Off His Meds: Ted Rall Calls for Obama's Resignation

We haven't mentioned this crank for over a year, ever since the time he called for the death penalty for George W. Bush. Showing that his looniness crosses party lines, crackpot Ted Rall opines in a column that Barack Obama should resign from the presidency.

We expected broken promises. But the gap between the soaring expectations that accompanied Barack Obama’s inauguration and his wretched performance is the broadest such chasm in recent historical memory. This guy makes Bill Clinton look like a paragon of integrity and follow-through.

From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn’t have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

Obama is useless. Worse than that, he’s dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now — before he drags us further into the abyss.

I refer here to Obama’s plan for “preventive detentions.” If a cop or other government official thinks you might want to commit a crime someday, you could be held in “prolonged detention.” Reports in U.S. state-controlled media imply that Obama’s shocking new policy would only apply to Islamic terrorists (or, in this case, wannabe Islamic terrorists, and also kinda-sorta-maybe-thinking-about-terrorism dudes). As if that made it OK.

In practice, Obama wants to let government goons snatch you, me and anyone else they deem annoying off the street.

Preventive detention is the classic defining characteristic of a military dictatorship. Because dictatorial regimes rely on fear rather than consensus, their priority is self-preservation rather than improving their people’s lives. They worry obsessively over the one thing they can’t control, what George Orwell called “thoughtcrime” — contempt for rulers that might someday translate to direct action.

Can you imagine the derision and howls of outrage that would ensue if, say, a Rush Limbaugh uttered these comments? OK, Rall is a virtual nonentity and nobody will probably notice this outside some blogs, but is he so nuts to think people are just going to be randomly snatched off the street? This is beyond fever-swamp nonsense. It's lunacy.

What Rall and the infantile left never seem to grasp is politicians make lofty promises to lure voters during campaigns and routinely renege on them once in office. It's called politics.

Any casual observer of this site knows we have little use for Obama or his policies, but let's get serious. He's been in office for four months and I don't recall seeing any serious commentator suggesting, let alone calling for him to resign. What, is Rall a closet Joe Biden fan?

If the people are disenchanted with Obama, they can send a message in the 2010 midterms and in the 2012 presidential election. Until then, Rall and any other crackpots, be they on the left or right, need to be more rational in their thoughts and not lose their minds in public.

H/T: OTB.

Linked at Hot Air. Thanks!