Ted Rall who always saw through Obama  Cartoon by Ted Rall, Officer Obama is pulling the curtain with a revealing title

Ted Rall: Obama doesn’t talk like Bush; he just acts like him

He was one of those who

During the 2008 campaign Obama’s critics accused him of saying nothing, albeit beautifully.

(I missed the beauty, sorry). But now

Now that we’ve gotten to know him a bit, it’s time to refine that assessment: He’s just a weasel. An eloquent weasel. But a weasel who says the right things while doing the opposite.

And sadly, he has to join Glenn Greenwald in quoting National Review’s Rich Lowry – who, gives the universal code to understanding Obama:

“Barack Obama has perfected a three-step maneuver that could never even be attempted by a politician lacking his rhetorical skill or cool cynicism. First: Denounce your presidential predecessor for a given policy, energizing your party’s base and capitalizing on his abiding unpopularity. Second: Pretend to have reversed that policy upon taking office with a symbolic act or high-profile statement. Third: Adopt a version of that same policy, knowing that it’s the only way to govern responsibly or believing that doing otherwise is too difficult.”

That last part about the reasons for adopting the same policy is a misread determined by Lowery’s political limitations.

The Bush positions are wrong. Obama doesn’t believe they are right – in fact, not unlike Bush, he believes nothing. Occasionally “doing otherwise might be too difficult” may be the case, but mostly, he needs to dance with those who brung him.

The following day, at a White House meeting, business executives implored Mr. Obama to get credit flowing again. “All right,” the president said, according to a transcript of the meeting. He’d have his people “talk to Jamie.”


And Rall applies the 3 step to this last Jr.jr action

This week’s example is Obama’s grandstanding over $165 million in bonuses paid to executives of AIG, which received billions in federal bailout money. He feigned outrage: “How do they justify this outrage to the taxpayers who are keeping the company afloat?” But his Treasury Department knew about the bonuses — which amount to roughly 55 cents per American — ages ago. He also knows there isn’t much the government can do legally to claw the money back.

See his Obanomics cartoon here

Trickle-Down Obamanomics

Indeed we know by now about “not acting from anger” and walking back from taxing the bonuses.

And in the end Rall even touches what I also felt makes Obama more dangerous than Bush:

Obama’s perfidy knows no limits. He’s already become more dangerous to democracy and basic human rights than George W. Bush. Unlike Bush, he has no political opposition. Cheney may nitpick, but most Republicans are happy to see Bush’s policies remain in place. Meanwhile, liberals remain loyal, silent and tacitly pro-torture.

Rall’s cartoon of their expectations


Or, as Riverdaughter put it

… the left seems paralyzed.  Those of us who would rally the troops are trying to keep our jobs.  Those on the left who sold out to Obamamania last year seem like bewildered children who discovered something nasty about their parents.  They just can’t believe it.  But it’s worse than that.  Obama has effectively neutralized the left with the left’s help.  His campaign attacked it from within and made it helpless.

I predict that it will come a point when the 3 step will became useless. By the time he’ll both talk and act like W, no one will be able to do anything anyway.

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