Obama kills Democrats again, this time with gays and the stimulus

A federal judge recently issued an injunction against the military continuing its "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Not that anyone thinks it actually matters to him, but one of Obama's campaign promises was a pledge to get rid of "don't ask, don't tell" (an Obama campaign promise is like a 15 year old boy promising a girl anything to let him feel her up). But when a federal judge issued an injunction banning it, Obama decided to have the Justice Dept. appeal the decision.

Robert Gibbs, he of the "professional left wont be happy till the Pentagon doesn't exist and we have Canadian style healthcare" comment, said that Obama wasn't against getting rid of the policy, (really?) but the important question was "how to do it."

That's the important question? How to do it? A judge ruling it unconstitutional isnt good enough?

What the decision proves again is that Obama will say or do anything that he thinks is to his political advantage, and usually that means pandering to the right.

A few months ago, after Obama dropped the public option, then took the teeth out of financial reform, he said that he realized that his problem was that he concentrated too much on policy and not enough on process. As anyone with an IQ in 3 digits knows, the opposite is true. Obama is and always has been only about process not policy. He will junk an initiative and change policy on a dime to accommodate process if it means getting out from under political heat he feels from the right. Which is why he put the country through a year of unnecessary angst and political bloodletting over healthcare reform, for no good reason other than to try to get one Republican vote which in the end he couldn't get anyway.

So Obama backtracks again, instead of letting the judge's ruling stand as policy he mucks around in the idea that "how" to get rid of "don't ask don't tell" making politics and process more important.

Obama deciding to appeal the decision is another betrayal of a constituency that was dumb enough to believe him when he ran. But Obama wasn't finished making people gag last week. The issue of the economy brought out more snake oil, this time about the stimulus.

In a magazine interview regarding the stimulus Obama said that his problem was he "let himself look too much like the old tax and spend Democrat" ( interesting how Obama uses and re-enforces Republican sloganeering). Then he went on to say "I realized too late there is no such thing as 'shovel ready projects'". This from the man he and his supporters laughably said was ready to be president from day one.

Re-enforcing the Republican talking point of congressional Democrats as "tax and spend", and making congressional Democrats look like fools for buying his "shovel ready" concepts in passing his stimulus just two weeks before the congressional elections is not exactly political brilliance. But it is in keeping with everything Obama does.

So now Obama has thrown Democrats running for re-election under the bus where they can join just about everyone else Obama has ever come in contact with from Jeremiah Wright, the Trinity Church to his own mother and grandmother as Ed Koch, former mayor of New York once pointed out, in the service of his own political standing.

Obama topped off the week with another display of political courage by campaigning for the Democratic senate candidate in -- ta-da! -- Delaware! That's where Republican Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell, of the dabbling in witchcraft past, is given virtually no chance of winning. Is this a profile in political courage or what?

The conventional wisdom as voiced by Mike Allen at Politico, is that Obama went to Delaware because the Democrat is virtually assured of winning and he was looking for a race where he could claim he made a difference and take some credit.

If nothing else Obama proved again last week that there is in fact one thing that is "shovel ready" -- every word that comes out of Obama's mouth.

NOTE: On October 2oth the Obama administration filed for an injunction preventing the lower courts order to stop "dont ask dont tell" from being implemented. The appeals court granted the injunction effectively restoring "dont ask dont tell", the policy Obama had pledged to abolish.