I’m one of those people that gave a few hundred bucks to Obama’s website to get the ‘Change we need’.  I sang his praises after his courageous and insightful speech on race and was confident he would make a better president than Hilary even before he won Iowa.  So is anyone else like me sorely disappointed in the guy?

Why did he keep Gates on as Secretary of Defense?  I’m a pragmatist in my own life.  I don’t really know what relativism is, but I think I practice it.  Even if keeping Gates on is the most practical choice in the universe, it disappointed me.  He may be a reasonably good leader in the Pentagon, but his pattern of high level involvement in frighteningly imperialist policies and actions make him impossible for me to accept in such a pivotal role.

I don’t claim to know much about the guy, but I do know that he actively supported colonial interventionist policies in neighboring Central American countries.  These were the same policies that guided the United States to fund and promote brutal and merciless dictators to become heads of state in Central and South America.

Robert Gates, and those who thought like him, believed these dictators were qualified to run entire countries because they directed their cruelty and violence against folks who made the grave mistake of believing that a political system closer to socialism or even communism might improve their impoverished lives.

That was all before Gates, while at the CIA, worked closely with many senior figures in the Iran-contra scandal…  Lovely.

Having this guy be a cabinet level advisor to Obama on Military policy does not qualify as the change I had in mind.

And why didn’t Obama or Geithner know what was going on with the AIG bonuses?  Or worse yet, if they knew, why didn’t they prevent it?  Either they were uninformed about an incredibly sensitive and obvious issue, or they knew about it and did nothing to prevent it thinking it would turn out OK.  Maybe they felt that if the information ever became public some stern words and finger wagging would clear them of the stink. I wonder how that “strong government legal action to recover the money” is going anyway?  Last I heard the only money recovered was willingly given back by execs.

These are old grievances, and maybe petty ones.  Perhaps, he promised too much hope and we bought into it.   The Pacifica-radio-listening crowd will have to grow up and get over some early disappointments.  I’m sure I will.

I still think he will fulfill the hopes of everyone who got excited about politics in this past election.  I still think he will affirm for all of us that fresh idealism can trump jaded experience and composure can defeat hostility.  I still believe Obama has it in him to make a bold move in the direction of justice and change.  An audaciously progressive appointment to the supreme court would be a great re-start.

I just hope he doesn’t promise us a mutt from the pound and nominate a pure bred Portuguese water dog instead.

-Martin Gin