I sang that then and I’ll sing it again. I was saying it in 2007 when directing a small revival of Sam Shepard’s The God of Hell, a 2004 anti-Bush play yes, but as I told the cast then, it’s a play about big government gone out of control and extends beyond Bush. I told them electing a Democrat isn’t gonna get us out of the Middle East, and that therefore this diabolical little play will remain relevant for years to come. At least Obama was up front in his platform from the outset.
I guarantee you someone out there’s printing up bumper stickers right now that read Nobomba, and they’ll sell like hotcakes to the same disillusioned liberals who put him in office. I am one of those people who put him in office and I’m proud of it. I still proudly display my Obama-Biden ’08 bumper sticker on my front door, but I’m no fool, and I never supported all he stood for. One delusion lots of his supporters seem to suddenly suffer from is that he claimed to be some sort of peace bringer, the antithesis of warmonger Bush, when this was never the case. Do you all, my fellow Obama voters, have amnesia? You’re intelligent people, I know you are. So why have you forgotten that going into Afghanistan was part of his platform all along? Don’t you remember his constant stumping that under Bush we “took our eye off the ball” in Afghanistan?
These past months of his “deliberation” about whether to send more troops and the right’s attacking his military “indecisiveness” have all been rhetoric and theatre. He knew, the right knew, and I for one knew (and come on, be honest, Obama fans, you knew, too), what his decision would be all along. At least credit him on this point for delivering the change he promised, whether you agree with that change or not: we’re getting out of Iraq and going into Afghanistan. The times they are a’changin’. And a’stayin’ the same. And deep down you knowed they would.
He is also working to stop torture, to close Guantanamo, and has been pushing relentlessly on health care reform, no? Give him a break and don’t burn your Obama t-shirts just yet.