As Election Day nears, President Obama is regaining his populist mojo. His State of the Union speech was mostly pitch perfect, evoking core American themes of opportunity and optimism, and calling for “an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

But the President has repeatedly hit a wrong note in talking about the foreclosure crisis. Not only is his story inaccurate, but he is promoting a harmful narrative that will make it harder to fix the problem.

The President said in his State of the Union address that “we’ve all paid the price for lenders who sold mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them and buyers who knew they couldn’t afford them.” He repeated that theme a week later at a speech in Falls Church, VA, contending that people who did the “right and the responsible thing” were hurt by “lenders who sold loans to people who they knew couldn’t afford the mortgages; and buyers who bought homes they knew they couldn’t afford; and banks that packaged those mortgages up and traded them to reap phantom profits, knowing that they were building a house of cards.”

According to the President’s narrative, then, large numbers of Americans who are struggling beneath unsustainable mortgages willfully chose that fate and deserve roughly equal blame as do the lending and financial giants who cooked up the subprime scheme, targeted vulnerable communities, engaged in deceptive and discriminatory practices, chopped up and distributed faulty loans, and forced fraudulent foreclosures. A different class of “innocent, hard-working” people are the only ones paying the price in this narrative.

Let’s be clear. The foreclosure crisis was caused by reckless misconduct by the lending and financial industries, inadequate rules and enforcement, and staggering long-term unemployment. America’s long history of overwhelmingly successful homeownership went to pot because regulators looked the other way and unscrupulous corporations took advantage, not because working Americans suddenly became wildly irresponsible. Indeed, conscientious lenders like Self-Help Credit Union in North Carolina successfully made loans to the same group of working Americans over the same period with negligible default rates.

Am I saying that no American homeowner ever applied for a mortgage without a realistic plan to repay it? Of course not. A key purpose of proper underwriting standards and regulations is to help lenders and buyers determine what’s mutually sustainable. But to divide American homeowners into “responsible” ones who’ve managed to stay current on their payments and supposedly “irresponsible” ones who’ve fallen behind is inaccurate and harmful.

After confessing that he and the First Lady—two Harvard-trained lawyers—had trouble deciphering their own first mortgage, the President has nonetheless failed to convey how many Americans were victimized by deceptive and predatory practices; how many families sacrificed all to pay the mortgage after one or both parents lost a job; and how many people facing foreclosure today would be successful homeowners if fair rules and vigilant regulators had been in place. He also leaves out how much each of us benefits when we help our neighbors avoid foreclosure, even if we’ve personally managed to stay current on our own mortgages.

The President’s flawed story erodes the public will to aid struggling homeowners and bolsters those who say that the foreclosure crisis should be allowed to “run its course”—why rally to help people you’ve told us are irresponsible? Yet, without a more ambitious policy agenda than we have now, we’ll see millions more Americans lose their economic security, families uprooted from schools and communities, senior citizens thrown into uncertainty or destitution, and the economy in continued chaos.

The President’s current story is also deepening the feelings of shame that keep too many Americans from seeking the advice that could help them save their homes or, at least, make a successful transition. Housing counselors say the stigma attached to foreclosure keeps many people in the shadows instead of accessing the services that exist. It doesn’t help when the Commander in Chief labels them irresponsible.

It’s time for a new, accurate story about homeownership, opportunity, and the American Dream. It’s a story that places blame where it belongs while recognizing that we each have economic and moral responsibilities. It’s a story about the solutions to the crisis that exist, including many that the Administration can take without any action from Congress. And it’s a story about why, in this crisis as in so many others, we are all in it together. As communicator-in-chief, the President should take the lead in telling that story.

Read also:

• Compact for Home Opportunity: What America Can Do to Stop Foreclosures and Fulfill the American Dream

This time last year, President Obama responded to the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act with a signing statement. Objecting to the law's restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial or to their home countries, the president promised: "My Administration will work with the Congress to seek repeal of these restrictions, will seek to mitigate their effects, and will oppose any attempt to extend or expand them in the future." (My emphasis).

This past New Year's eve, President Obama signed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. In doing so, he extended the Guantanamo transfer restrictions, while also codifying the indefinite detention without trial of suspected terrorists. In the statement he issued with that signature, he said:

"I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists."

The pledge to seek repeal and oppose expansion of transfer restrictions had melted into a watery "reservation."

The president's Saturday statement also makes a new promise.

"I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation." Although the Obama Administration has consistently claimed the power to kill U.S. citizens without charge or trial in the war on terror, as it did to the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, the president now promises not to imprison them.

Of course, a future president still might

There's more...

This time last year, President Obama responded to the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act with a signing statement. Objecting to the law's restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial or to their home countries, the president promised: "My Administration will work with the Congress to seek repeal of these restrictions, will seek to mitigate their effects, and will oppose any attempt to extend or expand them in the future." (My emphasis).

This past New Year's eve, President Obama signed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. In doing so, he extended the Guantanamo transfer restrictions, while also codifying the indefinite detention without trial of suspected terrorists. In the statement he issued with that signature, he said:

"I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists."

The pledge to seek repeal and oppose expansion of transfer restrictions had melted into a watery "reservation."

The president's Saturday statement also makes a new promise.

"I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation." Although the Obama Administration has consistently claimed the power to kill U.S. citizens without charge or trial in the war on terror, as it did to the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, the president now promises not to imprison them.

Of course, a future president still might

There's more...

