[dragonwriter]

> The man who promised to closed Guantanamo Bay... And didn't.

Yeah, I mean its not like Congress passed a law specifically prohibiting the actions the President proposed in order to close the detention facility at Guatanamo Bay. [1]

[1] They didn't pass a law, but several, on different occasions.

[pasbesoin]

There is an important point in this: The American public (i.e. citizenry) must look itself in the face and question what it has begotten.

Our "leaders" really mostly follow. They follow votes. They follow money. Increasingly, the influence of money (and the votes, and redistricting into "safe" districts, that it can buy) appears to be superceding that of raw, individual votes.

But it is still the citizens who cast those votes.

It's not just "them." It is "us." (For U.S. citizens. And for non-citizens who have various forms of influence upon U.S. policy, directly or in response to it.)

In that sense, it might be argued we have very much gotten the government we deserve.

If we think we deserve better, it is up to us. Not them.

[jjoonathan]

You mean they passed a law specifically blocking the actions the President took: he gave the executive order to close Guantanamo 2 days after the inauguration.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/ClosureOfGuantana...

Sure, he could find a way to push it through, but given the Republicans' historical success at demanding the world from a Democrat with a mandate (e.g. cutting capital gains tax by a third in exchange for childrens' health care), I'm sure their asking price was high.

[spikels]

C'mon it is not the Republicans. At the time that executive order was issued Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.

There is no bad team and good team (i.e. your team) but a rotten sport. Your thinking has fallen victim to their divide and conquer strategy.

[jjoonathan]

My point was not that Dems as a party were blameless, only that Obama could plausibly lie anywhere on the fault spectrum for this issue. You're correct to observe that the real fault lies with the political system that encourages the use of bargaining chips, but the people blaming Obama were the only ones saying otherwise.

I used CHIP as an example of congress opposing a mandate in order to win concessions. The CHIP issue almost certainly had roughly similar party lines, but given a few hours I'm sure I could dig up 10 examples of party X opposing party Y's mandate to extract concessions regardless of whether X==Y or X!=Y, if that would make you happy.

[d23]

And I think your thinking has fallen victim to a false equivalency.

[r0s]

There's a million ways he could fight that, loudly and publicly.

But why would he, when an army of apologists will rationalize and defend any failure.