The Amnesia of the American People

It is a well-known fact that, in politics, six months are an eternity. So it was over two eternities ago that Barack Obama was elected as the savior of the American people. This is hard to believe today, in view of the avalanche of negative opinion polls about a president, for whom some commentators are foreseeing a single term in office, similarly to Jimmy Carter.

Have the American people forgotten that easily the complete debacle of the previous administration and the loss of credibility their country has endured on a global scale? This is a possibility to consider.

It is true that Obama is spending at the speed of light in an interventionist perspective that does not get unanimous approval, particularly from the Republican side, which is inherently opposed to this type of tactic. His health care reform, which deeply divides the electorate, could, despite its obvious relevance but because of its exponential short-term costs, be a liability for him at the mid-term elections. It may very well be a tour-de-force which establishes him unquestionably as a tough and progressive leader, but some taxpayers do not accept that the poorest may receive free medical care that they will have to pay for, in addition to their own medical expenses. The Democrats’ loss of a supermajority in the Senate, after having presented a candidate with no stature to retain the seat vacated by Ted Kennedy, has also proved an inconceivable strategic weakness on their part.

It seems it was such a long time ago when the thug who became president in 2000, thanks to heredity and an election as disputed as it was questionable, was instantly provoking international tension through his arrogance and impaired elocution. Forgotten too, it seems, are Colin Powell’s lies to the U.N., later admitted to as such in veiled terms, about the “irrefutable proofs” that Saddam Hussein disposed of weapons of mass destruction. Gone too is the memory of the head of the U.N. Inspection Commission, Hans Blix, vigorously condemning the outbreak of a “preventive” but illegal war, when the Iraqi authorities were collaborating fully with U.N. inspectors. And it has already faded; the memory of the colossal costs of an unjustified conflict, its civilian and military casualties, and the glaring tactical errors of Donald Rumsfeld.

The American public seems to be unaware of the conflicts of interest of Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld with the big oil companies, and to know nothing of the contracts sold without tender to friends of the party. Did they even hear of the Bush family’s business ties with Enron, the company behind the worst financial scandal in American history, as well as with the bin Laden family, admittedly on bad terms with their bloodthirsty brother? Have the American people forgotten the arbitrariness of the Patriot Act, the wiretapping scandal, the apathetic response to Hurricane Katrina, and the orchestrated leak of the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent married to a senator opposed to the war in Iraq?

And what of the violations of many international treaties on the treatment of prisoners, the disgrace of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the prison ships on which light has never been shed, and the proof that the Bush administration encouraged the use of torture, notably of “waterboarding,” which simulates drowning? What to make of the shameless laxity of the Republicans and its impact on the current global financial crisis?

Despite this accumulation of gross faux-pas and corruption, the Republicans could strike again before long. After all, the good people, so short-sighted, who re-elected Bush in 2004, could well turn out to have a memory short enough to also forget the Democrats in 2012.