Capitalist

Mitt Romney and the RWS™ will push any lie they think people will buy. Top of the list, other than, you know, the Muslim Kenyan terrorist thing, is that President Obama is a socialist, a hater of capitalism. Not that it would matter to them or their true believers, but this runs in the face of about a billion facts, not the least of which is that the Dow has nearly doubled since Obama took office, Wall Street profits are at all-time highs, corporate taxes are lower, hundreds of regulations have been removed or simplified...

Not news: teabaggRs will believe anything. News: Obama has managed to play it in such a way as to lose people on the left and the right. As Gov. Spitzer says, his words piss off Wall-Streeters, his actions piss off liberals. Despite flourishing under his presidency, the über-capitalists are sending their money to Mitt. And liberals are adding this to their growing list of disappointments.

In the same zone: the romneying of Obama's energy policies. You hear Mitt talk, our president has all but completely corked the flow of oil. You learn the facts, you know that under Obama, drilling has quadrupled compared to Bush, and that we're closer to energy independence than we've been in a generation. And yet, proving the success of the deliberate dumbification by RWS™ and Fox "news," there was a letter to the editor in my local newspaper the other day, asking when liberals would demand Obama end the ban on drilling so gas prices can go down.

The made-up Obama has been an awful president, a destroyer. A communiss. Never the far-lefty he was called by Fox "news" and the rest of the RWS™, the real one has been a middle-of-the-road disappointment to many liberals. So he's fighting lies from one side and truth from the other. Tough gig. (If you want an even more compelling look at how Obama is anything but a socialist, and is, in fact, an economic conservative, read this amazing article. And yet, the lies from the right take hold like crabgrass.)

By far, the best thing Obama has going for him in the general election against Mitt Romney is Mitt Romney. A Romney presidency -- since he believes in nothing -- would be an unencumbered breezeway for takeover by people like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner and Wayne LaPierre and Louie Gohmert and Virginia Foxx and Michele Bachmann... god, the mind reels. Dark ages theocracy. Zombie economics. A hatefest. A lost future.

That's why Obama deserves to win. Well, that, and ending the war in Iraq, the Ledbetter law, health care (which could have been way better), the automobile industry, reversing the economic collapse, progress on equality (but not enough), believing in science (but kind of ignoring it, vis â vis climate change)... So, yeah, I'll vote for him, and not really reluctantly. But wishing he'd been stronger in many things, while certain it'd have been much worse under McCain/Palin, and would be even more so were Mitt to sit in the Oval Office.