A lot of people seem to think that the many progressives and liberals, who feel largely betrayed and outright hostile to the Obama administration at this point, really ought to just quietly grumble, fume, and stay quiet in the corner, give their unconditional support to Obama while said administration goes across the line and repeatedly gives their corporate friends and K street supporters whatever they pander for in order to accomplish things.

And here at myDD it seems that any time anyone dare to writes a post that complains about this and is negative towards the job that Obama has done as President - the fan boys immediately jump into the comments and start throwing personal insults and attacks at the author.  If one dares to write a diary complimenting Hillary Clinton while critiquing Obama - the anger of the fanboys is then surrounded and supported by the oh so solemn hand wringing of those that say that to bring up this comparison is just too 'damaging" to be allowed to be discussed. The "Oh, we must not crowd." Both are sorry attempts to silence dissent and to censor anyone who dares to say the obvious about this situation, which is that Democrats are heading to certain disaster in 2010 and if we dont want lose to Sarah Palin or whoever - we better prepare ourselves to consider serious primary challenges to Barrack Obama for 2012.

Sorry folks I know you are very desperate to - but you can't put the cork back in this bottle and you can't stop the many voices who are saying this by screaming loudly and insulting the speakers.  

I too decided to be quiet no more when I read this in Ben Smith's column in Politico on December 07, 2009.  A second day that should live in infamy...

Insurance industry insider: 'We win'

With the Senate shifting sharply away from a "pure public option," an insurance industry insider who has been deeply involved in the health care fight emails to declare victory.

"We WIN," the insider writes. "Administered by private insurance companies. No government funding. No government insurance competitor."

In the two weeks since its got much worse than that.  The fanboys both in and out of the media have spent the last week pretending that we lost the public option because of Lieberman - even though writers like Glen Greenwald have shown you that it was Obama who maneuvered to get rid of it and Senator Feingold even said this publicly.  But the Obama myth is stromg.  This week he also worked to kill Senator Dorgans bill to import lower cost drugs into the US - something that would have saved consumers an estimated $100,000,000,000 - but as a payback to big pharm he muscled Senators to vote no - and this was barely mentioned on the blogs or in the MSM.  

Watching Obama sell out us to big pharm and sell out the public option to big insurance millions of Americans are coming to the conclusion that it was a big mistake to allow the big media and the Chicago crowd to bully us and the system in 2008 and many are starting to say this publicly.

Whine and cry and post as many diaries about how awful this is that you wish - get used to it - over half the country now knows what would have been best.

I may be saying this early and you may be able to silence my small voice at this little blog, but be sure -

"Apres moi le Deluge...!"

------

The regrets over what could have been are clearly shown by the polling.  Hillary Clintons approval rating has soared to 75% while Obama, who has the singular honor of having dropped further quicker than any other president in polling history now has more people opposed to him then are for him.

This is not a new phenomena.  Rasmusen polling had Obama dropping below 50% approval rating in July.  In early November, they did a poll that said that 76% of voters believed that Hillary would be doing as good a job or better than Obama.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_c

ontent/politics/general_politics/novembe

r_2009/27_say_hillary_would_be_better_pr

esident_than_obama

27% said she'd be saying better and only 14 % saying shed be doing worse.  Thats a 5 to 1 positive to negative gap. Those were impressive numbers - but recent polling for her is even better.

This week From Politico Aemon Javers reports:

http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/t

hread.cfm?catid=1&subcatid=2&thr

eadid=3437369

A new poll of avid news watchers shows that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has a much higher approval rating than the man she once campaigned against and now works for, President Barack Obama.

In the poll of 800 registered voters who are self-identified "news watchers," Clinton had a 75 percent approval rating and a 21 percent disapproval rating overall. Obama, in contrast, had a 51 percent approval and a 45 percent disapproval rating.

Lets begin with the most important progressive voice writing today, Paul Krugman.  In his latest "Conscience of a Liberal" column in the NY Times Krugman reminds us that he warned us about all this years ago and he uses those 3 little words that are driving some so crazy....told you so...

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12

But what's happening, I think, goes beyond health care; what we're seeing is disillusionment with Obama among some of the people who were his most enthusiastic supporters. A lot of people seem shocked to find that he's not the transformative figure of their imaginations.

Can I say I told you so?

