Obama's Missed Chances

by Deacon Blues

I know I'm supposed to be angry about what's in the Senate Intelligence Committee's CIA report today, the fact that the CIA lied to everyone since 9/11 about interrogations and torture, even George W. Bush. And yes, the usual suspects within the Torture Industry like Dick Cheney, who should be in jail right now as a war criminal, and the lying weasel former CIA Director Michael Hayden, who himself is portrayed as a, well, lying weasel in the report are all up in arms about the report's release. But is anyone on the center-left really surprised at the findings? Haven't those of us on the center-left suspected and pieced all this together already?

Frankly, the bigger surprise is that a Democratic administration has fought off releasing this report this long, until faced with an incoming GOP majority that would forever bury these atrocities. It makes you sad that an incoming Democratic president in 2009 punted on a much-needed window to hold the other side accountable for a range of horrors during 2001-2008, like no prosecutions of Wall Street for the crash, and like no accountability for the defense-intelligence industry and what they did to this country in the name of fighting terrorism those sad years. But no, Barack Obama did none of those accountability "I'm the new boss" things when he first came into office. For whatever reason, there's been no real accountability on a wide array of bad deeds from the last decade, and now this same cast of borderline traitors are about to take power again when in fact many of them should be shamed out of ever having public office again.

Instead, we now get to see state Republican Attorney Generals sacrifice the public health of their constituents to whore themselves to polluters. We get to see the real desired result of Citizens United, where the five right wing activists on the Supreme Court intentionally gave billionaires the means to buy the government they want. And the incoming GOP majorities are already working directly with industry lobbyists to undo environment protections. But can the Democrats build a message with these travesties surrounding an economic argument and use it to push back effectively next year?

I say probably not, especially if the congressional leaders are still Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.