Give it away, give it away, give it away now

So few Americans have held the fate of so many others in their hands. The president is one of those few to ever hold the double-edged sword of power/responsibility. However, Barack Obama has wielded that sword very poorly in any objective sense. "Who, whom?" is the marxist/materialist economics question to ask for motivations. Similar to "follow the money," this idea simply tracks the most basic aspect of human nature, self-interest, and transfers it to those in power. Or at least that is how I have come to understand Lenin's question.

Who does No. 2 work for?

Why has Barack Obama insisted on proposing cuts to Social Security/Medicare and other New Deal programs as an initial bargaining position? Is this really the political boxing equivalent of "leading with your face" that it seems? We have discussed government magic, wailers, and the intransigience of teabaggers before on this page but the speculation machine over what "he" is doing has failed to make it all the way up the burp-tube. Unlike the right, who from top down seem to be in lockstep about how badly they want to hurt people, the left is never a team but simply disjointed voices that agree from time to time in isolation and never seem to be on the same page.

One area of concordance between the liberal blogosphere and it's many commentors is the question of "why is the president so remote and aloof from us?" It gives rise to an awful lot of conspiracy theories from simply being a tool of wall street to playing 11 dimensional chess to just plain naivete. Of course... we don't know and probably never will truly understand our president.

That fact certainly has not stopped the speculators from trying to pin down just what is going through Barack Obama's head in economic and domestic policy proposals or the elusive plans of the administration. And at that point the wheat is almost indistinguishable from the chaff. History is so much easier to analyze because the answers to some degree materialize. Despite the rampant fear and hyperventilating in 1800 Thomas Jefferson showed that he was neither a godless heathen out to ban Christianity (be still my Santayana heart), nor an agent of radicals in France (and you Birchers thought you were so original in claiming Eisenhower was a secret communist). But here, who knows? All the speculation in the world and a dollar might get you a cup of coffee, unless you are getting paid some other way to fill column inches.

I realize this post has already gone on too long, if you've made it this far; thank you, and my hat is off to you. Without further ado, The Red Hot Chili Peppers!