Do Elections Have Consequences?

Obama has been in the White House for one year, and look how far we have gotten on his agenda!

President Obama, this is all much too much to hear: you have one of your unnamed spokespersons say,

We face the dual challenges of a massive GDP gap and also very substantial budget deficits out over time. As we move forward to FY2011 that's a transition year in which we need to be shifting our focus, making sure we're getting as much as we can from each dollar that the federal government has. And this is not the end-all-be-all, but it is an important category of restoring discipline to an important component of the budget.

The freeze is not going to effect the boiling off-the-books spending squandering on Afghanistan, but practically everything else is to be iced? You are fulfilling one of John McCain's campaign promises?

I campaigned for you because I thought you were an anti-Bush. I thought you were not going to let the warfare state squelch the welfare state. But you are on the path of drowning our government in the bathtub. It looks like Afghanistan is going to be defining your presidency after all, but not in the way we first anticipated. Instead of failure on the ground over there, it's ineptitude in domestic policy over here.

I don't think I'm going to watch the SotU speech tomorrow night. I don't think I could possibly get all the way through it without going through one or two barf bags. (Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!)

And now, with my credulity already strained to the breaking point, I hear that you have told Diane Sawyer,

You know, I -- I would say that when I -- the one thing I'm clear about is that I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. And I -- and I believe that.

You know, there's a tendency in Washington to think that our job description of elected officials is to get re-elected. That's not our job description. Our job description is to solve problems and to help people. And, you know, that's not just the view of elected officials themselves. That's also the filter through which the media reads things.

Barry, who are you kidding? If you are announcing one year into your first term that you are already lame duck president, that's what your going to have: a lame presidency.

You are taking me back to an angry conversation I had in a bar in 2004. Larry asked me,

Who would you rather have as President, John Kerry or George Bush? You don't know what John Kerry stands for, but you're damned sure what Bush stands for!

So, we're really not that far more advanced down that Progressive path than John Kerry, huh? Bush was the Great Decider and you, Obama, are the Great Explainer. God knows, Bush couldn't explain a god damned thing, but you can freaking explain everything, even - marginally - better than Kerry.

Well, the only reason I can think of for watching teevee tonight, is to look around the room for someone who's not in the Corporate Wing of the Democratic Party who's worth nominating in your place in 2012. That is, if you last that long.

Barry, you're embarrassing.