Was it just a fender bender, or is it totaled?

Bumper stickers are a strange thing. When you look at a Prius with an Obama sticker, parked next to a Hummer with a McCain sticker in front of a Wal Mart and view the owners through corporate eyes; you see the exact same person.

They both spent too much money on a car that is an environmental disaster (the Hummer while it is being driven, and the Prius before and after it's useful life), they both have a plastic sticker expressing their views neatly placed on a car that publicly expresses their “views” as well, driving a H2 is making a statement for sure, (it doesn't matter to the bumper sticker printer whose name goes on the sticker, and it does not matter to GM or Toyota if the car is “green” or not, because no car is green), and they are both parked (and presumably shopping) at Wal Mart at the same time. As far as the money flow goes, the CEO's of Wal-Mart, Toyota, GM, and the bumper sticker print shop do not care what views you want to express with their products; so long as they have a product for you to express yourself with.

The other fun thing about bumper stickers is that people still put the name of their candidates on the coveted bumper space despite the fact that nobody ever decided who to vote for or against because they saw a sticker on the bumper of the car that just cut them off in traffic; yet they go on American cars by the millions in an act that is more a statement of who one supports, rather than an actual attempt to advertise or influence.

After the 2000 election the “Gore/Lieberman” stickers came off cars with lightning speed. The Bush/Cheney stickers stuck around; for almost seven years in some cases. The removal of Gore is not shocking at all; but the Bush supporters kept supporting Bush until his numbers dropped to the low thirties, and that support stayed put firmly on the backside of their SUV's.

The Bush bumper support system is still in place on some cars; even the McCain/Palien stickers came and went, but Bush is there until the wrecker takes the old heap away. So if the Bush Republicans kept the former president close to their hearts and bumpers, it begs to question; where has all the bumper support for Obama gone?

There is a noticeable absence of Obama/Biden tailgate propaganda out there on the roads lately; a marked change from just a year ago when the Subaru/Prius/Volvo set seemed obliged to have the trademark “O” with a field and sunset in red, white and blue, somewhere on the lower left bumper area of the family wagon. They were everywhere, some people wanted a larger statement then the standard sticker had to offer; one local even spray painted “It's Obama – Biden thyme” on the back of his old truck. (Now that has been covered with an anti war slogan, and an impeach Obama sticker.)

If the bumpers of the Northeast are any indication; the Democrats are in trouble for the midterm elections. It would seem that the President is not going to enjoy eight years of free advertising in America's traffic jams, because his stickers are being removed by the people who formerly dedicated free space to the cause. And if you loose free ad space; well, that does not bode well as to how people might be feeling about you, at least publicly.

The American People have been watching the “health care debate” with baited breath. Either they know what is in their own personal best interest, or have been mis-informed, or paid to resist. The long and the short of the matter is that Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida) hit it right on the head. We don't care about Congressional feelings, or their procedures. We saw the USA “Patriot” Act get rammed through both chambers and signed into law in an amazingly short period of time (September 11- October 26^th when Bush signed it) and that act effectively suspended the bill of rights! There was no foot dragging, no debate, no town halls with people screaming on cues from Fox News, no courting of Olympia Snowe, and no public discussion.

But when it comes to doing something that does not involve destroying liberty. When it comes to saving American lives. (After all, more lives lost each year due to the distrubition of health care in this country, than on both September 11, 2001 and Pearl Harbor combined.) Well; then the Republicans run around like a toddler who needs a nap, and the Democrats hem and haw and play patty cake with them.

Most Americans seem to need a strong public option, whether they want it or not. And they need it regardless as to the “afford-ability” of it (no one asked how much the wars would cost, why bother looking at price tags now?), surely we can get some of those guys from Goldman Sachs and Enron to crunch the numbers untill we all have healthcare for the cost of a Happy Meal, and the Goverment shows a profit to boot.  It seems that seldom have poor people in the South voted for the people who would pass programs that help them, but rather the Southern vote lately seems to go to people who cut programs like levees around New Orleans, and vote for the folks who give tax cuts to Halliburton Executives, all based on hollow vows of sharing “family values”. The Republicans took amazing advantage of fundamentalist's deepest fears over how god might punish a nation that harbors homos, and combined it with “strong defense” budgets to show the sports obsessed poor just how “bad ass” the Republicans are, and how wimpy and permissive “Liberals” were. The term was always applied to Democrats whether or not it was applicable.

