Posted by
Chris on Friday, September 04, 2009 4:33:59 PM
Bummer for Obama. He just wants to talk to kids about doing well in school. But you know, when you get elected to the position of leader of the free world, and then appoint communists as advisors, people no longer trust you to talk to their children when they're not in the room.
Van Jones, of course, is only the latest radical to surface, but he may be the straw that broke the camel's back when it comes to Obama's credibility in maintaining that he can associate with radicals but not sympathise with their aims. Having written that he was a communist and signed on to a 9/11 "Truther" statement, as well as having said that the green economy movement he advocates must have a "radical kernel" that can be used for incremental moves that will eventually produce revolution, he must be thinking along the lines of Cardinal Reichelieu in "The Three Musketeers" when he finds out D'artagnan has a letter of carte blanche signed by his own hand: "One must be careful what one writes."
Yes, trust is gone. Trust was squandered early on, and it seems to me that trust is exactly the thing Obama needs if he wants to pass healthcare reform with a public option without paying a steep price politically. But he may very well elect to pay the price. I don't know what tack the president will take in his upcoming speech, but I suspect that getting elected to two terms was never Obama's main concern. His main concern was to move the country left, if not by convincing the public his ideas were right, then by making structural changes in the public's relationship with government that would be difficult to reverse once dependence was achieved.
"Fundamental transformation" indeed. But at last, people are awake. This should be interesting.