Roger D. Hodge: "The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism"

[brentspeak]

Published last month by Harper. From Amazon's product description:

Americans find themselves in genuine confusion and dismay concerning the actions of President Obama's administration, especially when it comes to the financial crisis and health care. Obama's reform packages, passed with great fanfare, ignore the most significant perils facing the United States. In The Mendacity of Hope, Roger D. Hodge makes the provocative case that substantive reform was never even on the table. Behind the euphoria of Obama's victory was in fact a business-as-usual corporate machine, a bloc of political investors, campaign contributors, and lobbyists expecting big returns on their investments. And what a return they have received: in one bailout after another, for the health insurance industry as well as for Wall Street, Obama made sure that the Democratic Party's most powerful investors made out like bandits.

None of Obama's most important campaign promises—ending the Iraq war, abolishing torture, closing GuantÁnamo, changing Washington's culture of corruption—has come to pass. Instead, he has escalated the conflict in Afghanistan, bailed out the bankers, and institutionalized the civil rights abuses of the Bush regime.

Another president might have played the forces of corporate interest differently, but Hodge argues that the fantasy of American politics is that a different kind of president is possible without a fundamental reform of our political system. Americans bought into the delusion that one man could bring change to Washington, but instead of reform we've seen a continuation of George W. Bush's assault on the Constitution. Obama's presidency has demonstrated that mere hope is never enough, that change will come only when the American people take charge of their own politics. A brilliantly crafted call to arms, The Mendacity of Hope offers an essential analysis of the American political system and the powerful interests that control our government.

http://www.amazon.com/Mendacity-Hope-Betrayal-American-Liberalism/dp/006201126X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291135786&sr=8-1

Reviewing the book, Naomi Wolf sums up the ominous feeling many people have been having concerning Obama's presidency:

"“Roger Hodge has written a desperately needed expose of how Barack Obama is not the messiah of liberalism but its designated gravedigger. . . ."

[xchrom]

1. recommend -- i'd say bill clinton was the first with the shovel -- but

as long as it all gets out there and talked about.

[ProSense]

2. Utter drivel:

"None of Obama's most important campaign promises—ending the Iraq war, abolishing torture, closing GuantÁnamo, changing Washington's culture of corruption—has come to pass. Instead, he has escalated the conflict in Afghanistan, bailed out the bankers, and institutionalized the civil rights abuses of the Bush regime. "

First of all, the bank bailout was implemented under Bush. Secondly, the President is honoring his promise to end the Iraq war. Thirdly, President Obama campaigned on adding more troops to Afghanistan, and has also announced plans to withdraw.

The mendacity belongs to the President's critics who seem to believe distortion is the only way to make their case.

[Vinnie From Indy]

3. Hokey Smokes Batman!

BS

Obama has not been engaged in three dimensional chess, he has been playing three card monte. Guess who the suckers are?

Cheers!

[Name removed]

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[ProSense]

10. It was enacted by the Bush administration for its failures.

Elizabeth Warren deemed it at that point a necessary emergency action, but Obama is primarily responsible for and credited with the successful management of the program.

[polichick]

12. Try reading the book before spinning - you might be less obvious. nt

[ladjf]

14. I am one of the President's critics. But, you are wrong about me.

I don't have the slightest hope that any criticism I might could offer would have the slightest influence on anything. I'm just dispirited. We've lived through the Clinton scandals, the Bush criminal disaster and now, a President who seems to be mostly advancing the Republican rich people's agenda.

There's no hope in sight. It won't matter who wins in 2012. It will be more of this stealing
the wealth from the middle class and giving it to the rich.

[ProSense]

15. Was I referring to you?

Are you one of the "President's critics who seem to believe distortion is the only way to make their case"?

[ladjf]

18. No, I am a critic but do not feel that "distortion" , as you put it, is

the only way to make the case. I don't feel that anything will "make the case".

[ProSense]

24. And I didn't say all critics rely on distortion. n/t

[xiamiam]

16. you are consistent..nt

[Name removed]

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[Autumn]

4. In many ways I agree

I think I will look for the book.

[joeybee12]

5. Even the most die-hard Obama apologists have to admit that the guy is right

when he says change comes from the people...yup, always goes bottom up. I think a lot of people who thought Obama could change anything were pretty young and naive.

[polichick]

11. And those of us who actually thought Obama WANTED real change...

...were taken for a long, sickening ride.

[AtomicKitten]

6. ""The Mendacity of Hope" is a sloppily organized, badly argued and deeply reactionary book ..."

Alas, Hodge's critique is not convincing and, in the oddest of ways, not even from the left. "The Mendacity of Hope" is a sloppily organized, badly argued and deeply reactionary book unlikely to have any influence at all on the way Americans think about their president.


