Obama and MoveOn's circular firing squad.

On September 13, 2008, President Barrack Obama said this in a public, televised speech in Minnesota on health care reform. This is from the transcript:

" I think one of the options should be a public insurance option. (Loud cheers) Let me be clear. It would only be an option, nobody would be forced to choose it. No one with insurance would be affected by it. But what it would do is provide more choice and more competition. It would keep pressure on private insurers to keep the policies affordable, to treat their customers better. I mean think about it. It's the same way the public colleges and universities provide additional choice and competition to students. That doesn't inhibit private colleges and universities from thriving out there. The same should be true on the health care front. Minnesota I have said I'm open to different ideas on how to set this up and we're going to set this up but I'm not going to back down on the basic principle that if Americans can't find affordable coverage we're going to provide you a choice."

President Obama to the Washington Post in March 2010 after pushing through a healthcare bill with no public option:

 "I never campaigned for a public option".

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 A few days ago MoveOn circulated ballots for MoveOn members to vote on whether to support Barrack Obama's re-election or to support no one and concentrate on the Democrats controlling congress.

 At first it seemed amazing that the leadership of MoveOn had come to their senses and realized the problem for Democrats all along was Obama and that the problem was so severe that they were putting the question of whether to support his re-election to a vote. It seemed even more amazing given that they had been an organization that for more than four years had been so weak, so myopic, and so gutless in its responses to Obama and so intellectually dishonest about what has easily been the worst presidency in the history of the Democratic party that they had Obama's footprints all over their backs. So change seemed to be in the air.

 But then the results came in. And 91% of MoveOn members decided the best course of action was to continue to prove Einstein's definition of insanity which is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results, and they overwhelmingly voted to support Obama's re-election,  proving that much like the president they voted to support, they are soreley lacking in real principle, conviction and backbone. Not to mention out of touch with reality. Which is why they have been so ineffective in getting what they want.

There is a strange mindlessness, even cultish zombie like aura now around MoveOn and its membership that should make any rational Democrat or progressive uncomfortable. Its why Clinton supporters characterized Obama supporters as "drinking the Kool-Aid".

 Just as the tea party and the extreme right exhibit a mindless gross irrationality in their positions and political actions, and an irrational groupthink that defies independent thought, the same can be said for MoveOn and its membership. And any other Democratic or progressive group that thinks the same way they do.

But while MoveOn's membership continues to demonstrate Einstein's definition of insanity, another group of former Obama voters have apparently had enough and come to their senses. This is the college vote and based on most current polls and statistics, Obama has lost them.

 Obama in his four years in office gutted, reneged, buried and otherwise destroyed just about every aspect of the Democratic party agenda, squandering the biggest congressional majority any president had in 60 years, capitulated to Republicans on almost every front when it was completely unnecessary and destroyed the chance to pass the most transformative legislation in decades from genuine health care reform with a public option to sweeping financial reform, simply because he lacked the spine, principle, conviction or desire for that matter to accomplish anything. Instead what we got from Obama was blatant lying and misrepresenting of the truth on just about everything and doing it more easily than any politician in recent memory. And this is who 91% of MoveOn's membership voted to support.

 This is why conservatives get what they want from their elected officials even when they are in the minority and progressives, liberals and Democrats don't. Conservatives insist their politicians and representatives fulfill their ideology ( as distasteful and un-American as it is) and if they don't they replace them.

 Obama did more to trash and obstruct the Democratic agenda than any Republican and lied about it along the way. And still progressives and Democrats are too spineless to hold him accountable. Instead they try to pretend its everyone else's fault but Obama's.

 For destroying the health care public option alone and the great good it would have done for the country when he had the votes in congress to pass it, Obama does not deserve re-election. Add to that his constant reneging on everything from getting rid of the Bush tax cuts to closing Gitmo, his constant selling out of Democratic ideas and ideals, the ACLU's assessment that Obama's record on individual liberties and human rights is, in their words, " disgusting" he simply does not deserve to be supported or re-elected.

 By now most Democrats will concede he never deserved to be the Democratic nominee in the first place, and got there through chacanery and self-delusion, but the people at MoveOn, back in 2008 ignored the fact that he promised he would filibuster and vote against the FISA bill if it had retroactive immunity in return for their endorsement, and then, after getting their endorsement, not only didn't filibuster the bill but voted for it. And yet they still haven't learned.

 Maybe MoveOn and other so called progressive groups are still flummoxed over the issue of race and are too weak to treat Obama as any other elected official should be. But the best outcome for the country would be for the Democrats to regain control of congress and for Romney to win. Romney would be forced to compromise with a Democratic congress and he would. Which would accomplish a lot more than Obama caving in to a Republican congress. And at the same time it would send a strong message to Democrats as to what Democratic voters thought of the Obama presidency and his constant selling out and it would send a message to other elected Democrats for the future.

 In the meantime MoveOn needs to indeed move on and to think about changing their name to something more appropriate, like StillStuck.org.