Obama and DOMA: The Word Is Mightier Than The Deed

I don't tend to give the American People much credit for intellectual curiosity, intellectual honesty or raw intelligence for that matter. So why am I surprised at peoples' boundless ability to heap praise on The President for mere articulated thoughts? Maybe I'm not as cynical (or smart) as I'd like to believe. Regardless, as long as there are people who confuse words with deeds the dissemblers will rule. The inconvenient truth is that Obama had two years and control of both houses of congress, with which he could have painted the entire landscape Blue. (Until Scott Brown won Ted Kennedy's seat he had filibuster-proof control). He could have overridden DOMA by Presidential Fiat any time he'd wanted to. (But at least he "believes that we're all equal regardless of sexual orientation"). This is the kind of emotional thinking that makes me a little crazy. And it's kind of hard to accept any excuse (other than cowardice or political expedience) for not doing something that you ostensibly wanted to do even though nobody could stop you from doing it!
What about Gitmo? That was a "first 100 days" priority until he discovered that "there are some dangerous folks there". No shit? The smartest guy in the room didn't know that until he got his post-election security brief? I know Bush and Cheney were evil incarnate but did he really think that they were just rounding up anyone who didn't wear deoderant or sported a sheet? Obama is disappointing in ways that W never could have been. Bush was kind of an amiable, well-intentioned dunce watching the world fly by in a blur. He was incapable of understanding complex cultural and geo-political situations or of making any but the most rudimentary distinctions. And he thought GOD was talking to him. (If HE is talking to you, trust but verify is still a prudent policy). Obama, while not nearly as smart as advertised, appears to understand but he's too timid or too self-serving to make any of the pragmatic non-partisan decisions that we could benefit from now. Oddly, he even has difficulty with liberal home run issues like Gitmo. But he says the right things and he evokes and provokes the right emotions and he has a mesmerized audience willing to give him credit for that. In that sense he's just an Internet Era P.T. Barnum in a better suit.

PS I voted for Obama. It was my first for a Democratic candidate in a Presidential election. It was a desperation, last minute, in the voting booth decision based largely on my belief that John McCain would ramp up the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and we would end up with bookend Vietnams. I was also influenced by the fact that, even when graded on a curve and strictly among other politicians, John McCain is a disingenuous swine. Had I known about Obama what I know now I would have swallowed hard and gone with Dishonest John. The fact that I thought Obama may have been pragmatic illustrates how gullible I can be.

PSS It's possible that Obama's reluctance to push liberal policies through when he had unfettered control was due to fear of success. If you've spent your life as a professional gadfly it must be daunting to realize that some of your ideas might be put to the test, on the record. Much better to fight the good fight, lose and blame the other side for the results.