It's been only a bit more then a year since I sat at a ballot booth, marking a box next to a name for the first time in my life. It was my first time voting in a election, and I was young and naive. The man I voted for had such a beautifl sounding name. It was Barack Hussein Obama. And I was proud.
As a American I was proud that a person with a name that carried that much baggage could have a chance in my America. As a Hispanic I was proud that a minority could have a chance at being elected. And as a Progressive I was proud that for the first time in more than a decade true progresivism was going to come to our White House.
As I sat that evening watching the results come in, with tears in my eyes as our new President accepted the mandate of the American People, I could not help but feel hopeful for our future.
Little did I know that barely a year later nearly all that hope would be gone.
Despite everything Obama stood for I expected a level of Bipartanship that was reasonable from Obama. And just as I thought soon after the inaugoration reports started to trickle in about how Obama was keeping on Geithner and Bernanke, how he was maintaining the same Security chief as Bush. How he was nominating Republicans to positions in his cabinet. I was a bit happy, see I wanted to play nice with the Republicans, I though they had understood that they really screwed up this nation and needed to change.
I figured out soon I was deeply mistakened.
More and more news came out, our President refused to reverse his stance on the Unconstitutional Bush Executive Priveleges policies. I lied to myself, I told myself this was excusable.
I saw him hand out billions of our money to rich people who had never worked a honest job in their life just as Bush had done. I said that it was essential to save our economy.
I saw him draw up halfhearted stimulus plans that did not spend nearly enought to generate the kind of job growth we needed. I said that even now we needed to keep the deficit in check.
I saw more and more, a failure to shut down Guantanamo and remove the Detainee's being held against their wills. A expansion of Bush's unwinnable war in Afghanistan. A failure to end Don't Ask Don't Tell. The expansion of Bush's unconstitutional government support of religious charities. A continued use of Blackwater. A refusal to stand behind the Public Option in order to block what was essentially another handout to Big Insurance. A deal struck with Big Pharma. A unwillingness to do for the entire Middle Class what he did for Unions.
Through all this I Tried to pretend, I tried to logically come up with a excuse for it all.
But I can't lie anymore, there is no excuse.
Obama now want's to freeze most of our national spending, that means everywhere except where it really needs to be frozen: Overseas.
I can't pretend anymore, I Can't lie to myself.
I wish it weren't true.
I've thought, and hoped, and prayed that I was wrong.
But it looks like I got tricked into voting for a Republican, and in many ways it hurts Obama and the Democrats more than it ever will hurt me.