OK, if you’ve been around this site before you know that I supported Barrack Obama in his campaign for President but that I am not giving him “Carte Blanche`” as GW Bush got from his Republican supporters during his term as President of the United States. And I’m seeing evidence of the “Red Flags” I mentioned a few posts back (it’s all becoming blurry to me – I never imagined writing over 100 posts when I started this self-psychological project – trying to keep my sanity in a world “gone bad”) regarding decisions of our new President. I guess what I’m trying to do is have a public “I told you so” record which nobody will know about unless I point it out to them – kind of like the guys on TV who predict who will win the Super Bowl and you never hear from them after it’s over unless they were right. I guess like most people I want “my cake and eat it too.” (I never quite understood where and why that “truism” ever came about)

I’ve been cautioning President Obama to stop “coddling” Republicans – warning him this was a strategy that will ultimately blow up in his face – possibly destroying his Presidency. He doesn’t appear to be reading my site. I’ve been encouraging him to “go after” the criminal element of the Bush administration which would include Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Gonzales/Rove/Addington/Yoo/Wolfowitz and others to some degree – maybe just discressions which would cause them to lose their professional certification – such as John Yoo, a Law Professor at Cal Berkeley being disbarred (I can’t even imagine him at Berkely – shows you the problem with tenure) – while others should be doing jail time. My fear is that Obama’s reluctance is tied to the possibility that there is some kind of unwritten rule that Presidents don’t “go after” other Presidents – kind of like doctors don’t make accusations against other doctors, lawyers tend to shy away from testifying against other lawyers, etc. The problem is that we have these corrupted cultures at the top of the “food chain” to use an analogy that hopefully paints the right picture – and the only way to get this problem cleared up is for people at the top to prosecute people who have been at the top before them, i.e. – Obama’s Justice Department prosecutes Bush’s administration from top to bottom – and Obama makes a principled stand in support of this which sets an example for generations to come that the abuses of the past eight years will never again be tolerated – PERIOD!!!

I know a lot of my acquaintances don’t even want to hear that Obama might be following the footprints of Bush in any kind of way. And I can tell you that it will be very uncomfortable for Democrats if he does and then has to defend those actions against a Right Wing which has seemingly become more marginalized than ever following the previous election disaster for the Republicans. But let me clear your thinking a bit here. First of all, the true “Right Wingers,” that is, the ones who are acting like a tiger which has been backed into a corner (and they have) are coming out fighting. Don’t for a minute think that they are feeling defeated. They are using terms like socialist when they talk about the Bush administration and they are the ones mostly on the attack regarding the actions of the previous eight years. Now, I “get” that most of their anger comes from the fact that they had almost pulled off the impossible and gained a stranglehold on the entire government of the United States of America – much to the chagrine of our Founding Fathers. Madison/Jefferson/Hamilton et al had attempted to create a document when they wrote the Constitution which made it virtually impossible for one “party” to gain control of all three branches of government. They came close to doing this – and they fully realize that if the “Obama Phenomenon” can be limited to four years, they might still be able to accomplish their goals.

You might think this is absurd at this point – but let me give you a possible scenario where things could blow up in President Obama’s face. First of all, his reluctance to hold Bush and Company accountable is angering many of his followers – and many of his potential followers – people who believe that he, as a constitutional scholar, has to know better than to let some of this stuff go unchallenged. And, I can guarantee you that as time passes, more and more of the “transgressions” are going to be coming out and Obama will look worse and worse for not pushing for investigations should they not happen. That will make him vulnerable to losing the support of people like me. Second, the Right Wing of the Republican party REALLY DOES WANT OBAMA TO FAIL! And they will do whatever they can to make sure that happens. Right now, they are setting him up by their own “Throwing Bush under the buss” tactics which will make Obama look bad the more stuff that becomes public that is obvious illegal activity – can’t you just hear all the “I told you so’s coming from the Limbaugh’s and others as they try to undermine Obama’s popularity?

Then we get into the real problem for Obama. The places where he actually supports Bush policies – this will be his undoing if it happens. It appears that Obama is going to be leaving troops in Iraq indefinitely (according to Thomas Ricks in “The Gamble” his supplement to his great book “Fiasco” on Iraq) – certainly he’s already said they will be there for 15 months longer than his campaign pledge – and I haven’t seen anything coming from Ricks so far that would lead me to believe that he doesn’t know what he’s reporting – THIS (Indefinite occupation) IS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM “DOWN THE ROAD.” Then there’s Afganistan – Obama has already pledged an additional 17,000 troops for a mission that is not defined – and which to me is a potential MAJOR PROBLEM. Osama bin Laden’s original wish was for us to get bogged down in Afganistan – and I hope that Obama doesn’t fulfill that wish 7 years after the “fact.” He’s also continuing the financial bailouts which, even though it’s absurd to place any of the blame on him for the problems at AIG or the major financial institutions, the Right Wingers are already attempting to do so and they are setting Obama up for some major attacks in the next year or so if things don’t drastically change – and if Obama sticks to his guns regarding changing the direction of our economy he will need time – years not months – in order to be successful. Propping these banks up and drowning our economy in printed money has the distinct possibility of backfiring as well – and, believe me, the Limbaugh’s, Hannity’s, Gingrich’s, Huckabee’s, and the one who I believe will be their water carrier Romney – are preparing to pounce on every opportunity to turn this country against President Obama.

Obama is going to need every one of his base of support when it comes time to get a second term – and the thing that is irking me the most is apparently actually coming true. I have mentioned on several occasions that I have a really bad feeling about Obama’s take on the warrantless wiretapping abuses of the Bush administration. The first “Red Flag” came when he voted, as a Senator, for the FISA bill which granted immunity to the Telecom companies who have conspired with the NSA to “eavesdrop” on millions of American’s phone conversations and email messages. This was the Bush administration’s way of protecting themselves from court proceedings which would have exposed the obscene number of felonious legal violations they committed during the post 9/11 “era” (many people have reported that the illegal wiretapping began pre-9/11). Well, it looks like my fears in this area are coming true, although for some reason the news hasn’t made the front page yet. In the Al-Haramain case which is in the court of Judge Vaughn Walker in San Francisco the Obama Justice department is supporting the Bush administration’s effort to keep secret some documents which were accidentally mailed to the Al-Haramain Foundation’s lawyers proving that they were being illegally wiretapped without a warrant. This case has the possibility of being the first to document the abuses of the Bush administration in their blatant disregard for the fourth amendment of our constitution. I would expect Obama to allow this case to go forward without defending the Bush policies – but it’s been reported that Obama “doesn’t want to give up this power.” I can say without question that I will no longer support President Obama if he chooses to continue the illegal wiretapping of the Bush administration! And, along with these other points, I believe he will be choosing to be a one term president if he follows this path. I mean, do you really think the Right Wing Republicans will be supporting illegal wiretapping when it is being done by President Obama?