Dear Leader's memoir — dreck and more dreck, Vol. 1

This is an expanded version of my Goodreads review, in part because I remembered more of the dreck from his first term that Dear Leader Obama tried to whistle past, half an hour after I posted my review, and I added one item to that, then thought ...

"Shit, might be all sorts of stuff pop up that I forget about, so I'll post this on my blog to publish a couple of weeks down the road, which will give thought plenty of time to percolate."

So, here you go.

A Promised Land by Barack Obama
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I read this so you wouldn’t have to, like Custer died for your sins.

The Obama memoir, from 200-plus pages in? 3-star bland neoliberal dreck. Just like his presidency. Or, so I thought at first.

I eventually decided to drop it yet another star.

First?

Missing from the new Obama memoir:

• Almost all stuff pre-presidential
• Sheila Jager
• Almost nothing about his complicity of sharp elbows in the state Senate run
• Almost nothing about what he actually supported in the state Senate

See David Garrow’s book for more, reviewed by me here. Speculate as to why this isn’t in there.

Obama’s previous memoirs did get us through his state Senate years, but not really his brief span in the U.S. Senate. And, of course, he’s never talked about No. 2, and little about 3-4.

So, what IS in here? (And, what's deliberately omitted from here?)

Chides protestors for Bush “war criminal” signs on Jan. 20, 2009

Shows that he early on had a bromance hard-on for “bipartisanship”

At this point, I decided to check the index, given the man Status Quo Joe decided to invite back to run USDA again, Tom Vilsack.

And? No mention of Shirley Sherrod.

Note: This is the first item that I added to the original review, and then thought ... you know, let's post this to the blog. I will post this, and other additions, in italics.

Remember, this is a man who, BEFORE he got played by Breitbart over Sherrod, later got played by James O'Keefe — via Breitbart, no less — over ACORN. Oh, that also is not mentioned in the book, nor is the fact that our "constitutional law scholar" prez signed into law an unconstitutional bill of attainder against ACORN. [The district court got that right; the Second Circuit, overturning on appeal, got that wrong. More on the background of that case and bills of attainder in the court system in general here.]

From there? The stimulus. Doesn’t talk about compromising away the compromise in advance in public. Doesn’t talk about trying to get the initial numbers higher. Doesn’t talk about problems with HARP.

Anwar al-Awlaki does get one mention, but only as someone who stirred up Fort Hood’s Maj. Nidal Hasan, not as an American citizen Obama had drone-assassinated. The process by which Obama decided to knock him off, and the feedback, and Obama’s feeling about that pushback? Not here.

AS for the US recovering from the Great Recession faster than Western Europe? Neoliberal and left-neolib analysis says it wasn’t the stimulus funds nearly as much as looser US bankrtuptcy laws plus ‘no-recourse” mortgages. This couples with different homeownership rates, especially between the US and continental Europe, and what triggered the recession, in part. (None of this excuses austerity within the EU by Germany, the UK and elsewhere. But it does say that Obama’s “American exceptionalism, stimulus division,” ain’t quite that.)

I will give him a partial pass, per the book, about why he agreed to keep the Bush tax cuts in place during the lame-duck Congress session after the midterms. I'll give him a partial pass for Dems losing the House, but they shouldn't have lost it that badly.

Talks about UN’s “one-sided condemnations of Israel.” Doesn’t even discuss Resolution 242. Doesn’t discuss the Security Council’s one-sided silence toward Palestine.

Talks about “Chinese surveillance capabilities were impressive.” Ignores US ones. That said, and I know this is just Volume 1, before the man became president in 2013, but it’s interesting Xi Jinping is not mentioned.

The Paris Agreement was not a “breakthrough.” It was Jell-O. (We won’t actually get there until Volume 2, of course, but since he talks ahead about it in discussing the Copenhagen climate summit, it needs to be mentioned now.)

Claims Volcker Rule replaced substantive parts of Glass-Steagall.

Claims Holder et al did fine with bank/bankster prosecutions. Ignores no criminal sentences.

Through much of this, ignores pre-inauguration claims that he asked the “left” to push back against him as needed and that he then got bitchy when it happened. The closest he gets to this is talking about Samantha Power’s idealism. Or, "idealism." Speaking of, in discussion of Libya, into which Power kind of provoked him, mentions Christ Stevens. Doesn't mention his grisly demise. [For that matter, Dear Leader doesn't mention the open slave markets that eventually developed in post-Gaddafi Libya.]

Near the end, comes close to accusing Al-Jazeera of fomenting terrorist. Direct quote? “Al Jazeera, the Qatari-controlled media outlet that had become the dominant news source in the region, having built its popularity by fanning the flames of anger and resentment among Arabs with the same algorithmic precision that Fox News deployed so skillfully with conservative white voters in the States.”

I was leaning further and further away from three stars. And, I know that Al Jazeera America isn’t exactly what’s seen in the Gulf world. Nonetheless, this is over the top and was a ratings tipping point.

Oh, speaking of the media? No mention of AG Holder spying on the Associated Press, which started about the time this volume ends. No mention of his war on whistleblowers and the inhumane treatment of Chelsea Manning. This too started before his first term was over.

And, along with not mentioning this, he's not bothering to explain these things away.

It’s still on the 2/3 star border because it does illustrate the one constant good about a memoir vs. a biography, especially when the biography is NOT an “authorized” one. A memoir will show the author-subject’s true beliefs, even when they’re self-delusional or close to it.

At the same time, seeing Dear Leader peddle an autographed deluxe edition for nearly one thousand large confirms the two-star rating. This book isn’t for plebians. But, it confirms where Obama's heart lies — per Garrow, it's wherever Michelle's purse needs some more Benjamins.

Speaking of that, that probably illustrates, indirectly, what the memoir is like. It's about Barack Obama, this guy who just happens to be president. Forrest Barack (and family) anybody?

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