When Will Obama Officially Go From Being One Of Us To One Of Them?

DWT endorsed Obama as an inspirational figure and as the best choice to defeat the unspeakably horrid alternative, though never as a transformative candidate. (We never quite went so far as endorsing Bankruptcy Bill Biden, although we noted that he was a far better choice than strawmen Evan Bayh or Tim Kaine, let alone Sarah Palin.) As Glenn Greenwald and Digby point out in Salon today, Obama made no promises or entreaties to get netroots support.

Nor did he ever portray himself as anything other than what he is: a moderate technocrat. Despite the foolish and completely deceptive shill claims from McCain and the far right that Obama was the "most liberal" member of the Senate, he was, in fact, the 46th most liberal (out of 50 Democrats), down at the bottom of the barrel snuggled between his mentor Joe Lieberman and religionist nutcase Mark Pryor. He was never even close, in terms of supporting a progressive agenda, to Hillary Clinton. We warned our readers not to get their hopes too far up lest they come crashing down with a dangerous velocity. Blue America looked closely at his voting record and decided to not ask our community to donate money to his campaign but to concentrate our fundraising on genuine, unabashed progressive congressional candidates like Jeff Merkley, Donna Edwards, Darcy Burner, Andrew Rice, Alan Grayson, Carol Shea-Porter and Jerrold Nadler. We've raised around $1.5 million and none of it went to Obama's campaign. Seventeen of our candidates-- with one race, Charlie Brown's, still undecided (though not looking good)-- won their races.

We've not one of the blogs complaining that Obama is excluding progressives from his administration. He's doing exactly what we expected him to do and exactly what he always said he would do. I have to admit, though, that I was a little disappointed-- if not completely surprised-- that he's already started sending out signals that he would be unable to keep his most basic actual campaign promises, like rolling back a tax cut for multimillionaires and getting rid of discriminatory homophobic rules in the military.

President-elect Barack Obama may consider delaying a campaign promise-- to roll back tax cuts on high-income Americans-- as part of his economic recovery strategy, two aides said on Sunday.

David Axelrod, the Obama campaign strategist who was chosen to be a senior White House adviser, was asked if the tax cuts could be allowed to expire on schedule after tax year 2010 rather than being rolled back by legislation earlier. "Those considerations will be made," he said on Fox News Sunday.

Bill Daley, an adviser to Obama and commerce secretary under former President Bill Clinton, said on NBC's Meet the Press that the 2010 scenario "looks more likely than not."

President George W. Bush's tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2010. After that they would revert to 2001 levels, when the top individual tax rate was 39.6 percent.

Obama has called for reducing taxes for the middle class, but requiring the wealthiest Americans to pay more than the current top rate of 35 percent.

His aides' comments suggest Obama may be wary of imposing any additional tax burden at a time of deep crisis, despite the outlook for record budget deficits and mounting national debt. He may also be seeking to bolster Republican support for his recovery measures.

Right now that's just a trial balloon, a big one, but I'm guessing it will soon turn many of us unsolicited Obama supporters from skeptics to opponents. Different straws will break different backs. Some already turned away from him in disgust when he named reactionary corporatist Larry Summers the director of the National Economic Council, someone who, no doubt, urged this decision on him. Oh well... We shouldn't be surprised that we get middle-of-the-road policies from an avowed middle-of-the-road candidate.


UPDATE: THE SNL RAHM EMANUEL SKIT THE DIDN'T GET AIRED

Ha, ha... very funny. Obama's first personnel choice is the worst Democrat in the entire corrupted Insider Establishment and everyone wants to make it a laughing matter. It isn't and in it are the seeds of doom.