Last Tuesday President Barack Obama got a slap in the face from Massachusetts voters who elected a Republican to a senate seat that Democrats had occupied since 1953. But that was a love tap compared to the haymaker he and America took on Thursday. Thanks to the deceitful creativity of five jurists who all claim to abhor judicial activism, the Supreme Court removed all limits on corporate spending in political campaigns.
It's no coincidence that the court's right wing of Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Anthony Kennedy, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito are as militantly anti-progress as they are corporate-friendly . Each was appointed to the high court for life by a Republican president, and thanks to their disingenuous connecting of unlimited corporate contributions with free speech, America had better get ready for some nuclear-powered mudslinging in upcoming elections. Those preferring democracy to plutocracy or oligarchy should be alarmed and appalled by the decision, which could easily lead to Senators representing Bank of America, Travelers Insurance, and Dow Chemical Company rather than New York, Connecticut, and Michigan, respectively. (Shame on those of you thinking the insurance industry already has its own senator in Joe Lieberman.) And if the thought of elected officials doing the work of lobbyists on the senate floor isn't disturbing enough, consider who the Senator(s) from Big Oil would be representing. Saudi Arabia would have far greater pull in the U.S. Senate than Mississippi or Vermont (assuming that this isn't already the case).
Chortling Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell shouldn't get too gleeful over this ruling. Right-wing zealots aren't the only ones who can launch scurrilous attacks on candidates with whom they disagree. Shameless, ethically unconcerned individuals on the far left have access to big money too, and they can put together baseless allegations about elected officials that'll be swallowed hook, line, and sinker by increasingly credulous and polarized American voters just as well as the loonies on the right can. The Swift-Boating of John Kerry in 2004 will look quaint by comparison in a few years, or maybe in a few months.
Barack Obama is a thoughtful, dedicated, articulate, patient, and tireless individual who truly wants to bring about positive change. But his inclination toward inclusiveness, an ordinarily attractive trait, is seen by his adversaries as a weakness in today's toxic political climate. Forget the irrational extremists who think he's a Socialist, a jihadist, an illegal alien, the Anti-Christ, or all those things. Few if any GOP elected officials who bloviate piously about bipartisanship plan on cooperating with the president even slightly unless there's a shoe on their throats and the foot inside it is pushing down. Exuding civility is an Obama strong suit, but it's useless when dealing with bullying, self-righteous obstructionists who, emboldened by recent electoral results, no longer even bother to smile in Mr. Obama's face as they openly undermine him.
The president needs to fight political fire with political fire. When the economy slumped in the early 1980's Ronald Reagan unceasingly stayed publicly focused on one message: all our troubles were because of the liberal financial policies of Democrats. Ultimately the country's economic ship was righted, and Reagan won a second four years in the White House.
Mr. Obama should borrow a page from the Great Communicator's book. He must constantly remind Americans in no uncertain terms that the nation's current economic woes are the direct result of uncontrolled, profligate spending by his incompetent, inarticulate predecessor, a dull-witted front man for a group of arrogant, intolerant, bellicose war profiteers. The previous administration's eagerness to instigate obscenely expensive armed conflicts was matched only by their utter incompetence at executing them. The president should also unceasingly pound home the fact that it was eight years of Republican deregulation combined with a Congress which enthusiastically wrote blank check after blank check to cover the ongoing disaster in Iraq that put our economy into a ditch which the current administration has only just begun digging out of.
President Obama is not by nature a finger-pointer, but he can't keep treating Americans like we're as thoughtful and cerebral as he is. We aren't. Far too many of us think Fox News is fair and balanced. We've made Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck into not only multi-millionaires, but de facto shapers of right-wing public opinion, and we're about to do the same two things for Sarah Palin.
Mr. Obama's opponents are clearly more loyal to their political party and themselves than they are to the nation, and thanks to the Supreme Court they're now completely unfettered financially. The president had better remove his gloves too, because while common courtesy is admirable, it's useless when dealing with prevaricating demagogues, greed-driven megalomaniacs, craven hypocrites, and their gullible, still-growing legions of angry, easily-led followers.
Andy YoungReturn to main page
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