For heaven's sake, the dirtbag who heads Obama's committee/commission/junta on "jobs and competitiveness" is the biggest tax evading CEO serial killer of the moment.  And Obama simply says he "stands by" the man.  What more do you need to hear?  That is not anyone the average American can pin their hopes on as President. For anything.  

Since Obama came into office, he's normalized - made it bipartisan and acceptable - to hold people indefinitely without trial (even if they've be acquitted), spy on Americans without a warrant, prosecute medical marijuana facilities, torture prisoners, bomb civilians indiscriminately, and a whole host of other things that at least when a GOP President did it, the "progressives" declared it unacceptable.  In fact, Obama's record is so much like Bush's that I think the left owes Bush a big apology.  Obviously, it largely has no problem with huge tax cuts, gutting social spending, restricting abortion, starting wars against countries that pose no threat to us, and shredding civil liberties.  Many alleged liberals and progressives are going to vote for someone who has done all of that - the very same stuff that made Bush unacceptable and even led to calls for impeachment.  

I guess this feels a lot like being the child of an abusive and neglecting parent. Typically, such children fear being separated from that parent, and will react like any other child at the prospect.  This is because even the worst parent is a child's only source of stability, familiarity and predictability in the world. If Obama doesn't love us, who will? Voter Protective Services? Will the Republicans put us into re-education camps and teach us the true underlying moral value of thinking like social Darwinists?  How can we learn to be good social Darwinists when we have already lost the selection battle and are doomed for extinction?  Where will we go?  Where will we live? Who will tuck us in?

The only people who got anything -- anything besides complete and blatant abuse and rejection from the Obama administration -- were the people who believe the most crucial and important crisis facing our country is the dying remnants of heterosexism.  Perhaps it is. I don't know. Maybe forcing the military to come to terms with the presence of the side of humanity which their paradigm has traditionally denied at all costs will spawn a real restructuring of social thought and policy. Maybe it will help expose the irrational sources of most aggression. But as of now, human and civil rights writ large seem to be taking a clear second priority to the right to say one is gay. I am not sure what good the right to say I am gay will be if I have none of the other rights which formed the infrastructure of freedom from which the gender and sexual revolution movements grew.  

I seem to remember strong resistance to Obama during the campaigns because he was not pro-marriage.  In fact, I think there were calls to not vote for him on those grounds? So, he has rewarded the people who campaigned against him because his platform did not include their core cause precisely as specified, and he has punished and humiliated the people who supported him most. In all areas, he has continued or advanced Bush's policies unchanged without even offering his heartbroken, depressed, and hopeless supporters the dignity of an explanation. His justice department is a shameless continuation of the Bush administration and continues the unrelenting march toward complete destruction of the Bill of Rights as most of us grew up understanding it.  Military action has been escalated with no explanation. The drug war continues in full force -- including some fairly good evidence that it is now a military objective. All its cost and collateral damage continues while our intelligence is insulted with linguistic parlor tricks like the administration's policy to cease use of the "war" metaphor in official rhetoric on drug policy. All the while, though, the administration continues the drug war destruction and continues the full funding and escalating empowerment of that branch of law enforcement which has the least respect for civil liberties.

Instead of health care reform, we got left at the mercy of the insurance companies.  Those companies know better than most Americans the clear and distinct difference between having health insurance and having health care. They run the best funded and most technologically advanced system conceivable for denying health care while maintaining the illusion of "coverage".  They will undoubtedly implement their knowledge in full force as the law takes effect, and will profit from it.

It's like we are living in a dream where basic economics do not matter.  And the people who can make the strongest arguments about why things happen as they do are marginalized (hi Krugman).  

I don't think that is too off base. It will get bad as predicted; I don't know about the SC because I don't think Ginsberg would ever retire with Republicans in power.

I'm saving my anger until after the 2012 election.

For that reason alone he should be opposed.  I'd rather take my chances with radically insane GOP and a retrenched but principled Dem party in opposition than the automatic rollover Dems who "compromise" by giving into the Right.  They serve NO purpose.

Jeralyn, you said:

Democrats need to think twice before running down Obama. He's all that stands between us and a radical right agenda coming back in 2012. We either get Obama or we get them. I'm saving my anger until after the 2012 election.

And what I say to that is, we're getting "them" regardless - how is that not obvious?  If you didn't know the president was a Democrat, is there anything about his policies or agenda that would identify him as such?  I don't think so.

Saving your anger until after 2012?  I don't even know what that means.  Wait until there's nothing you can do?

Here's the thing, Jeralyn: the days when the Democrats are always the good guys are over. O. V. E. R.  That dynamic is dead.

Where we are now is that it's them - Republicans and Democrats in office - against us.  On issue after issue, they are on the same page - the only difference is how quickly we are going to get where they - they - want to go.

It's unbelievably disheartening and depressing to realize that Democrats - and Obama in particular - are not going to save us, Jeralyn, that we're probably stuck with someone who is almost completely antithetical to what the Democratic party used to stand for, and there is probably little we can do to stop it.

As bad as that is, what's worse is the virtually unanimous negative comments. "Negative" may be a little misleading, venomous is probably more accurate.