Obama Ain’t No “LibruL”

(9 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

In case no one has yet recognized this little point of fact, just take a look at his right wing, Wall St, banker, corporations, protect the wealthiest staff. From the flat out obnoxious Rahm Emanuel to his latest addition of former GE CEO, Jeffrey Immelt to head his jobs council, Obama has surrounded himself with the people that he was voted into office to keep out of government. Obama’s deputy chief of staff, Jim Messina (not the singer), who never saw a right wing idea he didn’t like, was appointed to head Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. If you don’t know who Jim Messina is, you’re not alone unless you are a member of a progressive group that has tried to work with this White House, like Campaign for America’s Future, Health Care for America Now (HCAN) or Servicemembers Legal Defence Network (SLDN). Messina came into the Obama circle in June of 2008 after having service as chief of staff for corporations favorite Democrat, Sen. Max Baucus (MT) as the campaign’s chief of staff (with David Plouffe remaining the top dog). In a Mother Jones‘s article in by David Corn questioned:

As the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, Obama is now the leader of a political entity that includes idealistic, reform-seeking, public-interest do-gooders as well as corporate-minded professionals connected to the pay-to-play system deeply rooted in the nation’s capital. (I’m not saying Messina is one or the other.) Unifying such a party under the banner of change will have its challenges. Obama’s campaign is now being partly run by a fellow (presumably a talented political operative) who served a Democrat who helped enact major legislation Obama depicts as harmful to the nation. Is that a sign Obama can reach out to those with whom he disagrees, or is it an accommodation to the ways of Washington?

I think we have the answer to that question and in The Nation, Ari Berman writes an in depth article about Messina as Obama’s “enforcer”:

In March 2009 the Campaign for America’s Future, a top progressive group in Washington, launched a campaign called “Dog The (Blue) Dogs” to pressure conservative Blue Dog Democrats to support President Obama’s budget. When he heard about the effort, White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, who was regarded as the Obama administration’s designated “fixer,” called CAF’s leaders into the White House for a dressing down, according to a CAF official. If the group wanted to join the Common Purpose Project, an exclusive weekly strategy meeting between progressive groups and administration officials, CAF had to drop the campaign. We know how to handle the Blue Dogs better than you do, Messina said. Not wanting to sour its relationship with the White House at this early date, CAF complied, and the campaign quickly disappeared from its website. Despite Messina’s assurance, however, the Blue Dogs would remain a major obstacle to the realization of the president’s legislative agenda.

These were the same tactics used to stifle GLBT organizations during the campaign to repeal DADT (which is very apparently still in effect). Joe Sudbay at AMERICAblog Gay points out Messina’s role in putting DADT repeal on the back burner of the Obama legislative agenda:

Gay rights was another major issue on which Messina clashed with Obama supporters. The relationship between the administration and gay rights groups was strained from the outset, when Obama chose Rick Warren to deliver his inaugural invocation. “It is difficult to comprehend how our president-elect, who has been so spot-on in nearly every political move and gesture, could fail to grasp the symbolism of inviting an anti-gay theologian to deliver his inaugural invocation,” wrote Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), in the Washington Post.

After reading the op-ed, Messina sternly rebuked Solmonese during a meeting at the White House. “I’m never going back to another meeting like that again,” Solmonese angrily told his staff afterward. From then on, HRC, to the consternation of other gay rights groups, toed the administration line.

With Messina as a top liaison to the gay rights community, the White House was reluctant to make repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) a key legislative priority. “The White House, under Rahm and Messina, suffered from political homophobia,” says Joe Sudbay, who writes about gay rights issues for AMERICAblog. “They’re not homophobes in the traditional sense of the word, but they think it’s dangerous to do gay issues in politics.” Groups that questioned Messina’s strategy, such as the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, were frozen out of key White House meetings. “I felt like he was constantly angry with those of us who would not fall in line,” says Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United (no relation to SLDN).

It’s pretty clear to anyone not blinded by Obama’s so-called “light” that Messina was appointed to throw any of the progressives and liberals that had helped elect Obama in ’08 under the bus to protect Obama right wing corporate agenda. Starting with Clinton and now Obama the Democratic party has been turned into the party of Reaganomics and big money. Obama’s re-election will certainly seal the deal to sell out America.