Web Letters: Obama on the Brink

When Obama shifted to the center, most Obama supporters decided to give him a pass and understood that his campaign feels he has to do this to be elected. I agree that there is no left anymore in this country, and accept this although I decry it. Despite the rhetoric, one can read inbetween the lines that he is less bellicose than McCain with Iran--much to Israel's chagrin, but that's too bad, isn't it? Yet Obama is the best hope we've got, and then some, and we really don't have a choice.

I don't trust the polls nor the still uncorrected voting machine system, and another stolen election will doom the US into oblivion. The neocons don't care about the US, though. They are determined there be no accountability--perhaps terrified Israel's role will be exposed--and I fear Obama will pander to this with catastrophic sequelae.How can he restore global respect if he allows accountability to die? I can only reiterate the European view that the uninformed self-destructive tendencies of the American electorate are legion and may yet prevail, and then may god help us all. Sheeple on their way to the slaughter.

Stanley Hersh

New York, NY

Excuse me, but exactly when was Barack Obama not "just another political hack"? Seems to me his entire career has been one of vague sloganeering, compromise and (often cynical) calculation. If you believed the hype, you deserve the inevitable disillusionment. The only real progressive in the Democratic primary race was Dennis Kucinich.

Of course I'll vote for Obama in November, solely because in my judgment his policies are likely to kill fewer people than McCain's. If we're very lucky, we might also get some semblance of a national healthcare program (albeit one deeply flawed compared to what most other industrialized nations have). But unlike Bob Scheer and others who ought to know better, I've never been under any impression that Obama represents those of us who hold a genuine antiwar, anti-imperialist, pro-equality worldview. He clearly represents the centrist wing of the US establishment, while McCain represents the right wing. (There is not, and has never been, a left wing of the US establishment.)

Marcia F. Steiner

Battle Ground, WA

In the words of the great Mad magazine of the fifties, "Shaddap, willya?" Robert Scheer has sucked the life out of this for us again. Of course, any candidate running in this day and age has to walk the tightrope. You know he has to please various factions to get elected... factions like yours... ours. No one complained when Dr. King met with Lyndon Johnson.

Here we have upon us the potentially greatest President we have ever had in this country, one who has the intelligence and skills as well as not being from Washington cabals or corporate boardrooms... and you have to worry this thing to death.

Let's get him in there, for God's sake, save the country and thus immediately give all manner of progressive patriots new projects to do. You won't be able to rebuild the country by tearing down or making Obama's quest more difficult. He is just one person. He will serve quite well, I think, as the conduit for the rennassaince--but not if he doesn't get into office. And not if we don't fight with every muscle to regain control of Congress.

I swear, the left has been "Down So Long It Looks Like Up" to them, to borrow from Farina, but now it's now addicted to "down," and can't shake it. FISA will be fixed, the oil war will be over, the terrorists and thieves will be finished. But only "if you can keep it."

Richard Ray Harris

Desert Hot Springs, CA

Wow. Finally someone with the courage to review what happens when men get close enough to the leather chair of the Oval Office to smell the leather--they all seem to sell their souls. Senator Obama seems to have become so tentative that he is only a caricature of his former self. His address today on Iran sounded identical to the Administration. Does Israel really have that much power over our democracy? Why rattle swords now?

James Pinette

Caribou, ME