This time last year, President Obama responded to the 2011 National Defense Authorization Act with a signing statement. Objecting to the law's restrictions on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. for trial or to their home countries, the president promised: "My Administration will work with the Congress to seek repeal of these restrictions, will seek to mitigate their effects, and will oppose any attempt to extend or expand them in the future." (My emphasis).

This past New Year's eve, President Obama signed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA. In doing so, he extended the Guantanamo transfer restrictions, while also codifying the indefinite detention without trial of suspected terrorists. In the statement he issued with that signature, he said:

"I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists."

The pledge to seek repeal and oppose expansion of transfer restrictions had melted into a watery "reservation."

The president's Saturday statement also makes a new promise.

"I want to clarify that my Administration will not authorize the indefinite military detention without trial of American citizens. Indeed, I believe that doing so would break with our most important traditions and values as a Nation." Although the Obama Administration has consistently claimed the power to kill U.S. citizens without charge or trial in the war on terror, as it did to the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, the president now promises not to imprison them.

Of course, a future president still might

There's more...

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a crime against our constitution. It allows for the indefinite detention of US citizens by the military inside the US - without a trial. It's one of the worst laws ever passed in the US and it passed with nary a peep of opposition. I'm positive that a huge percentage of the population is not even aware of it, partly because the establishment media didn't even bother covering it.

But it appeared for a while that the one guy fighting against it was President Obama. I was incredibly encouraged by that. I shouldn't have been. It turned out at the end that he was threatening to veto the bill because he wanted it to have even more executive power, not less. This president has been a disaster for civil liberties. Every time I think about the fact that he used to be a constitutional law professor, I don't know whether to laugh or to cry. Indefinite detentions, summary executions of US citizens abroad without a trial, warrantless wiretapping and much, much more. All of the things we were outraged Bush did - and then some. Honestly, it makes me feel a little sick that I voted for him. At least, I could say that I fought tooth and nail against Bush.

And civil liberties abuses are the tip of the iceberg in disappointment with this president. Then there is the comedy of financial reform which doesn't reform a damn thing. There are the zero prosecutions of the top bankers who destroyed our economy through their fraud, took our money and now spit in our face with it. There is the extension of the Bush tax cuts. There is the cave in on nearly every negotiation (the payroll tax cut being the exception that proves the rule (by the way, he "won" on more tax cuts, a profoundly Republican idea)). His crowning achievement of healthcare reform was a proposal originally written by the Heritage Foundation. There isn't a Republican idea that President Obama didn't want to cuddle with and adopt as his own.

Now, the argument goes that he might be bad, but the Republicans are worse. Of course. Right now, Newt Gingrich is on the campaign trail arguing that Mitt Romney isn't kind enough to the rich. I'm not kidding. He is trying to make hay out of the fact that Romney takes capital taxes down to zero percent for only people making below $200,000. Newt thinks that's discrimination against the rich and he would take it down to zero for everybody. Then he would make your kids clean the rich kids' toilets in school.

I follow politics for a living; I'm not unaware of how hideous the Republican choices are. But that doesn't mean that we should pretend that President Obama has been brilliant because we're scared of the big, bad Republicans. That would be fundamentally dishonest.

And to be honest, I'm really disappointed that he does not have a primary opponent. This country is dying for someone who is going to take on the establishment. Who is that going to be on our side - Barack Obama? On that, I know whether to laugh or cry. Every time I think about the idea that President Obama might be against the establishment, I laugh and laugh and laugh. There is never been a guy who was this enamored with the establishment. If he had wrestling nickname it would be The Establishment.

The guy who appointed Tim Geithner, Ben Bernanke, Larry Summers, Rahm Emanuel and Bill Daley (and a list of hundreds of others, including two new Fed appointments, one of which is a Republican who worked for the Carlyle Group) is not a guy who is interested in changing the system at all. Change was a cutesy slogan he used to trick us into thinking he was on our side.

I would have loved a progressive alternative, but apparently we are not going to get one (except for Rocky Anderson running on the Justice Party ticket). Primaries are the perfect place to send a message without taking away votes in the general election. But it didn't happen because the Democratic establishment says we must fall in line because we wouldn't want to hurt the agenda of the president. The agenda of the president sucks and is deeply Republican. I'd love to at least get him to reconsider that agenda for a second.

But there is one thing we can do right now that doesn't really hurt the chances of the president getting re-elected and doesn't help Republicans one bit. It is an idea that Occupy Iowa came up with. In the Iowa caucuses you can vote for "uncommitted." In fact, since the 1970's "uncommitted" has won twice on the Democratic side and it beat Bob Dole in 1980. Of course, the Republican Party has shut down this option on their side. They say you can vote that way in the GOP field but they will not register those votes or send those delegates. Of course, they're the GOP; they have no interest in your dissent.

But if all of those people were to go and participate on the Democratic side they might have an effect. If "uncommitted" beat President Obama on the Democratic side in Iowa that would make some news. That might even get the attention of The Establishment. So far, he has only responded to right-wing pressure. He is the consummate politician, so if there was actually a little bit of pressure on his left he might have to respond to it, especially during an election season. Wouldn't it be amazing if President Obama acted like a progressive on some issue because he was worried about the voters?

By the way, this strategy also has the benefit of being accurate. I am "uncommitted" toward Obama. I'm uncommitted from supporting a guy that has walked all over our civil liberties, that thinks tax cuts are the only answer, that gave all of the money to the bankers and asked for nothing in return, that thinks the right-wing establishment has all of the answers. Uncommitted is the kindest word I have.

If you live in Iowa, please send a message to the President for the rest of us. We voted for change last time, apparently you didn't hear us. If you don't hear us soon, you might be the one that gets changed.

The Young Turks on Current