Review: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/22/AR2010102203010.html

[Scurrilous]

8. I think I will NOT look for the book.

:P

[AtomicKitten]

13. I didn't look for it before it was cool.

:P

More from the review:

Hodge is smart enough to realize that his leftism masks an affinity with the right. "The Tea Partiers," he writes, "are not wrong to be angry with Obama and the Democrats." He would like to see people of his persuasion join forces with libertarians such as Ron Paul. "To Americans," he writes, faithfully adhering to the 18th-century reactionaries he so admires, "all arbitrary power should be suspect, whether it originates in a private corporate bureaucracy, a public welfare agency, a public-private monopoly, the CIA, or the Department of Homeland Security." How Hodge can reconcile that position with his support for a state strong enough to regulate capitalism is beyond my capacity to figure out.

An alliance between the tea party and leftists fed up with Obama is unlikely ever to happen; I somehow doubt that either Sarah Palin or Ron Paul would have as many nice things to say about Hodge as he does of them. We still need a critique of Obama from the left. To be effective, it will have to be grounded in reality. "The Mendacity of Hope" is not.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/22/AR2010102203010.html

[AndrewP]

27. The fact that he likes Ron Paul makes me want to miss out on his book

[Blue_Tires]

33. The fact that he actually sees the teabaggers as a legit movement

diminishes his credibility in my eyes...

[Recursion]

21. "Hodge may think he belongs on the left...

...but such indifference to the needs of real people is chilling in its lack of compassion."

Yes, and it's as chilling here on DU, as if the fact that a company will (God forbid) make a profit outweighs the access to health care that is being expanded to people who had no chance at it before. Being right isn't enough in politics.

[polichick]

9. I read this over the weekend - horrifying but critical for Dems to know...

The sooner we get how badly we've been had, the sooner we can do something about it.

K&R

[xiamiam]

17. this is crucial..ignore the message managers ..trust your instincts..look around..pay attention

read everything and make your own decisions..wisely. Things are not going well for the middle class in our country right now..distrust anyone who tells you differently.

[impik]

19. Only two more years, Hang in there.

[Recursion]

20. God I hope not

If we start to reverse the progress we've made in just two years that's going to really suck.

[impik]

22. Why not? Looks like it's a consensus on the left. People can't wait for Obama to go away

[polichick]

23. Sure, in favor of someone who actually works for the people instead of corps. nt

[Recursion]

25. That's just sad

Fine, you guys go pout.

[polichick]

26. It's incredibly sad that we've been conned, but looks like you're the "pouter." nt

[Ikonoklast]

30. Then why do most polls show Obama with a favorable rating among Democrats?

"Consensus of the left"?

The five guys you know that hang out at the coffee shop?


What a joke.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

28. Does anybody here

honestly truly believe that ANY President is going to get ALL 100% of their desired agenda enacted into law (i.e. through Congress) in the EXACT precise form that they campaigned on- let alone with the first two years they are in office? People running for political office make a lot of campaign promises (people expect to know what they're going to try to do) but, aside from things that, say, a President can do with the stroke of a pen, politicians have to work with other politicians to get laws passed, which often requires a lot of negotiation and compromise with all sorts of people with varied interests.
To the extent that Congress has cooperated with President Obama on some of the aforementioned issues as well as others, his record of accomplishment during the first two years of his first term is pretty darned remarkable IMHO- certainly nothing to casually dismiss. Yet, regardless of what he and his party in Congress were able to do in the face of pretty extraordinary circumstances IMHO, it seems like a lot of people just want to focus with a laser beam either on what he hasn't done (yet) or what he hasn't done ENOUGH of, neither of which makes for an enduring and/or effective political movement.
Every President makes mistakes, miscalculates, stumbles, doesn't fulfill everything they promised during the campaign, or what they got accomplished isn't exactly what they campaigned on. That's just life and, absent the kind of extraordinary circumstances like 9/11, it's going to be pretty much the same situation for any President-even somebody, were they to come along, claiming a truly progressive mantle for themselves will inevitably disappoint or fall short in one way or another. However, there's plenty of blame to go around and it annoys the hell out of me that some want to pin all of the blame on President Obama and don't look at the whole picture, which not only includes the recalcitrant Democrats in the Senate that he had to deal with but also, and more importantly, the extraordinary lengths to which which the Republicans in Congress (and particularly the Senate) went to gum up the works during the past two years.
Bottom line is that anybody expecting (progressive) perfection from Obama, who was promising nothing of the sort, will, I guess, continue to remain in a disappointed funk that they can't/won't be talked out of. :shrug:

[jeanpalmer]

31. What is his desired agenda?

Who's stopping him from proposing it?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

34. Nobody AFAIK

Maybe he hasn't proposed the whole list of DU agenda particulars but that doesn't mean that he hasn't been actively proposing some major agenda items to Congress and, amazingly, he and the Democrats in Congress actually managed to get some decent legislation through. Unless I've been living on another planet this whole time. :shrug:

Stimulus-Passed
Health Care Reform-Passed
Financial Reform- Passed
DADT Repeal- Proposed, supported, awaiting passage by Congress.

I'm sure I'm missing some less *significant* legislation that has passed as well but these things are some of the biggies so far.

[Name removed]

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