Politics is a free-for-all of men and women made crazy by their love of power, and  even the best of politicians often find what seemed possible before winning was impossible once in power.  America’s system favors the status quo, even when the opposition is principled and sane, which today it is not.  So I give every politician several strikes before he or she starts plummeting in my eyes.  A “strike” is a lie about an important issue used to win votes.  For me, constitutional government and civil liberties are pretty big issues, and from that perspective Barack Obama has made two big strikes.

Obama will always have a special place in our history for being our first non-white President, and for ending the ordeal of sane people being ruled by crazy people.  He has also saved us from the horrors of a McCain/Palin presidency.    No new travesties to the law or common decency have taken place.  Finally, he has shown the ability to conduct a foreign policy more in the interests of the American people and common decency than that of his predecessors.  Important good things have emerged, though still more in promise rather than accomplishment.  See also this interesting CBS News discussion.

This is far from nothing.  But it’s still significantly less than many of us hoped, when we supported and voted for him.  

Despite his words to the contrary, so far Obama has proven no friend of constitutional liberties and civil liberties.  He has just underlined his second strike, in the sense of lying about very important campaign promises.  Were he a businessman and his campaign a kind of contract, he’d be guilty of fraud and breach of contract, not because he didn’t produce, but because he actively went back on his word when he did not have to.  

First, Obama has lied about conducting a more open government, where transparency can serve as the best disinfectant to corruption and law breaking.  This violation of his repeated promises initially appeared when he sought to conceal Bush’s and his underlings’ crimes  of torture.  We must remember that most of the leading people responsible for those crimes committed not quite as bad crimes when they were in the Reagan administration or, for the oldest, served in the criminal Nixon administrations.  Many are repeat offenders who will likely do it again if given the chance.  To protect them he has made serious claims to executive supremacy in the spirit of George Bush, whom he rightly criticized when seeking our votes.  As usual, Glenn Greenwald is the gold standard in reporting on this issue.  Another excellent Greenwald analysis of Obama’s utter failure regarding transparency is here. 

Second, Obama has consistently and rather inexplicably lied to the gay community.  During his campaign he promised to be their defender.  He has produced nothing, and turned his back on the opportunities that have come to him as John Avarosis at Americablog has long documented.    Dick Cheney is more decent on gay marriage than Barack Obama. 

Now, and related to the first failing, Obama has adopted Bush’s policy of denying access to White House visiting logs, even though the law and precedent before W were clear. He has no legal justification at all for this high handedness.    For more, see Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.  He is our employee, not our king.  Right wingers and serfs want ‘commanders in chief,’ but good citizens want a president who represents them.  Obama needs reminding of that fact.

Obama is no Republican.  On balance, Republicans initiate bad things whereas Democrats refrain from changing the bad things Republicans initiate.  One is scary, the other a disgusting.  I’ll take disgust over fear.  But it’s still disgust.

UPDATE
As I linked to John Avarosis’ America Blog as part of the evidence for this post, I feel it necessary to point out that he has gone off the deep end in his analysis.  The problem he reports is true in general, but his analysis is getting pretty flawed.  See this reply by Congressman Frank and  the discussion that follows.