Isn't it pretty to think so.

I am really pissed about the HCR Law (now). First, Obama and Emanuel completely screwed up the entire passage, which indicates to me that they are incompetant nitwits.

I've mentioned that I thought the presidential campaign was not particularly well run. Given the incompetent disaster who was leaving the office and the crazy woman who was going to be a "heartbeat away" if McCain won, it was nearly impossible for Obama to lose, yet McCain continued to gain on him in the last days. Now I do realize that there would be a couple of per cent age points lost because of our all American prejudice, but still it was not a well run campaign.

Then once in office he simply stopped and did nothing for a long time. Well, that isn't exactly true. He forced through various policies which would have been opposed had they been Bush policies, but weren't because they were Obama's. Then when liberals did oppose them they were pressured by Obama to fall in to line and for the most part they did.

Atrios pointed out that there was a moment which if taken by Obama could have lead on to some real reforms: card check, bank re-regulation, health care, a real stimulus. But he chose not to take a major lead in anything and just kind of let things drag out without any real leadership. You know that is what he was elected to provide among other things.

Don't forget then that Obama started out promising the pharmaceutical industry that there would be nothing to hinder their profits and apparently also the same for the for profit hospital industry, and don't forget they worked from a bill essentially written by the insurance industry lobbyists. Now to top this all off Obama put major pressure on liberal groups not to demonstrate in favor of the bill and so left the way open for the Teabaggers to do what they wanted and completely grab the headlines and you have us stumbling into the first weeks of March.

Are there some good things in the bill? Maybe. Are they out weighed by the bad things? I think so. However I think the worst thing isn't something that is actually in the bill, but what might be called the penumbra of the bill. That is I think that it has been incredibly successful in one thing and that is preventing any real reform for at least a generation.

So I am left with the clear and certain knowledge that Obama has accomplished just the amount of reform he wanted to accomplish. He has chosen to stifle the real surge toward reform that was building and now we will have to live with that. Unfortunately, I am afraid that where we were when he took over was at the same kind of point we were at when FDR took over. God knows what would have happened to us if FDR had been like Obama. What was happening then was that there were two different streams of thought urging change: the reactionary/fascist one and the socialist/liberal one. Roosevelt supported the socialist/liberal stream of reform. When Obama was elected I think those same streams were again urging change. Obama has dammed up the liberal/socialist stream and allowed the reactionary/fascist stream to flow unabated.