But the yet to be answered question of the public option still hangs in limbo; so the bumper sticker tear down must been spawned by something else.

Some of the more left leaning gays abandoned the sinking ship first, even before he was sworn in, the choice of “Pastor” Rick Warren to deliver some sort of “national prayer” at the inauguration, a move that sent some of us right out to the car wash to tear off the symbol of what we were now starting to regret. Not only did Obama supporters deliver California's Proposition 8 into law, but now that action seemed validated by selecting Warren to be America's Pastor for an hour. The less reactive took a wait and see stance, protesting that “He hasn't even been sworn in yet!” - yes, that was the point. He's already acting like he is going to cave to the Republicans on everything, and he hasn't even been sworn in yet. For my part, I waited to start a blog that I knew was going to be hyper critical of him, while the rest of America seems to have been busy ordering plastic coated quarters for the bargain price of $29.95 if late night television was any indication. Even the Republicans waited to pounce; for awhile it looked like the late night comics might starve while waiting for acceptable Obama material to serve up a laugh at the new President's expense. For a time, people had a hard time not saying something nice about the guy. Even Fox News called his inauguration “Historic” - the most scathing insult they could muster out of the old verbal arsenal at the time.

We knew the honeymoon would end, but could anyone have predicted just how badly it might all go? We were busy shoveling money at a sinking economy back in January, told to just hold our collective nose in the face of mounting debt; but we couldn't handle the stench of round one of the AIG bonuses. That sparked the first “Nobama” signs propping up in front yards, and the first of the embarrassed Democrats peeling off the sticker saying “Of course I support Obama! It's just that the election is over.” like there was some other pressing matter to be discussed with a plastic sticker on the fender.

Still, mistakes happen, and in the rush to payout TARP to the banks the matter of bonuses with taxpayer money might have been overlooked, I mean after all; who could have predicted that any civil person would behave so irresponsibility with taxpayer money. So most of us gave Obama a pass on the bonus thing; the first time it happened.

The second round of Bonuses, this time labeled “retention” awards, came after stern warnings directly from the White House; now the bumper stickers were falling off the backs of cars like so many leaves in the crisp New England Fall.

The new Obama Justice Department chose the most inflammatory language possible while pursuing a very optional defense of DOMA likening private gay behavior as if farm animals were involved somehow, which alienated parts of the “gay community” even more. Then came the very public firing of two gay war hero's who came out on national television as a direct challenge to the new commander in chief to change a law they felt to be unfair. Obama said he could do nothing, and followed up by doing nothing. Of course after eight years of Bush Signing Statements, and Executive Orders authorizing a whole host of illegal activity including torture, the gays knew this was bullshit, and it became “uncool” to have an Obama decal next to a rainbow flag; and of course on the heels of the Warren blessing, fashion conscious gays could not park such an Obama be-sticker'd BMW near to anyplace that is even close to trendy. And even more stickers got the scrape.

As soon as a few Republican Governors stated their intent to reject federal stimulus money all bets for civil discourse were off as far as the far right was concerned, Rush, Beck, and Billow started throwing Acorn inspired tantrums.

