lacking all sense of irony

[realthog]

I've just read the latest tickertape headline on the BBC website:

EGYPT UNREST:
US State Department condemns 'excessive force' used by Egyptian police against protesters

Comments

[realthog.livejournal.com]

Me, I can't understand why Obama isn't very loudly saying the police repression, USA-style, must stop forthwith. It'd cost him exactly zero political capital -- quite the contrary, it'd likely be a vote-winner. And it'd perhaps restore some small modicum of respect to the US in the eyes of the world.

Stringing up many of the most egregious criminals on Wall Street, their counterparts in Congress, and of course several of the more obviously bought members of the Supreme Court would have a similar effect, but I don't expect him to see eye-to-eye with me on this.

[al-zorra.livejournal.com]

Because he's one of them. Wall Street is giving him tons of money.

He's what one might have called some time in the past a right of the middle conservative Rethug. He's done everything asked to increase the police state.

The question is why Obama isn't opposing the the crazies, the question is why we're seeing, finally, a movement that eschews both the dope dems and the rethugs. Answer: because they are the same.

Love, C.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I know the point you're making, except that I'd class him as a moderate Repug, not a "right of the middle conservative" one -- which is still to say that, in most other western democracies, he'd be well to the right of centre.

But that wasn't really what I was talking about. What I can't understand is why, as a savvy politician, he's not loudly denouncing the police violence: it's something that would gain him a lot of political capital -- not just here but abroad (you of all people, dear one, will know the damage this is doing to us internationally) -- and cost him nothing.