Why Do Liberals Assume Obama's a Good Guy?

When the Obama administration does something liberals don't like, such as continuing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and taking single-payer health care off the table, they say Obama wants to do the right thing, but outside forces are preventing him doing so. You can read a typical example in an article on Counterpunch talking about Obama's mistakes in health care. You can see the subtle assumption of Obama's inherent goodness in the first sentence of the second to last paragraph in the article.

I don’t doubt that President Obama, a decent man, wants to provide universal health care to all citizens of this country.

How does the author of the article know what Obama wants? Obama took over $19 million in campaign contributions from the health industry in 2008. Isn't it possible that Obama is more interested in helping the health industry than providing universal health care? Isn't it possible that Obama's a bad guy (according to liberals) who favors corporate America over the American people?

To liberal Democrats the answer to both of those questions is a resounding No. They voted for Obama. Therefore he wants everything they want. They want universal health care so Obama must want it. They favor people over corporations so Obama does too. To suggest otherwise is spreading hate.

Phony LeBron Controversy

The national sports media is in a frenzy about LeBron James walking straight to the locker room after the Cleveland Cavaliers were eliminated from the playoffs instead of shaking hands and congratulating the Orlando Magic. What poor sportmanship! How dare he do such a thing!. Go to ESPN.com, si.com, nba.com, or Yahoo's NBA section, and you'll read articles criticizing LeBron.

But there's one thing they won't tell you. LeBron did the same thing last season. When the Celtics beat the Cavaliers in Game 7 of the playoffs last year, LeBron walked to the locker room without shaking hands. ABC showed him walking to the locker room. I have a DVD of the game, and I watched it last night to confirm the walk to the locker room. I wish I could get the video on my computer so I could post it, but trust me. He walked to the locker room, and it was shown on national television.

Walking to the locker room last year was just as unsportmanlike as it was this year. Why did no one in the national media care last year, but everyone cares this year? Free time. Last year, Boston eliminated Cleveland in the second round of the playoffs so there were two conference finals to keep the national media busy. This year, Orlando eliminated Cleveland in the conference finals on a Saturday. The Western Conference finals were over so there were four off days until the Finals start on Thursday. The national media couldn't talk about the Finals for four straight days so they needed something else to talk about. Enter LeBron. There were no real NBA stories to cover so the national sports media created one: LeBron didn't congratulate the Magic.

177 Countries

I was watching a college basketball game yesterday. During the game the play-by-play announcer said the game was being shown on the American Forces network for members of the United States military stationed overseas. While mentioning this, the announcer slipped in a piece of disturbing news. The American Forces television network broadcasts in 177 countries.

That means the United States has military personnel in 177 countries. There are 192 countries in the United Nations. You'd think the world would be a freer place with the American military defending freedom in so many places. The reach of the military is terrifying.