In the peace arena, the people who don't want their tax money to pay to drop bombs on people that our government has no personal grievance with, but their lives have been deemed unworthy nonetheless, thought they scored a victory when the new President stepped up to the microphone and promised to close Gitmo. Now, with just one quarter left to “closure”, there have been no visible steps taken to make good as a fresh batch of soldiers prepare to ship off to the secret base for a year tour of duty. The President steps back up to the podium and announces that it's “Not that easy”. Again the rational mind says bullshit. There is an empty prison in Montana; and we all watched as the entire Circuit City chain wrapped things up, fired all the people who worked there, liquidated, and closed forever in less than six months. What exactly is the problem? If you are afraid to bring the prisoners to U.S. soil, then it begs to question what the fuck the government is doing detaining these men in the first place? If it seems I have oversimplified, I will gladly counter; perhaps it is the military who has overcomplicated things. It is a problem that the military made, and they get to own up to it, and deal with it. They will not be listening to my advise, or taking it if they were to listen (although the DOD does hit this site daily; my guess is that since they can't find Bin Laden; they are gonna try and figure out what I am up to, with a cat in my lap, typing while wearing pajamas). The rational and arguments at how difficult to “close” the prison is, are just fodder for distractive “debate” (foot dragging). Closing something is easy; you do it and leave.

The other problem for the anti war set is going to have to be the largest military budget ever, combined with expansion into the graveyard of empires.

The comments on the Huffington Post show strong Obama support and the “give him a chance, he just started” group of loyalists exist for sure, but the anonymity of the Internet is a lot less public than a bumper. And I have to wonder just how many of the people who are the President's strongest comment section supporters have done the peel of shame out in their garage after reading that the promise made to them by candidate Obama had been broken by President Obama.

Should health care reform pass without a public option, or one dependent on a trigger; I am guessing that the shame will finally carry over to the on-line world as well. Basically a strong public option is what such comments are counting on to back the “give him time” sets viewpoint, without it true liberals will make it open season on the Dems. Having seen the Republican Presidency push through the vile “Patriot Act” which was in fact – nothing of the sort, and follow it up with two wars that completely missed the stated target (Bin Laden) while providing a payday bonanza for Halliburton and friends, and tax cuts for the rich; setting the stage for a presidency that can accomplish any thing it wants so long as it uses patriotic terms; Liberals know just how much is possible with even the most mediocre of men at the helm. Bush set the bar really high when it comes to getting the conservatives their way all the time; and it was not wrong of liberals to have that same expectation of the new president, they even gave him both houses of the legislative branch to help things along.

Liberals find particular contempt for the Democrats because we know that a strong public option would happen for certain; if only they would start the bill with a good name that nobody could vote against. “The American Family Health Defense with Protection from Insurance Company Traitors Act of 2009” or maybe just “Family Values Act” would have been legislation just named to pass. Like “USA Patriot Act”, the crap inside can be totally unpatriotic, but if it has a catchy name; congress votes for it to avoid looking like..... well, a traitor.

Having watched Bush/Rove misuncommunicate everything for eight years, and still pull off two wars and a big tax cut, I learned a lot, my question for the Democrats is; why didn't you? (and yes I know the wars did not go well, but for Bush that was not the point; the point was to be a “Wartime President”, he got to be that. It is a big Skull and Bones thing, and it does not involve winning wars, just having them) {click on photo at left; yes, it is a Diebold truck with a Bush Sticker}

The current President knew just how bad things were when he ran. He knew how tough Washington is when he made the promises, and he assured us he could walk and chew gum at the same time. Now as he makes excuses for DADT, he and his supporters need to know; if he was not up to the job, there was a whole field of candidates who felt they were, he should have stepped aside then. Because now the only place to step is up.  The time to sidestep is over.

If the Dems get health reform with a strong public option, they will hold power for a generation; if not, the Democrats had better hope that the freshly bonus-ed executives at AIG (or whatever they have re-branded themselves as) Goldman, and Chase are able to turn people out to the polls in droves, if not the base of their party will be staying at home next election day, and the president will have his hands tied for the remaining two years of his presidency.

Jeb Bush is waiting in the wings for just the right moment to bring order to the Republicans, and as his brother George showed us in 2000; even if a Bush doesn't win, they still assume the office.

The Great American Bumper Poll, the only poll that the MSM ignores, and one Obama isn't going to be seeing numbers his plummet in (as motorcades don't allow for easy bumper sticker views); just another fender bender for a presidency that might be viewed as a car wreck, in our suburban empire.

If you have removed an Obama sticker please share your story in the comments!