The Disappointment Parade

I wrote recently that Obama was elected by a coalition of interests who are now in line to be disappointed. There were many reasons that various groups voted for Obama, and I contend, that few of them had to do with his policy positions. The sheer variety of reasons insures that some voters will be disappointed, I said. So it shouldn’t have come to me as a surprise that an Obama voter woke up today to news that would disappoint him. What surprised me was who the first disappointed voter was: me. That’s right, I voted for Obama. To be sure, it was the primary when I did so, but my reasoning was valid. I was not voting to cynically nominate the Democrat I thought easiest to beat, although I knew others who did just that. No, I voted for the very specific intent to make Obama the nominee because I thought the Democrat pick was likely to win. And I didn’t want it to be Hillary Clinton. So imagine my thoughts when I heard that the anointed one has picked Hillary for his Secretary of State. She is truly like the movie monster that will not die.

I had been saying for days that this was all a rouse. Her name being floated for Sec. of State was nothing more than Obama paying her off by elevating her profile in the international arena. There was no way this would actually happen. Well slap my ass and call me Sally.

Well I may have been the first, but I wasn’t the only one. During the campaign I must have read a dozen columns by pundits who harped on the need for the new president to “sell” shared sacrifice to the American people. He would have to lead by being straight with them. Bush had never made it clear that sacrifices had to be made. The new guy would have to do that. It would be like the myth of FDR “leading us out of the depression” (He did nothing of the sort.) Americans would pull together and tough it out, sharing the burden, whatever that may be. But apparently letting GM go bankrupt is more pain than he is willing to face.

And make no mistake; bailing out GM is very different than saving the financial services industry. The automobile industry is not in trouble. The American automobile industry isn’t even in trouble. Plants in Alabama are humming along spitting out cars that are selling just fine. They just happen to be Hondas and Mercedes Benz. This is a case where the bad moves by GM are well documented and clearly attributable to the company itself. They do not deserve to be saved. And if they are, it will mean that the guys who run it will make even worse decisions in the future because they will know that the government will be there to save them when they do. I guess we’re just going to sacrifice elsewhere.