 If you paid attention to what he said, not how he said it, it was obvious from the beginning -- and I'm talking about 2007 -- that he was going to be much less aggressive about change than one could have hoped.

And this has done a lot of damage: I believe he could have taken a tougher line on economic policy and the banks, and was tearing my hair out over his caution early this year. I also believe that if he had been tougher on those issues, he'd be better able to weather disappointment over his health care compromises.

Then there was Matt Taibbi's new piece in Rolling Stone titled "Obama's Big sellout" with this memorable opening:

Barack Obama ran for president as a man of the people, standing up to Wall Street as the global economy melted down in that fateful fall of 2008. He pushed a tax plan to soak the rich, ripped NAFTA for hurting the middle class and tore into John McCain for supporting a bankruptcy bill that sided with wealthy bankers "at the expense of hardworking Americans." Obama may not have run to the left of Samuel Gompers or Cesar Chavez, but it's not like you saw him on the campaign trail flanked by bankers from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. What inspired supporters who pushed him to his historic win was the sense that a genuine outsider was finally breaking into an exclusive club, that walls were being torn down, that things were, for lack of a better or more specific term, changing.

Then he got elected.

What's taken place in the year since Obama won the presidency has turned out to be one of the most dramatic political about-faces in our history. Elected in the midst of a crushing economic crisis brought on by a decade of orgiastic deregulation and unchecked greed, Obama had a clear mandate to rein in Wall Street and remake the entire structure of the American economy. What he did instead was ship even his most marginally progressive campaign advisers off to various bureaucratic Siberias, while packing the key economic positions in his White House with the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. This new team of bubble-fattened ex-bankers and laissez-faire intellectuals then proceeded to sell us all out, instituting a massive, trickle-up bailout and systematically gutting regulatory reform from the inside.

But also in the blogs, what was until recently never discussed, is being spoken about publicly.  At Talk Left - Obama supporter 'Big Tent Democrat' writes that he was "Wrong About Obama"

I thought, despite my disagreements with his political style, that the historic opportunity he was presented coupled with his immense political talent would lead him to become our FDR (who did not change politics, he changed how we think about government, much more important.) I wrote that a lot here, especially after the financial meltdown in September 2008.

It seems pretty clear that I was wrong.

One commenter there sums it all up:

I voted for Obama and didn't expect much, but then, I didn't expect this.

Big Tent also wrote this very short blog:

The Primary Wars

I'll reignite them right now:

It remains the most prescient statement of the primaries.

At Huffington Post there have been a series of blog posts along these themes, but let me quote from just one, Lee Stranahan writes"

To use a trendy Tiger Woods analogy, this is the 101th mistress -- the time to stop defending and start packing.

Whatever happens with this bill, one thing is now crystal clear - the White House is calling the shots and they want a bill that's a giveaway to the insurance industry with no real protections, public option, or Medicare rollback. There is NO standard here except passing a bill.

Oh. And the White House is willing to lie about it, too.

Enough. It is now time for anyone who supported Barack Obama in 2008 to let the President know loud and clear that this is not what we voted for it. This isn't a question of liberals whining. This isn't about piling on the President.

We didn't elect Barack Obama to pass a health reform bill that Joe Lieberman and his insurance cronies approve of.

It's time for Obama voters to be outraged. Many of us voted for Obama because we felt he was different -- after all, he told us he was different. He said he wasn't about politics as usual. Okay, now we know that's not true. Let's be adults and act like it.

Barack Obama is just another politician; willing to lie on the campaign trail to get elected. Then treat him like any other politician. He understands votes so let him know he won't be getting yours, especially in the primary. That's the language that people like Rahm Emanuel understand.

And don't let anyone scare you with Sarah Palin or a GOP White House in 2012. Dropping support for a series of horrible decisions from Larry Summers to Afghanistan to this health reform bailout means you want a better Democratic candidate to emerge. The White House wants you scared; cowed into thinking that not going along with their bad decisions means eight years of some Republican you hate.

It's a scare tactic. Don't fall for it.

Instead, if you voted for Barack Obama realize that you voted for an idea, not just a man. Just because this man hasn't delivered on those ideas doesn't mean it's time to give up on principles like changing Washington to get rid of the power of the lobbyists who run things. Or real health care reform for that matter.

It's time to do what Barack Obama asked us to do - hold him accountable. This is totally unacceptable, Mr. President. Start acting like the man we elected or you have three years left in the job.

There's more...