Obama and Kirchner

Well, Obama got his ass kicked him on Tuesday, something, of course, he richly deserved. The problem is that the people taking over are the last more or less openly fascist people in any of the world'd developed countries.

And these nuts, in unison with the media they control (ether directly, or by dint of the fecklessness of the non-Republican "liberals"--CNN, PBS, NPR NYT etc-- in the news game) will rip poor Barry from stem to stern through congressional investigations and media "investigations".

It will be bad.

So, at the time of this debacle, it seems fair to ask "Would it really have been any worse than this had actually done things to serve the liberal base that got him elected?

On the assumption he would be getting his ass whipped either way, would you rather have a president with just a sore ass, or a SORE ASS AND:

1) A single payer health care system

2) A closed Guantánamo and the persecution of all the people committed war crimes under Bush

3) The reinstatement of the rights lost under Bush, for starters the right to email and talk on the phone without being snooped upon

4) A bail out that put money into the hands of America homeowners with mortgage problems rather than banks. That way banks would get there money (because people would not be in default) and the people themselves would get to keep their houses.

5) An Israel forced to either make peace or have its funding cut.

6) A real muscular liberal on the supreme court rather Carreerist Kagan who never met an "anti-terror" abridgment of liberties she didn't like.

7) A real, as opposed to fakely staged, end to the Iraq war.

8) Real vigorous participation in the Copenhagen (Global Warming Conference) rather than the role of cynical preserver of the status quo.

9) No more innocent pakistanis and afghanis dying from drones strikes

The list is endless. He and the media can tell us all they want about our being a center right country and not having the votes BLAH, BLAH BLAH. They are all pitiful cover stories for endemic cowardice.

If you want to see what someone can do when their life is about convictions rather than a purely narcissistic pursuit of power, look at the life of Nestor Kirchner who died suddenly a week ago at the age of 60.

Kirchner was no saint and he was not without his own lust for power. But while he liked power, he also really liked helping its country in BIG WAYS.

This was a guy who came into office on a razor thin majority at a time (2003) of unbelievable crisis for the nation. The country was bankrupt and depressed. (Can you imagine almost all of your savings/ retirement being cut by 75% overnight).

He was basically a nobody (in the eyes of the public) who had worked his way steadily up the ranks of one of the most historically corrupt political parties in the western world, el Partido Justicialista. And this in what had lately been one of the most corrupt national political cultures in the western world

From all appearances he was just a hack who. like the hacks before him, could be expected to fail nd fill his pockets.

But something happened. Nestor Kirchner, as man with an historical consciousness , looked in the mirror and said to himself. 'This is my time and am not going to blow it. I got into politics in the seventies to pursue justice and dignity for Argentina and its people. I may not win all the battles, but I'm going to fight hard on every one of them".

He didn't care who he offended (just look at how the Argentine right and the Establishment press talks about him) .

And guess what? It mostly worked. Argentina is a country on the move with a growing economy, a cancelled foreign debt, a shrinking income gap and a vigorous pubic discussion of human rights where torturers and state-sponsored murderers no longer walk around (as they did for some 20 years) smiling on the street at the people they abused, confident that the law would never touch them.

In short, Nestor Kirchner used every bullet he had at his disposition in his fight for what he thought the country needed. And when he used up the first six, he re-loaded again again and again. According to the doctors, he literally worked himself into the grave.

And if we except the people whose plutocratic party he rudely and crudely (he was not subtle) disrupted (and who have used their control of the media to pursue him endlessly), he was pretty widely loved and respected at the time of his death.

This was supposed to be Obama's story line. Don't you remember all those amateur chess player/Obama supporters who told us again and again "He is just saying what he needs to say to get elected. then he'll fight for us".

Hoo-hah. That's a good one!

To fight you have to have courage. and to have courage you have to have values. And to have values, you have to have been something more than a serial pleaser and cameleon. You have to have have things that burn in your gut and keep you up at night.

Barry has none of this.