, 9/11 and the ensuing conflicts will be seen as a vast beginning: Think of Normandy or Cemetery Ridge. Think of Trafalgar, which suddenly gave England her best 100 years just when she thought she was spent. Better still, think even of Bethlehem and Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple Mount in 70 A.D., which gave the world a new creation that would ride for 2,000 years.

Nah.

In all of these weirdly assembled examples, the behavior of key historical actors actually changed, and key historical forces either became irrelevant or became something else. The absurdity of citing important military victories on the part of specific states as equivalent to a security breakdown leading to a terrorist victory by crazy non-state loons ought to be apparent. The idea that 9/11 is like the birth of Jesus is the sort of horseshit I would only accept if you could write poetry as well as Yeats, which you probably can’t.

9/11 changed nothing. It should have, but it did not. It encouraged the most foolish and reactionary forces in American governance to launch brainless military expeditions. It perpetuated a persistent “us v them” strain in American political discourse that can be cheaply exploited by lunatic hucksters.

The point is that 9/11 had no real impact on the general direction of the foreign policy of the United States, except to make it more counterproductive.

Bin Laden seems to have a fucking shrewd grasp of the American bigotry oh excuse me I meant polity.

Look, the terrorists won. And I say this not as a Dirty Fucking Hippie, but as a Royally Pissed Off Patriotic Dirty Fucking Hippie.