I hate to say I told you so but it's no real surprise that aside from a black man being elected to the white house, there really has been no political or social (or any) change as a result of Barack Obama being elected President.
Of course this is not "Obama the man's" or "Obama the idea's" fault in any way but the product of a dysfunctional and corrupt political system founded and maintained by right-of-centre, free-market, commercial interests.
Once again, the better a president looks at the outset, the more useless he appears to be in office.
What is unusual for Obama's team is how badly the communication has been handled in these mid terms. Comparisons between Ronald Reagan's mid terms in 1983 see a president beaten by the economy and about to have his ass whacked by a discontented electorate.
The difference with Reagan was that whatever happened, no matter how indicative of stupid America, Ronnie the actor maintained his starring role and always put not only a brave but also a positive face on his image. He realised that Americans in general always look for style and never really engage with substance. I'm not talking about the vast number of smart people from across the pond who read this blog, of course.
The mistake Obama has made can be described as "the rhetoric of frustration." As we saw on John Stewart's show the other day, Obama appears to be pissy and moany about his lack of recognition by the American people. He thinks he's done a good job in certain respects and wants recognition. His fault is that he keeps letting people know about his hurt, personal feelings; something Reagan never did.
Reviewing the news channels today gives us the usual banal comments with their customary expression of vested media-owner interests.
Murdoch's Sky, as expected is over playing Republican victory, a point of view that it's predominant white-van-man viewership probably can't understand.
BBC presenters are giving their usual top-end of the public sector, "monkey-islander" viewpoint, making sure they cover as little relevant information as possible, preferring to gloss over any of the why's and wherefore's and keeping it all down to single syllables.
What is disturbing for the President is that his usual supporters at CNN have jumped ship today, declaring that "change is over."
What there seems to be no debate about is that Sarah Palin is stupid and ridiculous. We didn't need a mid term election to tell us that now, did we?
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